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tneva82 wrote:
Many snipers have ability to deploy outside their own deployment zone.

Scouts and eliminators can be outside 9", AM is outside 18" of your deployment zone (though I actually have to see ratlings on the battlefield), tau have 48" range but must deploy normally, necrons and eldar have to deploy in their deployment zone or deep strike and chaos in general usually uses psy powers which max out at 24". The big outlighers are character sniping warlord traits, Illic and the Vindicare, but those usually waste more points and CP on the SSAG that you paid for it.
Did I miss any?

So, for scouts and ratlings I agree, those might be in ruins somewhere midfield to pick off the SSAG mek, though scouts don't necessarily come with snipers. Eliminators tend not to be, because they are night impossible to shift through ork shooting, and putting them within 12" of your deployment zone is pretty much throwing them away just to get the SSAG. My marine opponents prefer having them sit in a protected spot and just have them shoot all game.
All other armies though? You can safely deploy on a ruin/pillar/silo/rock in the back of your deployment zone and get a good sight of most of the board, and even if there is one unit of snipers in range - the big mek has a grot oiler and 4+ (+cover), so a single unit of snipers will rarely drop him in one round of shooting.
I, for one, usually welcome units that are deployed close to my deployment zone, as I can use them as slingshot to get full mobs of boyz into midfield.

Unless ork player has designed terrain there's not unlimited # of places you can deploy without LOS becoming issue sooner than 36" range so he can position himself into suitable spot. So either you then hit into issue with LOS and opponent can avoid SSAG fire by LOS or you are within range of sniper.

You don't need that many targets anyways - I expect to get three rounds of shooting out of the SSAG maximum, so if there are two hard targets in sight, that's already a good position - after, all a single kill is enough to justify your investment. Planes, knights and primarchs tend to be in sight no matter where they are, so those always make good targets. If you are unluky enough to face invictor suits - those are great targets for the SSAG as well.
When playing with alternating deployment, you can just hold back the SSAG until there is a valuable target dedicated to one side and deploy accordingly. You can also bait them by deploying gretchin as potential grot shield but then setting up elsewhere.
When using CA2018 missions and you're going first, just put your lootas/two SAGs/mek guns on one side and the SSAG on the other.

I don't recall when I had more trouble with range than LOS with 36" weapon. It's the 24" on infantry model that has range issues.

36" sucks when your unit is immobile, which most snipers are. My entropy cannon PBC can tell you a story about that.
In general, 36" means that they can't reach units that aren't deployed directly across the table from them without moving.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

addnid wrote:
Vindicare assassin has 72' range,

A vindicare still needs to shoot three times in order to kill a big mek with grot oiler.

primaris marine snipers can ignore LOS so with the current ETC table models, they will reach your SSAG (don't know their exact range though).

36", so you can just outrange them - I've done that multiple times since shadowspear dropped, so I'm wondering what exactly the problem is.
For ITC, I guess those can sit in magic boxes right in front of your deployment zone and fire away at whatever they feel like, but I don't have any experience with that game-warping nonsense.

I guess we see less of that Vindi muvafokar now that "optimised Imperium" means marines, and marines need to be "pure" to really be OP

Imperial soup with Knights, AM, AdMech and Custodes will not disappear, and those can still bring assassins.

3 times but if opponent keeps valuable targets out of los...how bare table you play? Here single knight can be protected. 8th requires good los blocking.

And you can't generally put ssag in tall spot at your corner anyway...unless you designed terrain

I generally avoid trying to set the terrain up because of the SSAG and yet my opponents seem to always put a high perch in 2 opposite corners.
Its kinda amusing to see their face when i plop the SSAG there....when they know i have it 90% of the time lol
He's only died once for me and i attribute that to my opponents just not thinking about dealing with it. That time he died? something chaff cleared my grots first and then a jumppack assault marine squad DS'd in and charged, to which i still killed 3 on overwatch lol

I always try to set up terrain so both sides will usually get a bit of cover and a lofty perch - it's nicer for people to be able to use their army how they wanted to. I hate when you see tables with ruins on one side and rocks on the other - oh good, you get cover whilst I have to move around rocks, seems fair...

tneva82 wrote:
3 times but if opponent keeps valuable targets out of los...how bare table you play? Here single knight can be protected. 8th requires good los blocking.

And you can't generally put ssag in tall spot at your corner anyway...unless you designed terrain

Our tables tend to have 40-50% terrain coverage (unless it has natural LOS blocking due to different levels) - if you can't find an elevated spot for two bases somewhere within 6" of your table edge, I'd rather wonder how little terrain your tables seem to have.
The table is usually set up by the players playing on another table, and CA2018 allow you to pick your deployment type and zone, unless you are counter-deploying anyways.

Terrain tall enough to hide a knight should be the exception, not the norm. We have a couple of very tall LOS blocking terrain pieces that go in the middle (we have enough terrain for 100% coverage on three tables), but none of those can hide Mortarion, Dakkajet or a Morkanaut from more than one unit in elevated positions - those piece of terrain would have to be at least 7" wide and 12" tall, with no windows whatsoever.

Yeah knight-blocking terrain should be a center-piece only if it exists at all.
If your battlefield has relatively thin pathways between terrain that tall youre gonna have problems.

Bit of a fun story from a game on the weekend.

Playing my mate's knights, he goes first kills pretty much all my mek guns, all my lootas all the stuff obvious anti-tank stuff.

I'm like oh lawd panic mode, POWER UP relic shokk mek. There is a valiant infront of my lines it needs to die.

I'm hitting up re-roll to wound strat for death skulls
I'm hitting up more dakka
I'm re-rolling a to hit with a cp

I do 5 wounds! ugh
I'm hitting up fire again!
- we're on 7CP spent here.

We get some shots in, he saves loads (4++ ofc and he cp's one) but 3 get through!
3 D6 juicy wounds (with a re-roll of one of them), i'v gotta at least half kill him with his roll.

Pick up the dice
roll

triple 1

thats pretty much the sole reason Deathskullz is generally better than Badmoonz for shooting unless immense levels of dakka are involved in 1 units worth of shooting (shootaboyz, lootas)
Deathskullz can reroll the damage roll. One of those 1s could have become a 6 after a reroll. Still sucks but way better.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Yeah knight-blocking terrain should be a center-piece only if it exists at all.
If your battlefield has relatively thin pathways between terrain that tall youre gonna have problems.

I suppose that depends do you want gunline games with shoot 'em"up mentality or not. We here prefer less static gunline games

I only used DS ifor the first time in my last game for the msu stuff like koptas and stuff it might as well go on like slugga boyz.

To be honest i think i might just go full DS, that 6 up inv actually pays off in combat and the re-rolls were a god send send for nobs in combat.

Only had 60 shoota boyz and the lootas as badmoon... might just rock them as DS too. Esp when you can use those re-rolls on a cheeky tank busta bomb.
Thinking of running a few more kopta units, 20" cheekcy obsec might be fun

DS obs sec is only for infantry myman.

Koptas are a vehicle this edition. Why i have no idea, but they are a vehicle.
And that everybody gets ObSec rule is infantry only. So only foot HQs, Nobz, MANz, Gitz, Lootas, Tankbustas, Burnas, and Stormboyz get it.
Which on one hand is quite a lot of stuff, but then you realize the vast majority of it has no staying power anyway.

The best ones to use it for are the MANz, but it'd be nice if they had the killing power to go along with their durability against infantry.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Oh yeah if they went back to 25pts and removed the -1 to hit i think they'd be fine. Maybe have killsaws to 2D3 damage for 4pts more? Killaklaw would probably want flat6 damage then and can you imagine the outrcry of our boss suddenly doing potentially 36 damage if all 6 attacks land/wound? (counting Fists of Gork here) would be hilarious as well as concerning.

At 25pts you arent really gonna spam them either. Squad of nobz would be a freakin' fortune to try and abuse that with lol and like you said boyz in a trukk wouldnt be that dangerous either, though it would make them more viable than they are.

Currently PKs are D3 damage and -1 to hit and cost 13pts On a nob with 3 attacks its 1.5 hits, against most vehicles its 3+ to wound so 1 wound and -3AP the chances are its going through. So 2 damage on average, if you want to be really really picky it works out to like 1.67 if you factor in the 1 in 6 chance to save it.

At 25pts without the -1 to hit its 2 hits, 1.66 wounds and with the 1/6 chance to save it works out to 1.38ish wounds going through, at D6 damage its 4.8 damage.

So just shy of twice the cost for just shy of 3x the damage. I mean...its better, but honestly still not worth it. At 25pts your nob now costs you 32pts. You are now in Terminator/Meganob territory. At most I would pay 18pts for this upgrade since the 13pt PK is just never used.

tneva82 wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Yeah knight-blocking terrain should be a center-piece only if it exists at all.
If your battlefield has relatively thin pathways between terrain that tall youre gonna have problems.

I suppose that depends do you want gunline games with shoot 'em"up mentality or not. We here prefer less static gunline games

Any terrain taller than a LRBT is plenty to massively limit gunlines - just not against planes, knights or daemon primarchs.
Having massive amounts of terrain that can block those is not normal by any means and invalidates any advantages of heightened positions.


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 flandarz wrote:
The best ones to use it for are the MANz, but it'd be nice if they had the killing power to go along with their durability against infantry.

Actually, I frequently have it coming up for characters. Against forward objectives, Grotznik has more than once secured an objective held long-range units like devs or tanks, and when a single objective is worth lots of VP (Maelstrom or certain CA missions), it also makes sense to send a Weirdboy or KFF mek onto one to defend it from fast units jumping onto it.
When your lootas start dying, you can also start hiding the last few and have them guard objectives.

In general, I enjoy playing with deffskulls very much, as it feels like they "work" for pretty much every unit - unlike most other clans which only benefit certain types of units.


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You aren't paying 32 for a nob tough, you a re paying 109 for trukkboyz which can now actually hurt and kill vehicles when used in pairs, which could safely be ignored previously.

Of course, 25 might be too much, but keep in mind that Warbosses can also take that PK.

Deffskullz DOES seem like our best "all around" Kultur. And I can see how obsec would be good for characters, but I still feel like it truly shines when used on MANz, since they have more durability. Even a single MAN has more survivability than a KFF Mek against everything but Anti-Armor.

MANz tend to krump things on objectives dead though. It usually only matters if you are charging troops and some survive (nurglings or intercessors like to do that).

It's a niche ability, just like the 6++, but it's awesome when it does something.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tom Higginbottom places third with the proven mix of evil suns boyz, 15 smashas, tank bustas, SSAG and some KFF meks.
We should keep an eye on that guy, he seems to be doing well with orks quite regularly.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/dl13uh/pandas_weekend_rundown_10191020/

Weirdly enough, no lootas. That's interesting.

I'm going to a GT this weekend with Steven's list... Let's see what happens...

Not too weird. Orks have been picking lootas, tank bustas or flash gits for some time now. The important part is having some unit to turn your CP into damage, any of the three can do that.

In the test game I run I'm using flashgitz, tankabusta and 30 bad moons shootas.
It feels really flexible as the mek gunz can eat Marines pretty well, the SSAG is a scarecrow and the real footwork is made by shootas or tankabusta. I'm yet to make those Flashgitz shine, but yeah, they are a nuisance if you manage to proc that +1 and stay stationary.
Also 115 grots looks terrific on the board.
I think I'll write some sort of protocol on what to focus vs the worst matchups. Problem is I don't know which is a bad matchup aside 4 zombie knights and the new Marines

i still need to come up with a list for flash gitz so i have an excuse to use them.
I have 10 of them and never once used them lol

Issue with FGs is that you kinda hafta go "all in" with them, or they'll always seem lackluster. And making them the focus of your list means you can't really bring anything else that relies on Grot Shield for protection, since they're too expensive to leave out in the open. Their mediocre range and Heavy weapons can also be an issue.

 flandarz wrote:
Issue with FGs is that you kinda hafta go "all in" with them, or they'll always seem lackluster. And making them the focus of your list means you can't really bring anything else that relies on Grot Shield for protection, since they're too expensive to leave out in the open. Their mediocre range and Heavy weapons can also be an issue.

My big issue with the Gitz is the stupid pirate hats.

Well, I mean they ARE Space Pirates. And if you're gonna be a Space Pirate, you might as well look the part.

I think flashgitz are overpriced mainly due to them having a gun that is heavy. If it was assault 3 rather than heavy 3, they would be worth their points, as they would be able to start in your deployment zone then move into range without penalty, or telyport in without suffering a to hit penalty.

I think you can still use them but only in a list that forces the opponent to come to you.

Also, with the effect iron hands is having on the meta, along with a few other marine builds, (the doctrine that treats ap1 as ap 0) means that I can see players shifting away from ap1 d2 lootas to units that have more ap, and/or damage.

 JimOnMars wrote:

 flandarz wrote:
Issue with FGs is that you kinda hafta go "all in" with them, or they'll always seem lackluster. And making them the focus of your list means you can't really bring anything else that relies on Grot Shield for protection, since they're too expensive to leave out in the open. Their mediocre range and Heavy weapons can also be an issue.

My big issue with the Gitz is the stupid pirate hats.

Flash gits are 100% compatible with the nobz box - head swaps should be by far the easiest thing to do.

Umm, pretty sure my codex says Zog Off! Dis is ours! is only for TROOPS. Am I mistaken or has this been FAQ'd or whatever?

It is. But the Deathskullz Kultur gives it to any INFANTRY unit. Which is what everyone was talking about.

 flandarz wrote:
It is. But the Deathskullz Kultur gives it to any INFANTRY unit. Which is what everyone was talking about.

I am confuse, I thougt Zog off was specifically a DS thing, namely that other klans didn't even get that... Need to re-read my codex it seems.

You do. All Ork Troops get Zog-Off. You'll find it right above the Kulturz.