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How do?

First. I’d like to explain this is not an attempt at Trolling or otherwise causing trouble. This is a genuine thread to inform me, the uninformed.

See, I don’t get much time to game these days, so I’m well behind on the curve. That’s lead to common terms meeting nought but a blank stare of incomprehension from Yours Truly.

So I thought I’d reach out in search of enlightenment when it comes to the combos that people feel are ruining their games. To kick off, here’s a couple of terms I’ve heard a few times, but don’t really know what they refer to.

1. Smash Captain.

So far as I know, it’s a Jump Pack Equipped, possibly specifically Blood Angels Captain. With at least a Thunder Hammer. And it depends (almost entirely?) on CPs from donor Detachments. Such as..

2. The Loyal 32.

I think this is reference to a bare bones IG CP farm Detachment? There solely to provide the Spinach to other units.

So as you can see, I’ve got some kind of rudimentary grasp, but no more.

I’d also like to learn more about another nasty combos that annoy you, and of course, the why.

Right, off you go

Loyal 32 comprises of 3 infantry squads and two company commanders, forming one of the cheapest battalions in the game at 180 points for +5cp. Additionally, you can take the Kurov's Aquilla relic (gain 1cp on a 5+, every time the enemy uses a stratagem) and/or the grand strategist warlord trait (on a 5+, regain a used command point). This basically makes them a really cheap way to get some screening units and lots of CP in any Imperial force. They were nerfed with the beta rule "tactical restraint", so that you can only gain 1 cp per battle round, although the Loyal 32 is still a good pick.

Supreme Command Detachment with 3 Custodes Shield-Captains on Dawneagle jetbikes.

A proper Smash Captain (Slamguinious) is:

Jump Pack Captain
-Angel's Wing Blood Angel relic (ignore overwatch, reroll charges)
-thunder hammer
-stormshield
-probably the Artisan of War warlord trait (to make his thammer damage: 4) a case could be made for others, but I think this is the best one
-Death Visions of Sanguinious (-1 CP, gives "Black Rage" Keyword, +1 attack and 6+++
-Red Rampage stratagem (-1 CP, gives d3 attacks in the fight phase). Use as needed


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I would add that a Knight Gallant with Landstrider and "Full Tilt" is pretty nasty/potent combo

12" move + d6+2" advance + 2d6+2" charge = across the board in combat turn 1

beast_gts wrote:
Supreme Command Detachment with 3 Custodes Shield-Captains on Dawneagle jetbikes.

Also looking for the why

Brain needs to be filled with glorious hobby knowledge!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

beast_gts wrote:
Supreme Command Detachment with 3 Custodes Shield-Captains on Dawneagle jetbikes.

Also looking for the why

Brain needs to be filled with glorious hobby knowledge!

Because they're just.../Good/. The Custodes Shield-Captains on Jetbikes are just one of the best bang for your buck units in the entire game as far as mobility, damage and cost go together. There's nothing fancy going on here, they are just way too solid for their price.

Farseer + Harlie Bikes.

Casting Doom on a big target rerolls all failed wounds.
Harlie Bikes with Blasters wound big (T8+) targets on 6s, it nearly doubles the number of 6s they get.

Why this matters is that, in addition to the wound, they also do 1 MW on a 4 or 5, or d3 MW on a 6. So you wind up with a ton of MWs on the big targets (along with a handful of AP-1 wounds).

Why *that* matters, is because IK + IoM soup is really good right now. So you're very frequently trying to take down a single large IK. And it's got really high T, and frequently a really good invuln save. So Harlie Bikers + Doom is one of the few ways to reasonably deal with it.

-------
Ynnari Deathstars
CWE do Deathstars well because, instead of the auras most factions rely upon, CWE buffs tend to be powers or stratagems that affect one unit. So, to maximize the benefit you get out of those powers/stratagems, you want to put as much as you can into one unit. This was typically 10-man Reapers, until they were nerfed last spring. Now it's 9-man Spears. Not a cheap unit. Debateably too good as-is for it's points (over 300). Certainly too good buffed up.

Where Ynnari factor in is the "move twice", "shoot twice", or "fight twice" powers. They're activated in a different manner than related stratagems, but similar in concept. So you want one big unit to get the most out of them. Since CWE wants to run one big unit anyways, you can double dip and basically act twice with the deathstar you already took and buffed to crazy levels.

To make it even sicker, you can choose to only include a couple of the units in the Ynnari detatchement, so most of your stuff still get Faction Traits.

Functionally, the game is very rewarding right now to people who can find ways to tie in: several Stratagem Sets, to the highest amount of CP, to effective units.

Effective units being Fast moving, Hard hitting, and resilient.

Right now Eldar do this well with Ynarri, as they can use Psychic powers to make stuff his very hard, then soul burst to let them move again.

Imperium can do the same with a small guard detachment providing plentiful CP, and A Knight and a small Marine detachment providing effective units to spend that CP on.

Eldar death stars. They can stack 2-3 Psychic Powers and lighning reflexes and alaitoc on something allready tough like wraithblades or jetbikes. Try killing such a unit. it's near impossible

Admech have the cheapest battalion now. Another problem unit is the Castelan combined with Custard Jetbikes.

The Knight-Castellan with the warlord trait giving +1 to the Invulnerable save, stack with Rotate Ion Shields for a 3++ on your Knight, then with the fight at top profile stratagem damage doesn't make it worse at attacking, you can stack AdMech abilities to repair four hit points a turn, and if the enemy ever somehow kills it there's a stratagem that requires them to kill it again in the next phase because otherwise it's still alive and just gets to keep attacking.

(It's a massive CP-sink but it's also a good reason to concede the game during deployment because what follows is going to be a long, long slog through an endless series of "I attack! (rolls) It does nothing." going down towards your defeat with all the entertainment value of a game of Monopoly.)

Honorable mention to the Psychic Barrier/Take Cover combo out of the Guard book; combine them with cover on a Bullgryn unit and even after the Invul nerf you have a T5 unit that has a 2+ armour save against lascannons that you can't deliver enough volume to to actually kill, ever. (Before someone says "well, just avoid them, then?" the number of scenarios in the game that can be reasonably summed up as "king of the hill" (hold one or two crucial objectives) is non-trivial, round-by-round scoring nails your feet to the floor, and unless you're playing some flavour of Eldar it's entirely likely you can't actually outrun them.)

 AnomanderRake wrote:
...T5 unit that has a 2+ armour save against lascannons...

I am surprised to learn this, I was going to point out that most of those things don't boost invulnerable saves. However, whilst sourcing my argument I realised you were talking about massively boosted armour saves! That is quite an evil little trick.

I'm with Bharring regarding Doom + any bonus effect for good wound rolls, Clown bikes are the current FoTM, but even if they get nerfed or the meta shifts the next best unit gets drafted

Maybe change it to re-roll 1's cutting down on fishing for 6's

The 15+10 bad moons lootas combo can be impossible to defeat for several armies. 25 lootas that shoot twice, generating additional shots on 5s, hitting on 5s no matter of the penalties, and re-rolling ones. It's an average of more than 50 autocannon hits in a single turn with less than half the army in terms of points invested. Shielded by gretchins in the opponent's turn, sometimes also with a 5++.

They'll laugh at all the -1 or -2 to hit that harlequins (or other elves) have and shoot with a weapon which is actually very efficient against T4/T5 4++, but also good against proper tanks, monsters, flyers, elites etc...

It's certainly an expensive combo also CPs thirsty but orks can build very effective lists around it.

Dukhari without Agents of Vect auto lose against that speficic ork tactics.

 Blackie wrote:
The 15+10 bad moons lootas combo can be impossible to defeat for several armies. 25 lootas that shoot twice, generating additional shots on 5s, hitting on 5s no matter of the penalties, and re-rolling ones. It's an average of more than 50 autocannon hits in a single turn with less than half the army in terms of points invested. Shielded by gretchins in the opponent's turn, sometimes also with a 5++.

54 hts to be be precise. If you plan to use CP to reroll 57.

Then again that's then eating 2+2+1+1(?)=5-6 CP turn. With tellyports etc even 18 CP goes up in 2 turns(been there done that).

Also there's plenty of armies that hard counter that pretty well. Wave serpent heavy armies just laugh at that(been there done that). Dark eldars are automatic delete that unit and then orks are screwed. If you have good long range AP fire you can thin them down well enough by sheer numbers and that unit loses efficiency fast as numbers go. Flyers are also something to keep in mind with them. Say you have like this:

GGGGG
..LLLL..
GGGGG

G=gretchin, L=loota.

Drive flyer into back, then shoot at the gretchins at the REAR(don't shoot lootas. Shoot gretchin). If you clear that the gretchins at front are useless as flyer is behind.

They are also heavy non-direct LOS which means they often have to da jump around to get LOS(you don't play on planet bowling ball right?) which makes harder to have grot screens around unless he's got like 4x30 bad moon grots(remember non-bad moon grots are worthless).

Anything super fast chargers can make mess. Move up ahead, shoot at the grots at front, charge 2nd layer, pile into lootas. HAve them in h2h. Been subjected to this one. Many ork players have 10 big units which are actually super weak screens especially vs h2h units.

Unit is good but won't be meta changer. Too many armies that don't mind too much about those. Aeldar soup is super common and those simply automatically delete the unit.

so what is the best pure faction with no soup out there.

Yes Capt Smashguinius is good....but does he have any challengers?

Custodes flying hippos
The charging knight
The ork firing squad.

So who do you pick in a pure faction army that scares you?

"Bash Bros":
Refers to taking both Mortarion and Magnus together in a single force. Magnus has very powerful psychic abilities, and will often take Warp Time, which he can cast on a 4+ (+2 to cast to meet the WC6), while rerolling rolls of 1 for doing so. This almost guarantees getting the power off, and Mortarion will get to move a second time, allowing Mortarion to move 24" before declaring charges, resulting in a massive threat range for a unit that is an unholy blender. If they get the first turn, and you haven't deployed against it properly, you will lose one or even two of your biggest and most important units.

After that, you merely have to deal with two Primarchs...

CP have ruined 40k. The sooner they abandon the CPEE the better.

Thank you for that valuable contribution to the thread.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Thank you for that valuable contribution to the thread.

You’re welcome.

CP has ruined 40k. Just look at the posts in this thread to see how. There is no fix.

Pancakey wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Thank you for that valuable contribution to the thread.

You’re welcome.

CP has ruined 40k. Just look at the posts in this thread to see how. There is no fix.

Ehhhh... There are big issues it's created, but on balance I really like it. The pros outweigh the cons for me, without a doubt.

I can see how for some people it may have ruined it though.

Problems with CP is big one though. It leads to front loaded games exaggerating the issue that turns 3+ are basically mobbing up. They are also unscalable resulting in vast difference in power depending on are games 1k, 2k, 3k or 4k.

And encourage heavily souping and are clearly not balanced between factions.

It’s not this topic though.

 Stux wrote:


Ehhhh... There are big issues it's created, but on balance I really like it. The pros outweigh the cons for me, without a doubt.

I can see how for some people it may have ruined it though.

If your army ends up with good stratagems they are bad, if they are bad they seem bad for the game.


IMO the most broken thing in game right now is soul burst +anything. The power increase it gives to units like dark reapers or s spears is huge.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It’s not this topic though.

You asked "the problem combos". They only really exist because of Command Points.

Probably giant Cultist blobs buffed up by spells and strats (Prescience, VoTLW, Endless, whatever).

Spells/Strats need to scale to the unit size or unit size needs to be fixed, IMO.

The exact same buffs on a 40 man unit should be 4-times more expensive and 4-times harder to pull off than on a 10 man unit.

tneva82 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
The 15+10 bad moons lootas combo can be impossible to defeat for several armies. 25 lootas that shoot twice, generating additional shots on 5s, hitting on 5s no matter of the penalties, and re-rolling ones. It's an average of more than 50 autocannon hits in a single turn with less than half the army in terms of points invested. Shielded by gretchins in the opponent's turn, sometimes also with a 5++.

54 hts to be be precise. If you plan to use CP to reroll 57.

Then again that's then eating 2+2+1+1(?)=5-6 CP turn. With tellyports etc even 18 CP goes up in 2 turns(been there done that).

Also there's plenty of armies that hard counter that pretty well. Wave serpent heavy armies just laugh at that(been there done that). Dark eldars are automatic delete that unit and then orks are screwed. If you have good long range AP fire you can thin them down well enough by sheer numbers and that unit loses efficiency fast as numbers go. Flyers are also something to keep in mind with them. Say you have like this:

GGGGG
..LLLL..
GGGGG

G=gretchin, L=loota.

Drive flyer into back, then shoot at the gretchins at the REAR(don't shoot lootas. Shoot gretchin). If you clear that the gretchins at front are useless as flyer is behind.

They are also heavy non-direct LOS which means they often have to da jump around to get LOS(you don't play on planet bowling ball right?) which makes harder to have grot screens around unless he's got like 4x30 bad moon grots(remember non-bad moon grots are worthless).

Anything super fast chargers can make mess. Move up ahead, shoot at the grots at front, charge 2nd layer, pile into lootas. HAve them in h2h. Been subjected to this one. Many ork players have 10 big units which are actually super weak screens especially vs h2h units.

Unit is good but won't be meta changer. Too many armies that don't mind too much about those. Aeldar soup is super common and those simply automatically delete the unit.

I agree, but it's a combo that can end the game in turn 1 if the opponent can't answer to that, that's why I listed it. Even against some competitive lists.

Now I abandoned that combo, because I hate deathstars and I have another style of playing, based on vehicles, but I used to put one of the 3-4 mobz of 30 boyz between the lootas and the gretchins. They let the gretchins be positioned further, which is vital for activating grot shields but they also filled up the space for flying assault oriented units because they were still 30 boyz under a KFF bubble with 60 gretchins spread out in front of them. They also provided LD to the lootas.

tneva82 wrote:
Problems with CP is big one though. It leads to front loaded games exaggerating the issue that turns 3+ are basically mobbing up. They are also unscalable resulting in vast difference in power depending on are games 1k, 2k, 3k or 4k.

And encourage heavily souping and are clearly not balanced between factions.

Seems like one of the issues with CP is how much your army generates and can use is a large part of list design.

My top candidate for problematic combos is the Endless Cacophony stratagem that makes Slaanesh CSM Infantry shoot their weapons again.

Obliterators were really good with it and until CA, it made Cultists the plague they were.

And most imporantly, it's one of the reasons why CSM can't have nice things. Any unit that is good without it would be OP with it.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It’s not this topic though.

You asked "the problem combos". They only really exist because of Command Points.

As much as it pains me to back up Kan, I've gotta agree. CPs are kinda integral to why a lot of these problem combos exist and are thus part of the topic.