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- A lot of players wrote in this topic: "You need 'Cult of the four armed emperor' because you need +1 charge". I would always pick rusted claw because the +1 save is just too good. A smart opponent knows how to bubble wrap his army and the broodsurge acolyte combo cannot assault all the juicy stuff and need to take a hit at some time.
Then you want to charge the bubble wrap - or if that seems like a bad idea, just don't attempt it that turn. Whatever the case, you need to be able to have some sort of consistency with charging out of DS. 60 Acolytes deploying within 9" of your opponents entire force, with no bonus to charge, is just basically throwing away points, +1 to save isn't changing that. Plus haven't you invested mortars into like 7 different squads to help deal with the screens? This does not seem like a wise call at all.
Against most armies I cannot afford to wait but if that's possible then I would. I would start shooting with mortars, possibly summon shooty units and even bring in the hand flamers with lying in wait second turn to make sure that the enemy got almost no decent cheap screen left turn 3. Then I would drop. But no enemy player is going to line up all his juicy units even without cheap screens. With perfect ambush it's not that hard to get something in close combat and with 3/4 units with + 1 charge, reroll charge and one reroll d6 I get at least another unit in close combat. Most times that's all you need because having more units in close combat with the same enemy unit is overkill. But next turn you need to take that incoming fire.
Ordana wrote:Its about consistency yeah.
an 8" re-rolling charge is ~66% chance
a 7" re-rolling charge is ~82% chance
Failing charges costs you games, and in those situations a 4+ instead of a 5+ is, imo, unlikely to save you.
You indeed often can't hit the juicy stuff turn 2 but that's why most list use 2 punches.
Turn 2 some stuff comes down to charge and clear screens.
T3 the rest comes to use the space created the previous turn.
Don't forget the single reroll d6.
Normally I would agree, but I played a few games and I almost always run into the situation that having more units in close combat with the same enemy unit at the front, doesn't help. For example; first turn I remove eldaeri rangers bubble wrap with mortars but then next turn he put's two wave serpents in the front to push back my deep strike zone. My rock saw unit with perfect ambush in combination with psychic powers and at least one brood surge acolyte unit could remove them easily. But there is no way to reach the scatter laser bikes behind them. I need to make that acolyte blob as tough as possible and to make sure that the flank where I drop is mine. If I drop turn 2 then I would almost always keep one unit in reserve for next turn perfect ambush.
If you can't afford to wait a turn that's even more reason why you need consistent charges. Get them into combat with SOMETHING, it doesn't have to be a big target.
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
I think shogun has a point, but many players are not experts at bubblewrapping or simply do not have a list which efficiently bubblewrap.
It is why nothing can currently replace triple vulture for clearing enemy zone for that sweet turn 2 charge.
Massive numbers of rusted claw acolytes/neophytes/aberrants (for the abs, especially if their toughness gets buffed by biophagus) has much more staying power than you'd expect.
The problem with that is if you want rock saws on acolytes, or lasers with neophytes. Then the cost of the unit is too high when compared to its staying power.
In any case, agressors or such will make short work out of them, so you need to adapt to you opponent's army, unless like me you are prepping for a team tournament and (hopefully) won't be matched against armies (and on the wrong tables with the wrong terrain) with agressors standing on the top level of a ruin
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/04/17 09:27:04
Ere we go ere we go ere we go
Corona Givin’ Umies Da good ol Krulpin they deserve huh huh
He's right about players screening. He's wrong about the answer.
Good players will screen well. The answer to that isn't "ah well, screw it, may as well deepstrike my glass cannons in and go for the charge the turn after", as even with +1 to save they are just going to get chewed UP. The answer is clearing out the screens and charging straight out of deepstrike on the same turn, or taking units that will happily charge into screens and trade out for board presence.
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
addnid wrote:I think shogun has a point, but many players are not experts at bubblewrapping or simply do not have a list which efficiently bubblewrap.
I tend to play at tournaments against decent players. If the know what to expect from my army then the know how to keep my army away from their juicy units. You don't need cheap bubblewrap for that. I played a Aeldari army that used his wave serpents to block my assault. Yes, he sacrificed 2 wave serpents but still won because he knew that the next turn he would shoot the crap out of me.
addnid wrote:In any case, agressors or such will make short work out of them, so you need to adapt to you opponent's army, unless like me you are prepping for a team tournament and (hopefully) won't be matched against armies (and on the wrong tables with the wrong terrain) with agressors standing on the top level of a ruin
Not really worried about agressors. Never seen a competitive army with agressors for good reason.
SHUPPET wrote:He's right about players screening. He's wrong about the answer.
Good players will screen well. The answer to that isn't "ah well, screw it, may as well deepstrike my glass cannons in and go for the charge the turn after", as even with +1 to save they are just going to get chewed UP. The answer is clearing out the screens and charging straight out of deepstrike on the same turn, or taking units that will happily charge into screens and trade out for board presence.
It's not that I won't charge the screen with everything I got OR try to take it down as much as I can. The point is that any smart opponent can keep my acolytes away with bubble wrap and then it doesn't matter how many units get in close combat with that screen. I could bring in 20 neophytes with heavy stubbers and webbers using perfect ambush to try to remove 10 astra M infantry bubble wrap, but even that is not a solid guaranty. If 3 guardsmen survive then I can still not deep strike close enough to reach the units behind.
Example:
I played against the 3 knight + 3 custodes jetbike captains + astra M battalion with platoon commander + primaris psyker and 3 infantry units.
The get first turn. Moving mid-field and shooting a bit at my brood brother units. I get first turn and put my 3 heavy units (blieps) into reserves. My mortars kill one infantry unit.
Enemy player second turn moves mid field and castle-up. Two Infantry squads use move move move to get in position and one gets the psychic barrier upgrade (psychic power) and the other gets the stratagem upgrade (go to ground or something...?).
Infantry squads make a nice cirkel around, one close combat knight + two shooty knights in the middle and 3 jetbike captains behind them. Psyker + captains stay close-by for possible deny the witch (onslaught).
I could wait another turn but then my opponent got enough reach to kill my backfield units and still make a nice castle for my incoming acolytes. Also he then got the opportunity to keep scoring objectives for 3 whole turns and that doesn't really help my end result in a tournament.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/04/17 12:31:44
You drop 1 acolyte squad and charge on the point between 2 guard units, attack and kill one unit, hostage the other unit if able. If you have a unit of 20 acolytes you could also just kill both units.
Next turn he doesn't have enough screen anymore so you get to eat the juicy bits with your remaining acolyte units charging from deepstrike.
A +1 save isn't going to help that first unit survive anyway because he will throw everything into killing it.
I'm not afraid of someone screening with 3 guard units. The one with 6 is more dangerous because you can't get rid of enough of them on turn 2 to stop them from plugging the gap back up.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/04/17 18:54:15
This is why I run a Tyranid detachment. Devourer Termagants are expensive, but they are really good at clearing screens. The combination of 18" range, the ability to double tap, and the unit itself being durable enough to require focusing on means you can get rid of just about any screen in the game turn 2.
Ordana wrote: Next turn he doesn't have enough screen anymore so you get to eat the juicy bits with your remaining acolyte units charging from deepstrike.
Then its better to summon at turn 1, 20 neophytes with seismic cannons/heavy stubbers + webbers and start shooting at the infantry in combination with the backfield mortars.
But even without the infantry screen I don't like the fact that most smart players know how to deal with deep strike assault units, and I always want to go in hard but then I often realise I should have just played the mission. Custodes jetbike captain could just use his stratagem assault and lock two of my units in close combat before I charge myself. And even with the +1 charge I often just fail at reaching the enemy unit with my whole acolyte unit. Max 12 could swing at a custodes captain and that's not enough to kill it.
Rusted claw gives me the option to just dig in deep on the objectives and create the situation that I got to many models for the enemy to handle.
babelfish wrote:This is why I run a Tyranid detachment. Devourer Termagants are expensive, but they are really good at clearing screens. The combination of 18" range, the ability to double tap, and the unit itself being durable enough to require focusing on means you can get rid of just about any screen in the game turn 2.
I got one problem with that; My GSC need a lot of Command Points and for that I need at least 3 battalions. If I pick a Tyranid battalion then I need 2 neurothropes and 3 troop choices. Let's say I pick 10 gaunts + 10 gaunts + 30 gaunts with 20 devourers = 460 points total. That is to much for me. Rather pick a brood brother battalion (-2 CP) with tempestus deep strike character and drop in 2x 20 infantry squad brood brothers and use first rank second rank fire on both.
Ordana wrote: Next turn he doesn't have enough screen anymore so you get to eat the juicy bits with your remaining acolyte units charging from deepstrike.
Then its better to summon at turn 1, 20 neophytes with seismic cannons/heavy stubbers + webbers and start shooting at the infantry in combination with the backfield mortars.
But even without the infantry screen I don't like the fact that most smart players know how to deal with deep strike assault units, and I always want to go in hard but then I often realise I should have just played the mission. Custodes jetbike captain could just use his stratagem assault and lock two of my units in close combat before I charge myself. And even with the +1 charge I often just fail at reaching the enemy unit with my whole acolyte unit. Max 12 could swing at a custodes captain and that's not enough to kill it.
Rusted claw gives me the option to just dig in deep on the objectives and create the situation that I got to many models for the enemy to handle.
I feel like this is a valid way to run a list, but you may run into the problem that horde orc and horde 'gant (which should really be my screenname instead) players have, which is running out of time in tournament games. I may have missed it above, but what is your general plan for Imperial superheavies?
babelfish wrote:This is why I run a Tyranid detachment. Devourer Termagants are expensive, but they are really good at clearing screens. The combination of 18" range, the ability to double tap, and the unit itself being durable enough to require focusing on means you can get rid of just about any screen in the game turn 2.
I got one problem with that; My GSC need a lot of Command Points and for that I need at least 3 battalions. If I pick a Tyranid battalion then I need 2 neurothropes and 3 troop choices. Let's say I pick 10 gaunts + 10 gaunts + 30 gaunts with 20 devourers = 460 points total. That is to much for me. Rather pick a brood brother battalion (-2 CP) with tempestus deep strike character and drop in 2x 20 infantry squad brood brothers and use first rank second rank fire on both.
40x first rank second rank fire isn't going to hit as hard as 30x devourers doubletapping, but the cost savings may be worth the trade off, particularly CP wise. My opinion is that it is going to depend on your list and approach to the game, so I'm happy to agree that the brood brother battalion could be superior for you.
I put a detailed discussion of the cost and potential builds for the dakkagaunt drop in the spoiler, because I like it a lot and want you to see its virtues, but don't want do detract from the general point that there are multiple potential solutions to the screen removal problem.
Spoiler:
The ideal Tyranid battalion for this is going to be 2 Neurothropes, 2 3x Ripper squads, 20-30 gants all with devourers, and 3 Raveners. The Ripper units can DS for objective grabbing, or just sit behind LOS blocking terrain. They are a very low profile squad, so having them sit behind a wall on a backfield objective is perfectly viable. The Raveners are most effective with some cheap upgrades (deathspitters, rending claws-gives them some shooting when they land and a decent CC profile if they get ignored and get to charge). You need to send one Neurothrope with the 'gaunts, because of the to hit penalty for being out of synapse, but the other one can deploy on the table, safely being a multi-wound character with a 3++. You can hover him in the general direction of the other army, look for chances to smite or cast The Horror.
Min cost for the battalion is 475 (20x 'gants, naked Raveners). 2 CP for the drop, 2 CP to double tap the 'gaunts. 60 * 1/2 * 2/3 + 60 * 1/2 * 1/6 *2/3 = 23 wounds vs T3, double tap is 46; 60 * 1/2 * 1/2 + 60 * 1/2 * 1/6 *1/2 = 17.5 wounds vs T4, double tap for 35.
Max cost is 576 (30x 'gants, guns and rending on the Raveners). 2 CP drop, 2 CP double tap 'gaunts. 90 * 1/2 * 2/3 + 90 * 1/2 * 1/6 *2/3 = 35 wounds vs T3, double tap is 70; 90 * 1/2 * 1/2 + 90 * 1/2 * 1/6 *1/2 = 26.25 wounds vs T4, double tap for 52.5.
The min unit gives you: T3 6+, 19 unsaved wounds per tap; T3 5+, 15 unsaved; T4 6+, 14.5 unsaved; T4 5+, 11.6 unsaved; T4 3+, 5.8 unsaved.
The max unit gives you: T3 6+, 29 unsaved wounds per tap; T3 5+, 23 unsaved; T4 6+, 21.8 unsaved; T4 5+, 17.5 unsaved; T4 3+, 8.75 unsaved.
The large dakkagant unit gives you the ability to effectively cripple two units of the common infantry targets ('gaunts, guardsmen, orcs, genestealers, marines) the turn they drop, and require substantial anti-infantry fire to get rid off, which is why I personally like them so much. They have a long enough range that even with screening, they often get to hit two separate targets the turn they land. They will delete screens and put large dents in horde armies, while being reasonably durable (fearless from the Neurothrope and always in cover due to the hive fleet trait), and scoring.
babelfish wrote: I feel like this is a valid way to run a list, but you may run into the problem that horde orc and horde 'gant (which should really be my screenname instead) players have, which is running out of time in tournament games. I may have missed it above, but what is your general plan for Imperial superheavies?
Not really worried about 'gaunt horde', maybe more worried about deathgaurd/nurgle daemons horde. Ork horde can be funny, but I think my cult ambush gives me the advantage against orks. Don't like to face 10+15 loota's (lootabomb) because even against hordes the really hurt.I could block 1 stratagem at the right time and remove the grots(shield) with my handflamers and start shooting with mortars but I also need to deal with the ork boyz.
Regarding the tournament time issue; tournaments I play allow you to use a chess clock if you want. If I stay hidden the first two turns I probably got no problem getting to turn 4/5. Most opponents take up more time so I need that chess clock to make sure I get my fair share of playtime. Also need to figure out at what moment do I focus primarily on the objectives and simply ignore my opponent units.
Against imperial superheavies:
I got Mental onslaught with +3 leadership on my patriarch (warlord trait + clamavus + broodsurge vial relic),
one acolyte unit with 8 rock saws,
mind control can be useful,
3 patriarch in combination with mass hypnosis. If I can assault with all three than it hurts,
I could also summon 10 acolytes with 4 rock saws first turn, return to the shadows second turn, and perfect ambush third turn, but thats rather expensive.
babelfish wrote:This is why I run a Tyranid detachment. Devourer Termagants are expensive, but they are really good at clearing screens. The combination of 18" range, the ability to double tap, and the unit itself being durable enough to require focusing on means you can get rid of just about any screen in the game turn 2.
40x first rank second rank fire isn't going to hit as hard as 30x devourers doubletapping, but the cost savings may be worth the trade off, particularly CP wise. My opinion is that it is going to depend on your list and approach to the game, so I'm happy to agree that the brood brother battalion could be superior for you.
I put a detailed discussion of the cost and potential builds for the dakkagaunt drop in the spoiler, because I like it a lot and want you to see its virtues, but don't want do detract from the general point that there are multiple potential solutions to the screen removal problem.
Spoiler:
The ideal Tyranid battalion for this is going to be 2 Neurothropes, 2 3x Ripper squads, 20-30 gants all with devourers, and 3 Raveners. The Ripper units can DS for objective grabbing, or just sit behind LOS blocking terrain. They are a very low profile squad, so having them sit behind a wall on a backfield objective is perfectly viable. The Raveners are most effective with some cheap upgrades (deathspitters, rending claws-gives them some shooting when they land and a decent CC profile if they get ignored and get to charge). You need to send one Neurothrope with the 'gaunts, because of the to hit penalty for being out of synapse, but the other one can deploy on the table, safely being a multi-wound character with a 3++. You can hover him in the general direction of the other army, look for chances to smite or cast The Horror.
Min cost for the battalion is 475 (20x 'gants, naked Raveners). 2 CP for the drop, 2 CP to double tap the 'gaunts. 60 * 1/2 * 2/3 + 60 * 1/2 * 1/6 *2/3 = 23 wounds vs T3, double tap is 46; 60 * 1/2 * 1/2 + 60 * 1/2 * 1/6 *1/2 = 17.5 wounds vs T4, double tap for 35.
Max cost is 576 (30x 'gants, guns and rending on the Raveners). 2 CP drop, 2 CP double tap 'gaunts. 90 * 1/2 * 2/3 + 90 * 1/2 * 1/6 *2/3 = 35 wounds vs T3, double tap is 70; 90 * 1/2 * 1/2 + 90 * 1/2 * 1/6 *1/2 = 26.25 wounds vs T4, double tap for 52.5.
The min unit gives you: T3 6+, 19 unsaved wounds per tap; T3 5+, 15 unsaved; T4 6+, 14.5 unsaved; T4 5+, 11.6 unsaved; T4 3+, 5.8 unsaved.
The max unit gives you: T3 6+, 29 unsaved wounds per tap; T3 5+, 23 unsaved; T4 6+, 21.8 unsaved; T4 5+, 17.5 unsaved; T4 3+, 8.75 unsaved.
The large dakkagant unit gives you the ability to effectively cripple two units of the common infantry targets ('gaunts, guardsmen, orcs, genestealers, marines) the turn they drop, and require substantial anti-infantry fire to get rid off, which is why I personally like them so much. They have a long enough range that even with screening, they often get to hit two separate targets the turn they land. They will delete screens and put large dents in horde armies, while being reasonably durable (fearless from the Neurothrope and always in cover due to the hive fleet trait), and scoring.
I do get that its got a nice anti infantry damage output but I must put 50% units/points on the table and if I'am gonna put gaunts in deepstrike with raveners than I need more GSC on the table. An acolyte with hand flamer is 8 points (just as much as a devourer gaunt) and also removes infantry units like a boss. Either the enemy got 'some' infantry units that he could use as a screen or it's a horde army and then I would just fight it out with my acolytes.
Also could be fun: Neurothrope + 3 mawlocs (Ymgarl) allies. Might give this a try for funsies.
I am not as hardcore as you guys, but I have been having a lot of success with mechanized cult in Bladed Cog. Instead of worrying about clearing the screens and getting deep strike bonuses, I just ambush all my neophytes and put all my melee threats in trucks that advance slowly up the board while pelting the enemy with autocannon/stubber fire. Bladed Cog lets me aggressively use squads of neos with heavy weapons without getting a minus to hit, which is nice, and by using neos instead of acolytes as my ambushers, I can pretty much always get them in range to do some screen clearing so the trucks can get close enough to disgorge their contents.
Like I said, I am not a tournament player, but this list has been working pretty well for me so far, and it is also pretty fast to play since you aren't worrying about moving tons of infantry around every turn. The wall of trucks, plus other cheap vehicles like Sentinels and/or Ridgerunners, provides a reasonably tough to remove target on the opponents' first couple turn, and wastes a lot of their long range anti-infantry firepower shooting at T6 targets.
The Abominant in Bladed Cog with the Cog relic that gives him a 3++ is pretty sick, too. He is incredibly hard to kill with that relic plus Bestial Vigor and his regeneration ability. I just put him in a truck with a few Pick Aberrants and send them straight into my opponents' lines.
Edit: I should also mention that I do, in fact, have one large unit of Acolytes with rock saws that I hold back in ambush, and sometimes a 10 man unit of Metamorphs with talons and hand flamers that I lying in wait into place. I wait to drop those guys - sometimes until turn 3 - to make sure that they can safely hit a high value target. So I don't just ambush neos and nothing else.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/04/19 11:20:54
After reading someone else's conversation the other night, I just wanted to talk about Pauper Princes for a second. I think they are being slept on, and could potentially be pretty powerful. I think it's understandable that their potential may be slept on however, as they might be pretty rigid in what works well for them unlike stuff like Rusted Claw that pretty much benefits everything, and at first glance at the Cult it's not as obvious which pieces bring it together. I think they also want to play with a lot of bodies, and many people don't have the model count (I don't myself but considering building into it).
But to start with, let's discuss what the army encourages. The stratagem Vengeance of the Martyrs is restrictive, but powerful - ARMY WIDE +1 to hit IN BOTH MELEE AND SHOOTING, on any unit that kills a character, for THE REST OF THE GAME, and for ONE SINGLE CP. This stratagem encourages 2 things - an entirely Pauper Prince army (or at the very least, a large majority) whom all benefit from the strat, and suicide character bombs to trigger it. This strat seems very potent in a meta dominated by 600-700 centrepiece units, one of whom's strength is sniping characters.
Let's talk about one of the other things this army has that is so amazing - the Warlord trait, Beloved Grandsire. As long as you have bodies near him to take the blows, a character can shrug of all wounds, INCLUDING MORTALS, on a 2+. This is amazing on a melee beatstick, and GSC currently has one of the best (and probably undercosted) melee jackhammers in the game, the Patriarch. If supported well you should be able to throw him at literally everything and still keep him around all game. 5++ invul means he has the equivalent of 54 WOUNDS minimum if you can keep feeding him loyal bodies, nevermind the 4+ regular save against chaff attacks, the FNP from the Acolyte buffing him, and the Character rule all contributing to keeping him around longer. He will just tear up CC every single round of CC, all the while Smiting and Mighting every single turn. As for an Abominant with this trait? Seems like it would quite possibly the hardest CC model to kill in the entire game. This strength obviously encourages the use of many cheap bodies, most likely Neophytes.
Of course, the cult creed itself isn't too bad either, with re-rolls to attacks pretty much everytime it counts.
Doubles up on some buffs, but they are cheap ones that come with other benefits and with 130 Neophytes I think that multiple bubbles will be important.
After triggering the strat, each Neophyte squad is hitting a Knight on 2+ with each mining Laser. any in range of the Kelermorph is re-rolling those 1's as well. But hell you may as well use the strat on any and everything to kill a character, the CP for it is definitely there. We've dicussed the benefits of multiple Neophytes with Mining Lasers in here before, Red Corsair give a pretty good explanation of why it's good, and Nick Rose just went undefeated over the weekend with a Rusted Cog list doing just this. These squads here are all doing double duty on top of that here, with all the extra bodies contributing to keeping your Patriarch alive all game. Then of course, with a Primus for +1 to hit in combat and natural re-rolls after charging, +1S from the Iconward banner, Neophytes can actually cut things up, especially if that unit had the AUDACITY earlier to kill a suicide Kelermorph or something.
Speaking of Kelermorph, his character sniping synergises with with the triple Jackals, which I think will let his character sniping go even further.
Anointed Throng Abominant is a nice suicide beatstick, and an Aberrant bomb just cause why not, since you already have an Abominant and bunch of stuff they benefit from in the list, they may be able to solve problems that the rest of the list might bounce off, and I think they are the ideal CC "bomb" unit in a board so clogged, you probably have a harder time finding room to charge with 20 Acolytes for example. Also they make a nice CP sink since this style of play inevitably uses tons of it, and isn't too hungry on it either.
List is just an example of what Pauper Princes might do well, and might do with some tweaking. More suicide characters may be necessary, I'd like to playtest. The oft looked-over Locus seems to synergise well here, he's actually somewhat pretty points efficient as a suicide charge unit just on his own, his bodyguard rules synergises well with the theme of keeping your Patriarch alive, he is cheap enough to sacrifice against pretty much anything, and with aggressive character play he can pretty much self-wound, making him easily brought down when you WANT him to die. Maybe 3 Alphus isn't necessary, and a Magus might be nice in here especially for Brood Coven since Biomorph Adaptation is left on the table for the Primus to pick up, and potentially Mortars to give the Neophytes more legs - though the points may be better just spent on more Neophytes. But that's just thoughts.
Basically, I think Pauper Princes has real potential as a creed, and that Patriarch/Abominant warlord will absolutely BULLY the table if played right.
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2019/04/19 12:19:04
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
Interesting idea. I feel like, if your opponent knows what's up though, he can just play around it and use his Castellan or whatever to shoot at your squads instead of the characters. And it won't be as exciting of a stratagem against armies that just shoot down our easy-to-kill characters with ordinary troops. Getting +1 to hit against a unit of Eliminators or Intercessors would be pretty meh, even only at 1 CP.
I also question which character you are planning on using for your suicide bomb. If it's the Kellermorph, after all, you can't count on his reroll 1s aura to boost your shots.
Agree with everything you said about the Patriarch, though. This is a great creed for him, and it might be worth experimenting with it just to see how survivable you can make him.
If I am misunderstanding anything here, please feel free to correct me. I always value your insights, Shuppet.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/04/19 12:55:44
If that Castellan can't shoot at your characters, that's a strength of its own, especially since its such a good character killer!
I figured just throw the Abominant and Primus and Clamavus even into CC, but you're right the list probably needs a couple of others, I think Locus is an easy inclusion.
I just figured if they don't kill the Kelermorph he gives buffs, and if they do you can strat it, though probably requires careful play and is match up dependant . In the scenario that the Abominant dies tho, it's sort of magical Christmas land but at the same time you could quite plausibily be shooting a few Lascannon equivalents off a 2+ re-rollable vs whatever killed it. Not like a guarantee or anything, but hey it's a Kelermorph he's worth the inclusion regardless.
The strat might be match up dependant. Though I feel like 130 Neophytes and unkillable Patriarchs will just be chewing out the small stuff tho, especially 60 Broodsurge Neophytes with a Clamavus around. And you can use Jackals to Mark up the small stuff for autoguns if the need be. +1 to hit army wide against some intercessors is worth the 1 CP to me, but I just wouldn't suicide a character for it, which is fine. If they kill a character they get marked for it. Abominant /Aberrants may not be the right call I just kinda whipped that list together to demonstrate the concept of why I think the Cult is kinda good.
I think the 2+++ Patriarch is definitely awesome, and with the Paupers relic you can do dirty things like shoot Mining Lasers, charge with Patriarch into something that will HURT HIM, do a lot of damage to that unit, and then sacrifice those Mining Lasers to shoot them a second time in the same turn and perhaps finish off or focus down a new tank - only one model from each unit has to be in range of loyalty and you can sacrifice whoever you want from that squad. It's cute and won't happen every game, but I think it's cool enough to merit mentioning.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also to be clear on my own behald I'm not trying to say "Pauper Princes new meta!" or anything, just that I think they may have the potential to be as good as the other good Cults.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/04/19 16:24:58
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
Ordana wrote: People still use the missile strat since its cost increase?
And against GSC who basically ignore it on a 4+ thanks to Unquestionable devotion?
I wish i had opponents that senselessly burn through their CP like that.
Uh yes? theres a reason they take 2 detachments + brigade + cp regen. Even if it's only going to cripple a character it's worth the CP a lot of the time, especially since it puts them in death range the turn after if not.
You don't take all that CP to sit on it, knocking out a Patriarch or a key character early game can have snowballing impact. Most targets in GSC will die even through the Loyalty, you'd just be throwing away bodies. GSC characters are not at all tanky if you can shoot at them mate, not even with 4++.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/04/20 00:28:49
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
***FYI - Major Edit: I was not aware that Rock Drills do not have a -1 to hit penalty. Somehow missed that! I for some reason had it in my head that it had the same penalty as the rock cutter. Anyway, that makes a pretty big difference and I updated my calculations below. Happily, it is an error in the right direction, as it makes drills quite a bit better than I thought they were.**
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Pauper Princes, Shuppet. I rather do like the concept, although the idea of painting 130 neophytes is a bit much for me. I have painted up 60 already, and I think I'm good for now.
Your post did get me thinking, however, about whether the Pauper Princes trait could make the Heavy Rock Drill viable. I have always really liked the rock drill model, but I wrote it off (as I think most people did) due to its 17 point cost (as well as my apparently unfounded belief that they had a -1 to hit penalty ). It has fun rules, but that's not really good enough when you have access to Rock Saws. Anyway, I wanted to see if the Pauper Princes trait could make the Rock Drill worth taking, as I have a couple of them that I painted just for fun.
After a rather absurd amount of time mathhammering it out, I actually think that Rock Drills could be _close_ to good in a Pauper Princes detachment. I ran the numbers against a couple of potential targets.
For my initial scenario, I considered two different units
1. A 10 man acolyte unit with 3 rock saws, which comes in at 100 points; and
2. A 10 man unit with 2 rock drills, which comes in at 104.
As you can see, it's not exactly perfect due to the awkward 17 point cost of the drill, but just imagine you gave the former unit's leader a bonesword or maybe gave the unit a handful of flamers to even it up. 4 points ain't much. Also please note that I am not trying to create units that would actually "get the job done" during a game, just trying to get a fair comparison of what two similarly-pointed units could deal in terms of damage.
Against a T8 3+ save target (Knight Castellan or similar) the expected damage from the rock saw unit is 5.88 wounds after saves. 2.22 damage is coming from the rest of the squad's rending attacks, and the remaining 3.66 comes from the 3 saws. These numbers of course include the Pauper Princes re-roll to hit trait, just so we are making an apples to apples comparison.
Again the same Knight target, the Rock Drill unit's expected damage before rolling for the drills' special rule is 4.09 wounds. In this case, you are getting approximately 2.63 of those wounds from the rending claws and the other 1.46 comes from the drill. Pretty abysmal at this point, but then we add in the probable damage from the drill's special mortal wounds "Jackpot" rule, which I calculated as follows:
1.46(.8333+(.833 x .666)+(.833 x .666 x. .5)+(.833 x .666 x .5 x .333) + (.833 x .666 x .5 x .333 x .166) = 2.58. So, after adding in the expected wounds value of our 1.46 unsaved drill wounds, we end up at 6.67 wounds on the Knight.
So that's 5.88 wounds for the saws versus 6.67 wounds for the drills. Also, keep in mind that a 1 on that first drill roll is a great candidate for a command re-roll, and causes the drill to pull ahead in the damage calculation even further, as it would make the first number in the calculation a 35/36 instead of a 5/6. So anyway, this looks like a slight advantage for the drillers.
Spoiler:
Edit: since I apparently had nothing better to do on a Friday night, I decided to looks bit more closely at how much the command reroll would affect the expected damage from the drill’s special rule. Essentially, I just turned the 5/6 (.833) entry in every part of that equation into a 35/36 entry (.9722). When carried all the way out, this increases the expected value of a single activation of the drill’s special ability from approx. 1.77 wounds to 2.07 wounds. Note that you can't carry this all the way out across the entire calculation because you can only command re-roll once per phase. Thus, if you want to plug it in to the equation, I would recommend just subtracting 1 from the first number in the equation above (which is 1.46 here) and then adding 2.07 to the product. Not a huge difference, but it seems the drill team is much more of a contender if you are willing to hold back a CP in case you get that 1 on the first roll.
I also looked at using a commonly used unit - the 20 man acolyte unit with 8 saws - and compared it to a similarly costed driller unit. For this calculation I used a 15 acolyte unit with 6 drills. The driller unit is 207 points and the saw unit is 220, so you could feasibly stuff a couple more acolytes in there for extra wounds if you wanted to even it up, but I didn't bother because for this exercise I ignored all the rending claw acolytes' damage. The reason for that is that, in my experience, you aren't ever going to get a full 20 dudes on 32" bases in combat with anything, even something as big as a Knight. There will be terrain, or other units, or something that blocks your ambush from effectively deploying 20 guys close enough to fully engage that squad in combat. So, I just assumed that we made sure we got all the heavy mining weapons in combat plus X number of whatever other acolytes would fit.
As noted in the previous calculation, 2 drillers do an expected damage of 1.46 with their attacks, and then add 2.58 more with the weapon's special rule, for a total of 4.04 damage on average for every two drillers. Thus, the six drillers in this group end up outputting, on average, 12.12 wounds with the Pauper Princes trait, and possible slightly more if you know you are going to re-roll a 1 if you get that whammy on the first roll for their special rule.
Comparatively, the 8 saw acolytes deal an average of 9.76 wounds to the Knight. Advantage: drills.
I also looked at the previously described 10 man units versus a T7 4++ model (something like a Talos or similar). After getting the numbers right, the saw unit deals an average of 5.72 wounds vs. 6.99 wounds from the driller unit. Again, this looks pretty darn good for the drillers, especially since their unit is cheaper and has a smaller footprint, and thus may be easier to ambush in and get all your special weapons guys in combat.
If we consider the Pauper Princes stratagem discussed by Shuppet, above, it should be noted that Driller acolytes love this stratagem too. The stratagem boosts the accuracy of their attacks from 88.88% to 97.21%. This is of course pretty situational since you aren't always going to be able to use that stratagem on the unit the drillers really want to attack.
A couple notes on things I didn't discuss:
First, I didn't bother considering the effect of stuff like the Deliverance Broodsurge +1 to wound strat or the +1 Strength relic. These tools have a symmetrical effect on both weapons since they are both Strength x2, -3 AP weapons.
Might from Beyond is similar, at least as to the +1 Strength effect, but deserves a special note that, while bonus attacks are great for Drillers too, it is actually slightly better for Saws due to the fact that the wonky wording of the special rule for the Drill states that it only triggers once each time each model carrying a drill causes an unsaved wound during each Fight phase, not one time for every wound caused by drills irrespective of who dealt that wound. This is annoying, as if you get Might off and get lucky enough to cause two or three unsaved wounds with one of your Driller models, you still only trigger the "jackpot" mortal wounds explosion once for that model. It also means you have to go to the trouble of either resolving each drillers' attacks one at a time or having enough different colored dice for each driller to have 2 (or 3 for might) of a special color just for him so you can just roll the whole units attacks together.
tl; dr. If you are considering using Rock Drills, the Pauper Princes are definitely the best way to use them. The Pauper Princes' cult creed brings drills almost in parity with Rock Saws, which everyone agrees are a very competitive choice for the unit. While not quite as versatile or cost-effective as Saws, Rock Drills are good enough in Pauper Princes to be worth giving a go if you like the model. They are very good at dealing heavy damage to large, tough models like Knights, but not as good against ordinary multi-wound infantry, where the saw's flat 2 damage really shines. When comparing them 1 to 1 against Saws, it is evident that the main problem they have is that they are overcosted by about 5-ish points, and if you could take as many of them as you could saws they would surely be a competitive choice.
This message was edited 9 times. Last update was at 2019/04/20 12:12:54
Thanks alot Asmodas for this calculation. Didnt think about drills, but this seems to make it usefull indeed.
I myself use pauper princes a lot, often as single creed in my armies (not competitive at tournaments).
The 'vengance for the martyred' stratagem is very viable, like Shuppet described often situatonal, but a hard one for the opponent.
You don't have to use it every time, but it can make an enemy feel very uncomfortable, just helicoptering above the battlefield.
Had two games where this made me kill enemy key units (again, situational).
One time against a unit of Genestealers, which then got shot and beat up by my neophytes (yeah, i fight even against Tyranids if i feel so!), and one time i killed a unit of Lychguard, which i would not have been able to kill statistically without the +1 to hit in CC.
Not an alltime winner, but if the opponent knows, that you can pull this trick, sometimes, he tries to get the job done by his dispensable units, which then often dont get it done in the end, just to not get the +1 to hit against the better units.
24.000 Tyranids painted, still rising in numbers
4.000 Genestealer Cult
7.000
@Asmodas thanks for the great write up. I'll have to consider the drills.
@DaBraken thanks for sharing some real experience with the Cult! Love the mental image of Neophytes shredding up some actual Genestealers in rage for them killing their Liuetenant !
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/04/20 08:23:18
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
Asmodas wrote: Your post did get me thinking, however, about whether the Pauper Princes trait could make the Heavy Rock Drill viable. I have always really liked the rock drill model, but I wrote it off (as I think most people did) due to its 17 point cost and the -1 to hit issue.
Just want to point out that the Heavy Rock Drill doesn't have a -1 to hit penalty. That'll probably have a significant effect on your calculations.
Asmodas wrote: Your post did get me thinking, however, about whether the Pauper Princes trait could make the Heavy Rock Drill viable. I have always really liked the rock drill model, but I wrote it off (as I think most people did) due to its 17 point cost and the -1 to hit issue.
Just want to point out that the Heavy Rock Drill doesn't have a -1 to hit penalty. That'll probably have a significant effect on your calculations.
Oh wow! I guess that shows you how many times I've used the rock drill recently. I believe it used to have a -1 to hit penalty, and somehow I missed that it doesn't have one any more. I am going to confirm this once I have a chance to look at my codex, but assuming you are correct, that would indeed have a very significant effect on my calculations. For the moment I have put the mathhammer from my post behind a spoiler tag until I've had time to update it, but the lack of a -1 to hit penalty would be huge. No -1 to hit penalty means 33% more hits for each driller in a Pauper Princes detachment (going from 66% hits to 88% hit rate), and, since the numbers for expected damage vis-a-vis rock saws were so close already, the drills are probably going to leapfrog ahead of saws after taking that into account.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Well I'll be damned. No -1 to hit penalty. I must have gotten it mixed up with the Rock Cutter. That is a huge difference.
I updated the calculations in my post above. The changes result in a fairly considerable advantage for the drill in all of the scenarios I used above.
Spoiler:
The question arises, however, as to whether we really need Pauper Princes for our drillers? Or can we get away with using a different creed?
I think you still want Pauper Princes, and I will tell you why. As I discussed above, the drill's special mortal wounds jackpot has the weird limitation that it can only be triggered once per model per combat. Thus, even if one model causes two unsaved wounds, it only gets to roll for the jackpot once, and if you have a couple other drillers who whiffed, that's going to give you a real case of the feel-bads. And, since you are paying a premium price over saws to get access to that rule, and essentially nothing else since the weapons' profiles are otherwise identical, you really want every one of your drillers to be rolling for that wounds jackpot every fight phase. Thus, you also want to maximize your odds that each one of your drillers is going to cause an unsaved wound. If you are using saws instead of drills, you don't have this problem.
Seeing as each driller only has 2 attacks base, and your chance of getting a hit is 66%, your expected number of hits per driller is 1.33. If you are rolling against T8, you are only dealing an average of .666 wounds before saves. If rolling against a T7 enemy, you are only dealing 0.88 wounds before saves. Thus, we aren't even getting to the point where our expected wounds per driller is 1.0 or greater, which is where we really want it to be.
Now, we have lots of ways to boost the to-wound roll, including the relic banner, broodsurge stratagem, primus, etc., but not a lot of ways to help with the to-hit roll. The Pauper Princes trait brings our hit percentage up to 88% right off the bat, so now we are dealing .88 wounds to T8 and 1.17 wounds to T7. If you add in one of the other wound-boosting abilities, you can bring it up even higher. For example, with the +1 from the broodsurge detachment, you can hit that Knight for 1.17 wounds per driller. Even with the Knight saving on a 6, you now have a 97.7% chance per driller of putting a wound on the Knight, and therefore a very good chance that each one of our drillers gets to roll for the jackpot. Thus, I think you probably still want to use Pauper Princes if you are going to try to get the most out of drillers.
Thanks to everyone for their comments, and especially MCStanden for pointing out my error with the hit penalty.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2019/04/20 12:33:01
I think that it is better to go for the all round bladed cog bonus instead of trying to get a character killed with 'one' enemy target. Mining lasers are 24 inch heavy weapons so you need to move anyway. Instead of sooo many character you could just as well get more neophytes with more lasers. Also dig the 2+ look out sir on the patriarch but I would rather let him focus on 'mental onslaught'.
How about this:
Battalion: Bladed Cog, Deliverance Broodsurge
Patriarch Inspiring leader (+1 LD) (mental onslaught & Mass hypnosis)
Acolyte Iconward, Vial of the Grandsires Blood
Pretty much, Patriarch is already Fearless and makes units around him Fearless so having Ld11 is pretty meaningless in of itself if he's the character you're giving it to. But an extra +1 in a direct dice roll off is a pretty big thing.
I expect if Mental Onslaught is tweaked to be on unmodified Lds we'll end up keeping most of Grandsire's blood inside Grandsire rather than making into pendants for him to wear.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/04/20 14:41:05
I think that it is better to go for the all round bladed cog bonus instead of trying to get a character killed with 'one' enemy target. Mining lasers are 24 inch heavy weapons so you need to move anyway. Instead of sooo many character you could just as well get more neophytes with more lasers. Also dig the 2+ look out sir on the patriarch but I would rather let him focus on 'mental onslaught'.
How about this:
Battalion: Bladed Cog, Deliverance Broodsurge
Patriarch Inspiring leader (+1 LD) (mental onslaught & Mass hypnosis)
Acolyte Iconward, Vial of the Grandsires Blood
3x Heavy weapon squad with mortars
3x Heavy weapon squad with mortars
3x Heavy weapon squad with mortars
Battalion: Twisted Helix,Anointed Throng
Magus (mind control + might from beyond)
Acolyte Iconward, Icon of the Cult Ascendant
Abominant
10x Brood brothers with mortar (backfield objective keepers)
10x Brood brothers with mortar (backfield objective keepers)
10x Brood brothers with mortar (backfield objective keepers)
10x Aberrants w/Picks, 2x Improvised Weapons
This works too. Honestly, you could make a small separate detachment for the Patriach with the Pauper Princes trait, he can still get the 2++ from Neophytes of any cult, so you could throw him in with whatever as long as you had enough bodies.
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
I think that it is better to go for the all round bladed cog bonus instead of trying to get a character killed with 'one' enemy target. Mining lasers are 24 inch heavy weapons so you need to move anyway. Instead of sooo many character you could just as well get more neophytes with more lasers. Also dig the 2+ look out sir on the patriarch but I would rather let him focus on 'mental onslaught'.
How about this:
Battalion: Bladed Cog, Deliverance Broodsurge
Patriarch Inspiring leader (+1 LD) (mental onslaught & Mass hypnosis)
Acolyte Iconward, Vial of the Grandsires Blood
3x Heavy weapon squad with mortars
3x Heavy weapon squad with mortars
3x Heavy weapon squad with mortars
Battalion: Twisted Helix,Anointed Throng
Magus (mind control + might from beyond)
Acolyte Iconward, Icon of the Cult Ascendant
Abominant
10x Brood brothers with mortar (backfield objective keepers)
10x Brood brothers with mortar (backfield objective keepers)
10x Brood brothers with mortar (backfield objective keepers)
10x Aberrants w/Picks, 2x Improvised Weapons
This works too. Honestly, you could make a small separate detachment for the Patriach with the Pauper Princes trait, he can still get the 2++ from Neophytes of any cult, so you could throw him in with whatever as long as you had enough bodies.
Unquestioning Loyality is <Cult> limited (or BB). a Bladed Cog Neophyte will happily watch as a Pauper Prince Patriarch is killed next to him.
I think that it is better to go for the all round bladed cog bonus instead of trying to get a character killed with 'one' enemy target. Mining lasers are 24 inch heavy weapons so you need to move anyway. Instead of sooo many character you could just as well get more neophytes with more lasers. Also dig the 2+ look out sir on the patriarch but I would rather let him focus on 'mental onslaught'.
How about this:
Battalion: Bladed Cog, Deliverance Broodsurge
Patriarch Inspiring leader (+1 LD) (mental onslaught & Mass hypnosis)
Acolyte Iconward, Vial of the Grandsires Blood
3x Heavy weapon squad with mortars
3x Heavy weapon squad with mortars
3x Heavy weapon squad with mortars
Battalion: Twisted Helix,Anointed Throng
Magus (mind control + might from beyond)
Acolyte Iconward, Icon of the Cult Ascendant
Abominant
10x Brood brothers with mortar (backfield objective keepers)
10x Brood brothers with mortar (backfield objective keepers)
10x Brood brothers with mortar (backfield objective keepers)
10x Aberrants w/Picks, 2x Improvised Weapons
This works too. Honestly, you could make a small separate detachment for the Patriach with the Pauper Princes trait, he can still get the 2++ from Neophytes of any cult, so you could throw him in with whatever as long as you had enough bodies.
Unquestioning Loyality is <Cult> limited (or BB). a Bladed Cog Neophyte will happily watch as a Pauper Prince Patriarch is killed next to him.
Ah yeah you're right, and that is quite hilarious.
P.S.A. I won't read your posts if you break it into a million separate quotes and make an eyesore of it.
Ordana wrote: Unquestioning Loyality is <Cult> limited (or BB). a Bladed Cog Neophyte will happily watch as a Pauper Prince Patriarch is killed next to him.
Ah yeah you're right, and that is quite hilarious.
"You're not the boss of me!" OR "Hivemind say's no..."
I am really liking these Pauper Prince builds people are putting up. It's going to be six months before I can get enough purchased and painted to run it, but I'm very excited by them. I feel there is a lot of potential in the mining laser, particularly with how many ways we have to get various buffs on it.
Ordana wrote: Unquestioning Loyality is <Cult> limited (or BB). a Bladed Cog Neophyte will happily watch as a Pauper Prince Patriarch is killed next to him.
Ah yeah you're right, and that is quite hilarious.
"You're not the boss of me!" OR "Hivemind say's no..."
I think that it is better to go for the all round bladed cog bonus instead of trying to get a character killed with 'one' enemy target. Mining lasers are 24 inch heavy weapons so you need to move anyway. Instead of sooo many character you could just as well get more neophytes with more lasers. Also dig the 2+ look out sir on the patriarch but I would rather let him focus on 'mental onslaught'.
How about this:
Battalion: Bladed Cog, Deliverance Broodsurge
Patriarch Inspiring leader (+1 LD) (mental onslaught & Mass hypnosis)
Acolyte Iconward, Vial of the Grandsires Blood
3x Heavy weapon squad with mortars
3x Heavy weapon squad with mortars
3x Heavy weapon squad with mortars
Battalion: Twisted Helix,Anointed Throng
Magus (mind control + might from beyond)
Acolyte Iconward, Icon of the Cult Ascendant
Abominant
10x Brood brothers with mortar (backfield objective keepers)
10x Brood brothers with mortar (backfield objective keepers)
10x Brood brothers with mortar (backfield objective keepers)
10x Aberrants w/Picks, 2x Improvised Weapons
Shogun, I think you typo'd, your list has two Jackal Alphus in the same detachment. Did you mean to put an Iconward instead?
What do you think about running a Primus with the mining lasers? If your ambushing several units with lasers, you could drop him next to them and use his designated target ability with them. That plus the Alphus plus potentially a Kelermorph bonus all affecting several units adds up to a pretty scary strike.
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2019/04/21 18:33:59
Shogun, I think you typo'd, your list has two Jackal Alphus in the same detachment. Did you mean to put an Iconward instead?
Ah yea, forgot about that rule. Just put one Jackal in the first detachment and add an iconward in the second, and drop a heavy weapon team.
babelfish wrote: What do you think about running a Primus with the mining lasers? If your ambushing several units with lasers, you could drop him next to them and use his designated target ability with them. That plus the Alphus plus potentially a Kelermorph bonus all affecting several units adds up to a pretty scary strike.
Yep, but an primus and kellermorph could also be another two mining laser squads. You can do the math but also take into account that more squads means more shooting and more bodies on the field. With 24 inch lasers you cannot cover every part of the field and that kellermorph could die quickly.
). It has fun rules, but that's not really good enough when you have access to Rock Saws. Anyway, I wanted to see if the Pauper Princes trait could make the Rock Drill worth taking, as I have a couple of them that I painted just for fun.
