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2019/07/27 16:36:03
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
Pomguo wrote: I’m heading to a tourney in September and want to paint n practice my list through August. I’m planning a variation on the recently successful charge + shoot hybrid-ey lists. I am limited to one Forge World ao it can’t be fully optimized, but am trying to do the best list I can within that restriction. List below:
Idea is that Manipulus charges up the board with the dragoons, the fulgurites stuffed in a drill, and the corpuscarii stuffed in the new transport. So all 4 units get stygies moved before turn 1.
1. Any suggestions as to further optimizing it? Stuff that isn’t working and should be dumped, stuff that needs more investment to work, etc? I’m limited somewhat by budget (can’t afford any decent amount of balistarii, for instance) but will try to take suggestions on board.
2. Any gameplan advice? I haven’t run a hybrid list like this really, so would like some piloting advice is anyone has, so I can get the most out of the practice games I have. What do I do with the four melee chargers if the opponent goes first, for instance?
This is similar to lists I run, I find the mix of threats works well. I do prefer robots over dragoons though - 20 electro-priests in transports is generally plenty to take the heat off you shooting elements, and the robots never disappoint, even with just two or three.
2019/07/28 00:39:21
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
I personally love punchbots but my concern is the quantity and accuracy of attacks. I’ve got lucky with them and wiped DPs etc but generally 6 attacks hitting on 4s means not enough will push through an invuln of any sort for my tastes. As opposed to the dragoons’ hail of taser attacks. I’d throw in a pair of punchbots if I had the space but I’m not sure what I’d remove here that wouldn’t take something necessary away...
Any advice for piloting if you go second? What do you do with the melee prongs, just try to hide out of LoS turn one as close to the enemy as you can?
2019/07/28 00:55:24
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
So I took Metalica to that tournament last week but have been swamped with work and didn't get to post an update. Nothing groundbreaking here, just thought someone may find it useful. This tournament was at the Gamerz Den in Oxford Mississippi.
So yeah, not perfect but it was what I had available and I knew I was going to have an almost 100% chance to fight a knight. I ended up going almost pure gunline due to feeling like I lacked all the models needed to do melee effectively. I'll post my thoughts at the end.
Round one, ITC mission 3
Spoiler:
sure enough, I draw not only a knight, but an entire knight house. I was worried about killing a knight a turn and by Omnissiah I'm glad I did. Table had a massive LOs blocking terrain piece dead center, tall enough to block sight to even knights.
His house Raven list had a crusader, a Valiant with the 2+/4++ combo, a paladin with the ravager, and two hellverins. He got first turn, and with the help of shroudpsalm I didn't even lose a unit.
I proceeded to charge up the table and absolutely melt a helverin with the robot shots (no Mars, just that many flamethrower hits) and drop the crusader as well as crippling the second helverin. This turned out to be a stupid mistake, I should've been focusing on the Valiant. This would lose me the game.
I proceeded to have my dice go cold and spent a good 3 turns chewing through the valiant as it rampaged through my lines. I attempted to snag other objectives with characters and troops but it was too late. Some dumb sloppy play on my part lost me the game. I did manage to drop the valiant and even knock half the wounds off the Paladin, but by the end of round 6 I only had 2 characters alive. Loss 20-28. Firmly believe that if I had ignored hellverins and let the robots deal with them over time I would've had a chance at winning.
Round 2, ITC mission one
Spoiler:
Death guard player. Mortarion, blight drones, blight crawlers, blightlord terminators, the mortar tanks, and some zombies for gaks and giggles. Again lose first turn, almost as if I have a ton of drops or something. Mortarion and co charge up table and again fail to achieve a kill turn one. Robots proceed to Sprint up and heavily abuse mortarion with flamethrowers and phosphor but fail to kill him.
I then kill him after doing 5 wounds on overwatch and finishing him with a forced explosion on a bot, and proceed to he's through the crawlers, drones, and termis. Again, sloppy target priority on my part comes back to haunt me. I am doing really well and handily getting 3-4 points every round as well as maxing most secondaries, but I made a dumb choice with targeting and got greedy. It was at this moment my dice went cold and death guard player snatched a win at the last second with very clever play on his part.
Loss 22-26
Round 3, mission 6
Spoiler:
Through chance I end up playing my friend I drove up with. We had made a friendly bet last place bought dinner, so motivation to win was high. I couldn't lose a 3rd time. Friends list was an Ultramarines/IG soup based on what he had painted. G man, 3 predators with the tank captain, the Phobos captain, scouts, and then a pretty typical Cadian batallion with a leman Russ and 2 basilisk, as well as a vindicaire. A bit janky but he had a win and I didn't.
We drew a fairly wide open table and I got first turn. Things went downhill for my friend there. I proceeded to drop a predator and about 40 guardsmen turn one. He does some weak counterfire and manages to drop my Skorpius very quickly, but that's about it. We then proceeded to trade every turn in a shooting match with the gap getting wider in my favor every turn. I almost table him aside from a single surviving basilisk.
Finally a win 33-20
I go on to take 11/22 with 75 battlepoints. I didn't realize until later that I actually had more battlepoints than the next 4 places above me. If I just could've squeezed another win in who knows, maybe could've made top 6 or something. I ended up being the "best of the worst" 1/2's by a healthy margin.
I'm actually surprised how well the list ran, granted some of that was due to matchups and not having to fight the ultimate lists out there. Almost every unit but the Onagers pulled their weight. I mainly had them to cover all the knights out there, but even against the knight house they were underwhelming. They just are too unreliable. Its way too easy to roll one shot and miss or fail to wound. The lastriders were amazing. And I plan on getting 4 more striders when I can so I can run 4 Las and 4 Dragoons. Skorpius were great no surprise there. Robots were surprisingly effective considering two of the three lists they fought were terrible matchups for them. And destroyers are a given, I actually recycled at least 3 each game. Probably bad target priority by opponents but it worked.
Thanks for all the help, your tips helped a lot. I'm looking forward to another tournament sometime to see if I can do better. Had great opponents and store was nice too.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/07/28 05:24:35
'I've played Guard for years, and the best piece of advice is to always utilize the Guard's best special rule: "we roll more dice than you" ' - stormleader
"Sector Imperialis: 25mm and 40mm Round Bases (40+20) 26€ (Including 32 skulls for basing) " GW design philosophy in a nutshell
2019/07/28 02:53:22
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
Yeah... Neutrons need like 2-3 for redundancy and even then they let themselves down too often for my tastes. I suspect the Ferrumite Cannon new tank will become the better more reliable high Strength shooty tank. But yeah, lastriders are great for that too.
2019/07/28 08:03:01
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
Before I begin, I would like to say that this event was being held in memory of Geoff Robinson, who was a hometown hero that was, at one point, one of the top AdMech pilots (before Custodes stole him from us). I personally began playing AdMech in 7E because of some of his battle reports. We had a moment of silence for him before unveiling the Helm of the Custodes trophy. Some grown men cried. Very sobering.
My list:
Spoiler:
Mars Spearhead Detachment - 1187 Cybernetica Cohort (-1 CP)
HQ - 190 1x Belisarius Cawl, Warlord
Heavy Support - 997 4x Kastelan Robot - 12x Heavy Phosphor Blaster
1x Skorpius Disintegrator - Belleros Energy Cannon
1x Skorpius Disintegrator - Belleros Energy Cannon
1x Skorpius Disintegrator - Belleros Energy Cannon
1x Onager Dunecrawler - Icarus Array, Cognis Heavy Stubber
1x Onager Dunecrawler - Icarus Array, Cognis Heavy Stubber
His Secondaries:
Gangbusters
Big Game Hunter
Butcher's Bill
My Secondaries:
Headhunter
Big Game Hunter
Old School
He deployed his Prisms and Spinners in the far back out of LOS and range. His Hemlocks and Venoms were aggressively positioned.
Hid my Grators, Crawlers, and Kastelans out of LOS. Wanted to force the Eldar to come forward. My Dragoons were on my extreme left. I picked Vindicare to snipe the numerous characters that he has brought.
Round 1
His Turn
I aggressively infiltrated my Dragoons toward his line to threaten his Spinners and Prisms. He redeploys his characters much further up than anticipated. Venoms and Harlequins moved into the center of the board. Eldar dumped everything into my Dragoons, killing them. Graia denied Twilight Pathways, preventing his Solitaire from getting in charge range of my Cawl. He finishes up by clearly enough screen to target and kill my Vindicare.
My Turn
My Crawlers, Grators, and Robots come out of hiding and open up. All but one Venom is dead. My Grators also are close enough to kill the stalled Solitaire hiding in the ruins in the center. My Enginseer moves in to claim it. On my right, my infantry Advance to claim the third objective.
4-2
Round 2
His Turn
He dives both of his Hemlocks into my deployment in an attempt to kill my Robots. Graia denied Jinx. Fire Prisms in almost kill a Crawler. Hemlocks and Spinners kill two Robots. While I am occupied, his tanks move on his right to grab his far objective. He kills the Rangers on the third objective an send an HQ to grab it for the bonus point.
My Turn
My Robots and Crawlers pour into the Hemlocks, killing both. My Grators finish off the last Venom and Shadowseer. I reclaim one objective, but he still has three of the five.
7-5
Round 3
His Turn
He repeats his prior feat, scoring the bonus point. Kills a Crawler, two units of Skitarii, and damages a Grator.
My Turn
I move my infantry toward the center and my Grators to my left. My focused fire kills two units of infantry to tie up the kills. I kill the enemy warlord as well. I tie up the objective count.
9-9
Round 4
His Turn
His tanks take out my Crawlers. He moved more tanks onto objectives and quickly ended his turn.
My Turn
This is where things get weird. We started using chess clocks because deployment took longer than expected. I had fallen under 5 minutes (my opponent had 6), and he insisted that I had to skip this turn and the next. I brought a TO over, and he pointed out that BOTH players put dice down when BOTH are under 5 minutes. I was to play my time.
However, I was really flustered and totally forgot my plans. I don't remember what happened, but I really messed up my shooting priority really badly, resulting in me being unable to kill a key unit. Did not get kill more or a third BGH like I should have. My opponent remarked that this was the only mistake that I made this game. (He thought up until this point that I was going to win by 1-2 points because my play was so strong up until this point.)
12-13
Deployment Map: Vanguard
His Secondaries
Gangbusters 4/4
Big Game Hunter 2/4
Butcher's Bill 4/4
My Secondaries
Headhunter 4/4
Big Game Hunter 2/4
Old School 3/4
21-23 LOSS
This game showed just how effective a combination Robots, Grators, and Crawlers are together. They are all incredibly efficient and give AdMech a lot of shooting flexibility.
Honestly, I was very pissed by the outcome of this game, but now it's sort of just a disappointment.
Game 2 - Guard
Spoiler:
Deployment Map: Vanguard
His Secondaries
Gangbusters
Big Game Hunter
Engineers
My Secondaries
Reaper
Butcher's Bill
Engineers
I chose to go deploy and go second. He deployed his tanks in the rear and his transports and Knight along the line. He takes Callidus.
I placed my Dragoons on my extreme left again and hid all of my units behind the largest LOS blocking terrain that I could find. I focused on protecting the Grators and Robots because they were going to decide the battle. Seeing the orientation of the Vulture, I knew he intended to bring it to my right, so I had my Crawlers waiting there. (A lot of people inadvertently point their models in the direction that they intend to move. When important, I mix it up to throw people off.) I take Eversor.
Round 1
His Turn
I push my Dragoons up, taking care to keep 12" outside his Vanquisher's Grinding Advance range. He uses the stratagem to move up and shoot anyway. He deals 5 mortal wounds to himself and only 4 to a Dragoon. Lol. He moves up one Taurox to tarpit my Dragoons. I spend 2 CP to Doctrina and kill it, consolidating toward his Vanquisher, which is now 9" away.
In the center, he moves a bunch of infantry and transports toward the center objective. His tanks shoot an Crawler, damaging it. Mortars thin one of my Skitarii units.
His Vulture flanks me on my right as expected. He guns down a squad of Skitarii and further damages my Crawler.
My Turn
I move my Dragoons to just outside 1" of the Vanquisher and multicharge it and the second Taurox. I combat slide further left, kill the Vanquisher, and leave the Taurox with one wound.
Crawlers destroy the Vulture; one got a 6 damage missile through. Grators kill all but one of his Mortars. They also damage a Chimera with missiles and gun down 2 squads of Guardsmen too. It was brutal.
At this point, I realized that my Robots were not important for winning this game, so I decided to Queen Sacrifice them. Run straight into the open and root them. The presence of the transports made things complicated. I cannot shoot them or they'd disembark troops and capture the center objective. So I shoot the Knight and bring it down to its second profile.
I send one squad to capture the center objective, since I outnumber the transport there.
4-2
Round 2
His Turn
He disembarks his troops and pours them into the center. He charges my Skitarii. He also Deep Strikes his Callidus to attempt to assassinate my Enginseers. I heroically intervene. He doesn't kill a single Skitarii, and with Mask, my Skitarii I end up killing two of his Guardsman. My Enginseer lands a Servo-Arm and brings his Callidus down to 1.
He shoots most of his vehicles into my Robots. He then moves his Chimera and Knight up to my Robots and locks them in combat; he kills two in fighting. Lesser AdMech players may panic, but the way I saw it, I just used 440 points that won't win me the game to lock up a thousand points of shooting. I pull the front two and he consolidates his Knight further into them.
My Turn
My tanks begin to move left, as the Knight is now trapped in CC between his Chimera and my Robots. Crawlers turn their guns on the center infantry and kill one squad and what remains of a second. Grators pound the Engineer infantry in the far left building, killing one squad.
Another unit of Skitarii comes out of cover go into the center and takes the objective. Enginseers finish off the Callidus and my Manipulus the Guardsmen in CC with my Skitarii.
Dragoons continue their rampage on the left and take HIS objective. Eversor deep strikes and fails his charge. Fortunately, I outnumbered the surviving Mortar team three to one with Dragoons.
8-4
Round 3
His Turn
He falls back with his Knight and shoots to kill my Skitarii in the center with help from disembarked Guardsmen. His Chimera falls back to try to block my Skitarii. His Knight then charges back in to kill the remaining Robot.
On my left, his Tank Commander kills one of my Dragoons.
My Turn
Tanks continue to flank left. I blow up the last Chimera. I gun down all of the remaining Guardsmen in the center. My Dragoons and Eversor kill the Mortar. I grab all three objectives
13-5
Round 4
His Turn
His Knight finally catches up with the tanks. He kills a Crawler.
My Turn
I just kill a Company Commander and capture all three objectives.
17-6
His Secondaries
Gangbusters 4/4
Big Game Hunter 2/4
Engineers 1/4
My Secondaries
Reaper 4/4
Butcher's Bill 4/4
Engineers 3/4
28-13 WIN
Game 3 - Quad Knights
Spoiler:
Deployment Map: Spearhead
His Secondaries
Gangbusters
Big Game Hunter
Headhunter
My Secondaries
Old School
Titan Slayer
King Slayer
Deployment
He dropped a the Taranis Gallant and Krast Crusader on my left. He dropped both Taranis Crusaders on my right.
I deploy everything clustered behind the big ruin in the center, intending to launch sacrificial grabs. I expect to go second, but who knows?
Anyhow, I actually made a huge mistake here. I deployed all of my Stygies infantry first to exhaust his drops and get free deploy. BUT I FORGOT TO INFILTRATE ONE. This becomes a huge problem in Round 1.
I take Vindicare and place him in the high tower in the center.
Round 1
His Turn
He spreads his shots everywhere, dealing a bit of damage. Kills one unit of Skitarii. Nothing to write about.
His Gallant advances to within 8" of my hastily reassembled line. This is where my infiltrating Rangers would have been useful. 1 CP and 35 points to deny a first turn move to a Gallant? Yes please. Anyhow he fails, rolling 2 and 1. His reroll gets him a 6 though. And he plows into my Dragoons. This is okay, I thought. He'll kill 2-3 of them. Nope. He kills all 5 then piles into my Skitarii.
My Turn
I root and fire 4 Robots of dakka into the Gallant. By some unholy magicks, I end up only dealing 8 wounds to him. At this point, I panic. I pour absolutely everything into the Gallant. Every Belleros Energy Cannon, Solar Atomizer, Icarus Array, Heavy Stubber, Galvanic Rifle, and Laspistol. Even Turbo Penetrator Round. He is down to 1 wound. I am desperate. I charge EVERYTHING into him. And against all odds, one of my Enginseers manages to axe him in his Achilles Heel and kill him. I quickly consolidate into the space left behind by the Gallant. He tries to get back up... and succeeds with 3 wounds. Ughhh. At least my Robots are outside of charge danger now.
TO rules that the kill does not count for Old School or a kill in general if your Taranis stratagem is successful. Sigh.
I sacrifice some Skitarii to hold more.
2-3
Round 2
His Turn
More spread fire as his Knights set up around the center objectives. One Crawler goes down. His Gallant bulldozes a unit of Skitarii.
My Turn
I weaken the Gallant with a Grator then kill it for 1 CP using my Vindicare's Turbo Penetrator Round.
My Robots dump fire into the Krast. This one is more fortuitous, bringing it down to its bottom wound table. I pour everything else into it, killing it.
I sacrifice some Skitarii to attempt to hold more. He heroically intervenes into my gamble and I end up only denying it.
4-6
Round 3
His Turn
His Crusaders charge into my right flank screen and stomp some Skitarii. He finishes a Grato, brings another to its bottom wound table, and kills two Robots.
My Turn
I begin to shift my line to the left. I kill one of his Skitarii units and split my two surviving Robots to damage his warlord and other Knight a bit more.
6-9
Round 4
His Turn
His Crusaders kill a Robot, as well as my last Grator and Crawler.
My Turn
I complete my shift left. I also prepare my last two units of Skitarii for the last round. I manage to kill more because I pasted two of his Skitarii units.
9-12
Round 5
His Turn
He kills Cawl and a unit of Skitarii. He manages to hide his last Enginseer from my Vindicare.
My Turn
I just hold more.
11-15
His Secondaries
Gangbusters 4/4
Big Game Hunter 4/4
Headhunter 4/4
My Secondaries
Old School 0/4
Titan Slayer 4/4
King Slayer 3/4
18-27 LOSS
Although this was a tough matchup, in my opinion, I played poorly overall this game. I picked Old School mostly because I did not know what else to pick, which was dumb; should have done Ground Control or Engineers instead. My deployment was also very sloppy. I failed to tarpit the Gallant and paid for it with my Dragoons. This list lacks S8+ weapons, so this was a huge loss. The fact that my opponent rolled hot his first round did not help matters. I fell behind and stayed behind.
Take-aways:
-Grators are ridiculously good. They are cheap, fast, tough, and pack a punch. They fill a vital non-LOS gap between Robots and Las Striders.
-Grators are a good screen, but in many matchups, keeping them safe is rather important. Dragoons end up taking up the slack, and they're also quite sacrificial.
-Crawlers are situationally good. Honestly, against non-flying, they don't actually do too much. They also hurt in the play clock.
-Robots are a known quantity. I think 4x is fine for most instances. 3x if you just need an anti-infantry unit.
-I really wish I had Las Striders in this list. AdMech has not trouble hitting, but wounding is a problem. The lack of S8+ shooting really makes you feel powerless against Knights.
-I found myself regretting having a Graia Enginseer. Having that extra heal 1 wound is nice, actually.
-Stygies infiltration is pretty damn important. I might want to consider running extra Skitarii just to make better use of it.
-Assassins are a mixed bag. They are silver bullets against some lists, but they are overpriced against others.
-Hard to decide if Cawl with reroll all and Shroudpsalm is better than Stygies reroll 1s and minus to hit. Especially since you can choose from the four good Canticles each round.
This message was edited 9 times. Last update was at 2019/07/29 07:27:54
2019/07/28 10:22:20
Subject: Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
Loved your report Suzuteo and we are all sad for the news of Matt. Really sad. He was coming to Etc and i was really hoping to meet him as you said was an inspiration for me as well back in 7th.
As for your list i like it but i have began to consider more mobile options for my new lists.
As you said i see the new tanks are really good ( though i have none) but i was sure you missed the point of good firepower. I was wondering how would your list perform vs knights if you faced them or vehicles in general. And a strong issue is that your vehicles dont got that -1 stygies on them.
I have now decided to switch of Cawl and manage to play stygies and mixed with smaller more versatile units since the big issue remains for ad mech. YOu need a lot of cp to operate any list properly and effectively. While bs 3+ rr1 is not so bad while not having cp to feed Robots draghoons assasins etc reduce their effectivenss dramatially. so i ll be looking to utilise Plans with more smart ways to use cp.
thats my idea and i will build on it more in September.
2019/07/28 15:55:36
Subject: Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
@Ideasweasel
Yes. I also am thinking a Drill, possibly with Fulgurites.
@Yoda79
Yeah, I faced the most extreme sort of Knight list this time around. The sort I used to bring 4 Las Striders and a Krast Crusader for. Except last time, I did not face any Knights.
This time, I came ready for Tau and Eldar aircraft. Faced an Eldar and it was close. But no Tau.
2019/07/28 18:54:41
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
Before I begin, I would like to say that this event was being held in memory of Geoff Robinson, who was a hometown hero that was, at one point, one of the top AdMech pilots (before Custodes stole him from us). I personally began playing AdMech in 7E because of some of his battle reports. We had a moment of silence for him before unveiling the Helm of the Custodes trophy. Some grown men cried. Very sobering.
My list:
Spoiler:
Mars Spearhead Detachment - 1187 Cybernetica Cohort (-1 CP)
HQ - 190 1x Belisarius Cawl, Warlord
Heavy Support - 997 4x Kastelan Robot - 12x Heavy Phosphor Blaster
1x Skorpius Disintegrator - Belleros Energy Cannon
1x Skorpius Disintegrator - Belleros Energy Cannon
1x Skorpius Disintegrator - Belleros Energy Cannon
1x Onager Dunecrawler - Icarus Array, Cognis Heavy Stubber
1x Onager Dunecrawler - Icarus Array, Cognis Heavy Stubber
His Secondaries:
Gangbusters
Big Game Hunter
Butcher's Bill
My Secondaries:
Headhunter
Big Game Hunter
Old School
He deployed his Prisms and Spinners in the far back out of LOS and range. His Hemlocks and Venoms were aggressively positioned.
Hid my Grators, Crawlers, and Kastelans out of LOS. Wanted to force the Eldar to come forward. My Dragoons were on my extreme left. I picked Vindicare to snipe the numerous characters that he has brought.
Round 1
His Turn
I aggressively infiltrated my Dragoons toward his line to threaten his Spinners and Prisms. He redeploys his characters much further up than anticipated. Venoms and Harlequins moved into the center of the board. Eldar dumped everything into my Dragoons, killing them. Graia denied Twilight Pathways, preventing his Solitaire from getting in charge range of my Cawl. He finishes up by clearly enough screen to target and kill my Vindicare.
My Turn
My Crawlers, Grators, and Robots come out of hiding and open up. All but one Venom is dead. My Grators also are close enough to kill the stalled Solitaire hiding in the ruins in the center. My Enginseer moves in to claim it. On my right, my infantry Advance to claim the third objective.
4-2
Round 2
His Turn
He dives both of his Hemlocks into my deployment in an attempt to kill my Robots. Graia denied Jinx. Fire Prisms in almost kill a Crawler. Hemlocks and Spinners kill two Robots. While I am occupied, his tanks move on his right to grab his far objective. He kills the Rangers on the third objective an send an HQ to grab it for the bonus point.
My Turn
My Robots and Crawlers pour into the Hemlocks, killing both. My Grators finish off the last Venom and Shadowseer. I reclaim one objective, but he still has three of the five.
7-5
Round 3
His Turn
He repeats his prior feat, scoring the bonus point. Kills a Crawler, two units of Skitarii, and damages a Grator.
My Turn
I move my infantry toward the center and my Grators to my left. My focused fire kills two units of infantry to tie up the kills. I kill the enemy warlord as well. I tie up the objective count.
9-9
Round 4
His Turn
His tanks take out my Crawlers. He moved more tanks onto objectives and quickly ended his turn.
My Turn
This is where things get weird. We started using chess clocks because deployment took longer than expected. I had fallen under 5 minutes (my opponent had 6), and he insisted that I had to skip this turn and the next. I brought a TO over, and he pointed out that BOTH players put dice down when BOTH are under 5 minutes. I was to play my time.
However, I was really flustered and totally forgot my plans. I don't remember what happened, but I really messed up my shooting priority really badly, resulting in me being unable to kill a key unit. Did not get kill more or a third BGH like I should have. My opponent remarked that this was the only mistake that I made this game. (He thought up until this point that I was going to win by 1-2 points because my play was so strong up until this point.)
12-13
Deployment Map: Vanguard
His Secondaries
Gangbusters 4/4
Big Game Hunter 2/4
Butcher's Bill 4/4
My Secondaries
Headhunter 4/4
Big Game Hunter 2/4
Old School 3/4
21-23 LOSS
This game showed just how effective a combination Robots, Grators, and Crawlers are together. They are all incredibly efficient and give AdMech a lot of shooting flexibility.
Honestly, I was very pissed by the outcome of this game, but now it's sort of just a disappointment.
Game 2 - Guard
Spoiler:
Deployment Map: Vanguard
His Secondaries
Gangbusters
Big Game Hunter
Engineers
My Secondaries
Reaper
Butcher's Bill
Engineers
I chose to go deploy and go second. He deployed his tanks in the rear and his transports and Knight along the line. He takes Callidus.
I placed my Dragoons on my extreme left again and hid all of my units behind the largest LOS blocking terrain that I could find. I focused on protecting the Grators and Robots because they were going to decide the battle. Seeing the orientation of the Vulture, I knew he intended to bring it to my right, so I had my Crawlers waiting there. (A lot of people inadvertently point their models in the direction that they intend to move. When important, I mix it up to throw people off.) I take Eversor.
Round 1
His Turn
I push my Dragoons up, taking care to keep 12" outside his Vanquisher's Grinding Advance range. He uses the stratagem to move up and shoot anyway. He deals 5 mortal wounds to himself and only 4 to a Dragoon. Lol. He moves up one Taurox to tarpit my Dragoons. I spend 2 CP to Doctrina and kill it, consolidating toward his Vanquisher, which is now 9" away.
In the center, he moves a bunch of infantry and transports toward the center objective. His tanks shoot an Crawler, damaging it. Mortars thin one of my Skitarii units.
His Vulture flanks me on my right as expected. He guns down a squad of Skitarii and further damages my Crawler.
My Turn
I move my Dragoons to just outside 1" of the Vanquisher and multicharge it and the second Taurox. I combat slide further left, kill the Vanquisher, and leave the Taurox with one wound.
Crawlers destroy the Vulture; one got a 6 damage missile through. Grators kill all but one of his Mortars. They also damage a Chimera with missiles and gun down 2 squads of Guardsmen too. It was brutal.
At this point, I realized that my Robots were not important for winning this game, so I decided to Queen Sacrifice them. Run straight into the open and root them. The presence of the transports made things complicated. I cannot shoot them or they'd disembark troops and capture the center objective. So I shoot the Knight and bring it down to its second profile.
I send one squad to capture the center objective, since I outnumber the transport there.
4-2
Round 2
His Turn
He disembarks his troops and pours them into the center. He charges my Skitarii. He also Deep Strikes his Callidus to attempt to assassinate my Enginseers. I heroically intervene. He doesn't kill a single Skitarii, and with Mask, my Skitarii I end up killing two of his Guardsman. My Enginseer lands a Servo-Arm and brings his Callidus down to 1.
He shoots most of his vehicles into my Robots. He then moves his Chimera and Knight up to my Robots and locks them in combat; he kills two in fighting. Lesser AdMech players may panic, but the way I saw it, I just used 440 points that won't win me the game to lock up a thousand points of shooting. I pull the front two and he consolidates his Knight further into them.
My Turn
My tanks begin to move left, as the Knight is now trapped in CC between his Chimera and my Robots. Crawlers turn their guns on the center infantry and kill one squad and what remains of a second. Grators pound the Engineer infantry in the far left building, killing one squad.
Another unit of Skitarii comes out of cover go into the center and takes the objective. Enginseers finish off the Callidus and my Manipulus the Guardsmen in CC with my Skitarii.
Dragoons continue their rampage on the left and take HIS objective. Eversor deep strikes and fails his charge. Fortunately, I outnumbered the surviving Mortar team three to one with Dragoons.
8-4
Round 3
His Turn
He falls back with his Knight and shoots to kill my Skitarii in the center with help from disembarked Guardsmen. His Chimera falls back to try to block my Skitarii. His Knight then charges back in to kill the remaining Robot.
On my left, his Tank Commander kills one of my Dragoons.
My Turn
Tanks continue to flank left. I blow up the last Chimera. I gun down all of the remaining Guardsmen in the center. My Dragoons and Eversor kill the Mortar. I grab all three objectives
13-5
Round 4
His Turn
His Knight finally catches up with the tanks. He kills a Crawler.
My Turn
I just kill a Company Commander and capture all three objectives.
17-6
His Secondaries
Gangbusters 4/4
Big Game Hunter 2/4
Engineers 1/4
My Secondaries
Reaper 4/4
Butcher's Bill 4/4
Engineers 3/4
28-13 WIN
Game 3 - Quad Knights
Spoiler:
Deployment Map: Spearhead
His Secondaries
Gangbusters
Big Game Hunter
Headhunter
My Secondaries
Old School
Titan Slayer
King Slayer
Deployment
He dropped a the Taranis Gallant and Krast Crusader on my left. He dropped both Taranis Crusaders on my right.
I deploy everything clustered behind the big ruin in the center, intending to launch sacrificial grabs. I expect to go second, but who knows?
Anyhow, I actually made a huge mistake here. I deployed all of my Stygies infantry first to exhaust his drops and get free deploy. BUT I FORGOT TO INFILTRATE ONE. This becomes a huge problem in Round 1.
I take Vindicare and place him in the high tower in the center.
Round 1
His Turn
He spreads his shots everywhere, dealing a bit of damage. Kills one unit of Skitarii. Nothing to write about.
His Gallant advances to within 8" of my hastily reassembled line. This is where my infiltrating Rangers would have been useful. 1 CP and 35 points to deny a first turn move to a Gallant? Yes please. Anyhow he fails, rolling 2 and 1. His reroll gets him a 6 though. And he plows into my Dragoons. This is okay, I thought. He'll kill 2-3 of them. Nope. He kills all 5 then piles into my Skitarii.
My Turn
I root and fire 4 Robots of dakka into the Gallant. By some unholy magicks, I end up only dealing 8 wounds to him. At this point, I panic. I pour absolutely everything into the Gallant. Every Belleros Energy Cannon, Solar Atomizer, Icarus Array, Heavy Stubber, Galvanic Rifle, and Laspistol. Even Turbo Penetrator Round. He is down to 1 wound. I am desperate. I charge EVERYTHING into him. And against all odds, one of my Enginseers manages to axe him in his Achilles Heel and kill him. I quickly consolidate into the space left behind by the Gallant. He tries to get back up... and succeeds with 3 wounds. Ughhh. At least my Robots are outside of charge danger now.
TO rules that the kill does not count for Old School or a kill in general if your Taranis stratagem is successful. Sigh.
I sacrifice some Skitarii to hold more.
2-3
Round 2
His Turn
More spread fire as his Knights set up around the center objectives. One Crawler goes down. His Gallant bulldozes a unit of Skitarii.
My Turn
I weaken the Gallant with a Grator then kill it for 1 CP using my Vindicare's Turbo Penetrator Round.
My Robots dump fire into the Krast. This one is more fortuitous, bringing it down to its bottom wound table. I pour everything else into it, killing it.
I sacrifice some Skitarii to attempt to hold more. He heroically intervenes into my gamble and I end up only denying it.
4-6
Round 3
His Turn
His Crusaders charge into my right flank screen and stomp some Skitarii. He finishes a Grato, brings another to its bottom wound table, and kills two Robots.
My Turn
I begin to shift my line to the left. I kill one of his Skitarii units and split my two surviving Robots to damage his warlord and other Knight a bit more.
6-9
Round 4
His Turn
His Crusaders kill a Robot, as well as my last Grator and Crawler.
My Turn
I complete my shift left. I also prepare my last two units of Skitarii for the last round. I manage to kill more because I pasted two of his Skitarii units.
9-12
Round 5
His Turn
He kills Cawl and a unit of Skitarii. He manages to hide his last Enginseer from my Vindicare.
My Turn
I just hold more.
11-15
His Secondaries
Gangbusters 4/4
Big Game Hunter 4/4
Headhunter 4/4
My Secondaries
Old School 0/4
Titan Slayer 4/4
King Slayer 3/4
18-27 LOSS
Although this was a tough matchup, in my opinion, I played poorly overall this game. I picked Old School mostly because I did not know what else to pick, which was dumb; should have done Ground Control or Engineers instead. My deployment was also very sloppy. I failed to tarpit the Gallant and paid for it with my Dragoons. This list lacks S8+ weapons, so this was a huge loss. The fact that my opponent rolled hot his first round did not help matters. I fell behind and stayed behind.
Take-aways:
-Grators are ridiculously good. They are cheap, fast, tough, and pack a punch. They fill a vital non-LOS gap between Robots and Las Striders.
-Grators are a good screen, but in many matchups, keeping them safe is rather important. Dragoons end up taking up the slack, and they're also quite sacrificial.
-Crawlers are situationally good. Honestly, against non-flying, they don't actually do too much. They also hurt in the play clock.
-Robots are a known quantity. I think 4x is fine for most instances. 3x if you just need an anti-infantry unit.
-I really wish I had Las Striders in this list. AdMech has not trouble hitting, but wounding is a problem. The lack of S8+ shooting really makes you feel powerless against Knights.
-I found myself regretting having a Graia Enginseer. Having that extra heal 1 wound is nice, actually.
-Stygies infiltration is pretty damn important. I might want to consider running extra Skitarii just to make better use of it.
-Assassins are a mixed bag. They are silver bullets against some lists, but they are overpriced against others.
-Hard to decide if Cawl with reroll all and Shroudpsalm is better than Stygies reroll 1s and minus to hit. Especially since you can choose from the four good Canticles each round.
I'd say that, with the penalties to hit being readily available, having Cawl is probably smarter.
CaptainStabby wrote: If Tyberos falls and needs to catch himself it's because the ground needed killing.
jy2 wrote: BTW, I can't wait to run Double-D-thirsters! Man, just thinking about it gets me Khorney.
vipoid wrote: Indeed - what sort of bastard would want to use their codex?
MarsNZ wrote: ITT: SoB players upset that they're receiving the same condescending treatment that they've doled out in every CSM thread ever.
2019/07/28 20:08:50
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
I finally got a couple of games in with some Hoplites in a Dunerider. They're very good for screening as well as clearing+holding objectives.
Hoplites are very good at thinning out enemy melee, even on defense; I had the remains of a unit get charged by a mobbed up squad of 40 boyz dish-out 10 MW's just from the Mag-shields. This could have been prevented by rolling each attack one at a time until my Hoplites died, but no ork player has time for that.
I had low expectations for the Duneriders' damage output and was pleasantly surprised as they clear a decent amount of infantry, letting me thin out objective holders that thought they were safe; using the Cognis Overwatch strat came in useful against Orks. Also great for movement and LOS blocking.
All in all, 2 units of Hoplites in Duneriders give me the midfield control I was looking for.
@Suzuteo: if you take out Cawl, what's your plan for dealing with Plaguebearers?
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/07/29 00:29:10
2019/07/28 22:13:08
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
OK so this is a report from a local tourney in Ireland I went to, local meta of course and while there was some ETC list from guys that do play in big tournaments but mostly it was a relaxed affair. I'm mainly reporting this as I wanted to acknowlege how some of the tips from this thread has really helped my game. I won 1 out of 5 and ran the following so while not excatly great or even good as a casual player needing practise I though I would share, My admech mono faction,list was as follows:
Brief game summary of the 2 days:
First game was, frontline assualt deployment, againt 3 knights and the rust 17, one of the knights was a valient, I killed one iknight in turn two, he got back up and then died it turn 3, the valient died turn 4 after just taking stuff and blew up doing damage as it was in my army but his rusty 17 held his objectives and helped the loss
Second game, hammer and avil deployment, I won that against a tau list with 3 Riptides and two devilfish(? they just had the gun drones and missles) My weight of fire just stripped away the drones and then killed twoof the rip tides and I scored well
Thrid game,dawn of war deployment, against guard with mortars and Basilisks, now I know what you are talking about with indirect shooting, we only managed two turns and both our unfimilarity with ETC missions kinda messed up scroing, I took the loss but to be fair we were both at fault and we have a lot of units
Forth game ,search and destroy deployment, against 4 knights plus cultist, I killed two in three turns and then struggles to kill the last two, his warlord knight was on 1 wound and another on 4 at the end of the game plus my objective cards don't like me so that was a loss
Fifth,spearhead assualt, was againt Eldar and halequins, I went first and by turn two- had destryoed his transports and done a lot of damage, he got 5 bikes with in a 6" charge and got a 4 and I then erased them unfortunatly I got 2 cards that where roll for objective number and both where in his deployment so it ended 18-16 to him, I think just some better cards and that would have been a second win.
Lessons leared is that as Suzuteo has said repeatly, LasBallistarii are beasts, with Cawl nearby and the +2 strat they are accurate beyond belief and had I rolled a bit better they can wipe out nearly anything they shoot at, need to try to get more bought and built. Dragoons didn't see as much combat as normal but an entire tau list had to use a turn to kill a unit of four so they are still worth the points.
Grav Destroyers actually became a bit of rising star in that coupled with the vigilus +1 strat and cawl they almost deleted a knight in one vollety with wrath of mars, the breachers also did a lot of damage as ther become d6 to vehicles so thier surprise lascannons kinda
for the Graia detachement I only really used the strat twice out of the whole tourney and the fnp never really worked.
I need a deepstrike, I think I'll cut the Griaia detacment and add an 7 man squad of felcette infiltrators, while that does eat into my cp I'm more likely to save wom for them than the grav destroyers, taking on Yoda79 and Suzuteos advice I tried to keep things focused, there was threats in my force but not just the one, there was the dragoons, the destroyers and they were boostable when needed, losing graia would hurt a little in CP but I think the deepstrike would help with board precence and I can add either and extra lasballistarii(need to buy it first) or dragoon for distraction/combat purposes. The breachers and the destroyers combined with the specialist detachment are really tough to kill and I don;t think anyone managed to kill all the squads on any game also Breachers can fight well in melee (dice rolls of course not withstanding).
Hope you liked my ramble and cheers for the advise, I'm not super competitive but I do read the thread to at least try to go for a decent build.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2019/07/28 22:18:44
2500+ pts of Ad Mech
2000+ pts of Deathwatch
2000+ pts of Skaven
2019/07/28 22:28:46
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
@Agamembar: Good write-up. Just so you know, your list breaks 'rule of 3' with the Enginseers. I wouldn't cut the Graia detachment yet, your first two games happened to be against armies that don't have psykers. Wait until you play against more eldar or run up against tsons before cutting them.
2019/07/28 23:06:37
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
the_Grak wrote: @Agamembar: Good write-up. Just so you know, your list breaks 'rule of 3' with the Enginseers. I wouldn't cut the Graia detachment yet, your first two games happened to be against armies that don't have psykers. Wait until you play against more eldar or run up against tsons before cutting them.
It does? crap, your right thats only battleline/troops isn't, hmm I need to free up some points for a domius then I gueess to only have 3 enginseers in the list, I didn't event think of that as thier infantry so I though that was ok but thier not troops. thanks for the advice, I guess I can cut one destroyer to free up the dominus points, now I just need to decide which detachment either stygies or graia to put him in. dammit I didn't even release, thats what I get for following battlescribe blindly. Well lucky I was 35 of of 39 with 4 drop outs haha Yeah looking back one destroyer less and a dominus in the stygies detachment would have ended the same way really, the enginseers never really did much other than deny deepstrike (which was not a concern in most games anyay) or give kill points to the enemy... very annoyed that I did that but the To or list checkers didn't pull me up on it either not that that is an excuse.
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2019/07/28 23:31:53
2500+ pts of Ad Mech
2000+ pts of Deathwatch
2000+ pts of Skaven
2019/07/29 00:29:13
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
If you free up points I’d think they should go for a Manipulus - or am I missing the point of a Dominus and Cawl with Static Psalm Code in one detachment? To me that seems like the Dominus adds very little for his points that cawl can’t already give to most of an army. Manipulus on the other hand lets you out-range several of the more deadly gunline rivals you might face.
Hate to pester, but does anyone have advice for steering my list (quoted in the first post on this page)? I’ve not run this kind of mixed threat list and am wanting to get the most of my few pre-tourney practice games, so any basic gameplan or piloting pointers wpuld be welcome!
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/07/29 00:33:50
2019/07/29 00:31:07
Subject: Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
Troops and Dedicated Transports (which is the dunerider) are able to bypass that rule but everything else is limited to 3.
Thats why a lot of units can be taken in squads of 3, but they become their own thing once deployed. That was the first odd thing i noticed about admech when i started collecting, all 3 our vehicle squads DONT split up on deployment.
An ork with an idea tends to end with a bang.
14000pts Big 'n Bad Orkz
6000pts Admech/Knights
7500pts Necron Goldboys
2019/07/29 00:53:33
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
Pomguo wrote: If you free up points I’d think they should go for a Manipulus - or am I missing the point of a Dominus and Cawl with Static Psalm Code in one detachment? To me that seems like the Dominus adds very little for his points that cawl can’t already give to most of an army. Manipulus on the other hand lets you out-range several of the more deadly gunline rivals you might face.
Hate to pester, but does anyone have advice for steering my list (quoted in the first post on this page)? I’ve not run this kind of mixed threat list and am wanting to get the most of my few pre-tourney practice games, so any basic gameplan or piloting pointers wpuld be welcome!
Yeah thats the thing if the maniplus can stand infor the diomius then hes just the better choice for that weapon boost but they goat realy speciofic for that vigilus detahcment... also I need to buy one haha or convert one up/
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Pomguo wrote: If you free up points I’d think they should go for a Manipulus - or am I missing the point of a Dominus and Cawl with Static Psalm Code in one detachment? To me that seems like the Dominus adds very little for his points that cawl can’t already give to most of an army. Manipulus on the other hand lets you out-range several of the more deadly gunline rivals you might face.
Hate to pester, but does anyone have advice for steering my list (quoted in the first post on this page)? I’ve not run this kind of mixed threat list and am wanting to get the most of my few pre-tourney practice games, so any basic gameplan or piloting pointers wpuld be welcome!
Hi Pomguo, casual advice incoming but your were asking and I felt I stole your riepiles, anyway:
Your running plasma as stugies, the do better in mars as they can re-roll those ovbercharge 1's but wit ryza your getting that +1 to wound and +1 damage so that maybe a desicison on that one, also no cawl so while you can boost to hitting on 3's you'll only re-roll on 1's
Terrible trourney play speaking with a grain of salt I think if your running stuff that can hit on 4 it makes sense to have cawl, re-rolls beat plus to hiit, keep the drill stygies for obvious reasos, and maybe even depending oin the mission inflirate the corpisstraii too and the drill with disco priests. The jazz hand priests can be threating with 6" move and 12" exploding shoots but if you 2nd the hit them or use thema screening
Sorry thread, I've had multiple drinks so poor spelling
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/07/29 01:11:24
2500+ pts of Ad Mech
2000+ pts of Deathwatch
2000+ pts of Skaven
2019/07/29 01:14:04
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
Pomguo wrote: If you free up points I’d think they should go for a Manipulus - or am I missing the point of a Dominus and Cawl with Static Psalm Code in one detachment? To me that seems like the Dominus adds very little for his points that cawl can’t already give to most of an army. Manipulus on the other hand lets you out-range several of the more deadly gunline rivals you might face.
Hate to pester, but does anyone have advice for steering my list (quoted in the first post on this page)? I’ve not run this kind of mixed threat list and am wanting to get the most of my few pre-tourney practice games, so any basic gameplan or piloting pointers wpuld be welcome!
If your opponent goes first, you'll want to deploy transports so that their contents can appropriately respond in your turn. Put the transports somewhere your opponent isn't likely to blow them up, and where your priests will be able to counter-charge. Your Fulgurites are going to want to eliminate a unit ASAP, so try to predict where a potential victim is going to be. Also, you can place the transports in a manner that blocks 1st turn charges. I've been Stygies infiltrating my transports every game to make sure they go where they're needed.
Against most armies that are getting first turn, I put Dragoons where they are perceived as the highest threat. I try to entice my opponent into concentrating fire on them but I also try to limit their LOS enough so they have to move heavy weapons to get a shot. Sometimes I'll have to deploy them to screen or counter-charge, though.
Unless you have a plan in mind, you might consider trading the Arc Rifles on your Rangers for a Plasma in your barebones Vanguard squad.
If you weren't limited to one <Forge World> I'd suggest moving stuff around to get a min-sized Graia Battalion.
2019/07/29 04:28:45
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
Game 1 was Adeptus Custodes with 3 Caladius, Shield Captain, Trajan, Icon Dude, 4 Bikers, and 3 units of 3 Terminators. I used the 4 transports to create some space against the CC elements of his list. And over 4 turns proceeded to table him. 3 Caladius just isn't enough to carry an opponent against all the regular firepower in the list.
Game 2 was against a space wolf player that rolls hot. This was just an exercise in pulling the CC elements out of buildings by sacrificing my robots. Once they were in the open and engaged the robots a combination of hopilites hitting in CC and then breaking away for shooting to finish them off.
Game 3 was against 3 riptide and 3 broadside Tau. First turn keeping the range open I lost a transport and a robot and 4 wounds off another. Hitting back I dropped most his drones, one riptide, 11/13 wounds on another riptide and 3 5-man fire warrior squads. Tunr 2 saw everything but a commander, 3 broadsides and 2 other characters dead and him conceding.
Overall the transports and their ability to provide depth and reach for my army and give my guns more time meant I never felt out of control of the game. I think the transports might actually be a bigger deal than the tanks. Though the tanks are amazing the transports were key to controlling the game. I think I am happy with my starting point for my army with the new list. Finished 1st by a point undefeated.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/07/29 04:30:22
Best Painted (2015 Adepticon 40k Champs)
They Shall Know Fear - Adepticon 40k TT Champion (2012 & 2013) & 40k TT Best Sport (2014), 40k TT Best Tactician (2015 & 2016)
2019/07/29 05:58:59
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
@Agamember thanks! I’m stuck with mono-FW for this event so the choice did come down to Cawl or this mixed Stygies list. I went with the latter in the end (and dropped the robots) because I’ve had real trouble playing Cawl lists well - I usually end up stuck castling somewhere and give uo way too many objectives all game, while still not killing enough fast enough. Thankfully we have a fairly low knights meta (or at least did at the last tourney) so hopefully it won’t be too bad to lack Cawl with WoM robots.
@the_Grak Thanks a lot for the focused and specific advice! Really helpful. As for the Arcs’ plan, mainly I like Arcs because I find the regular Galvanic rifles seem to do nothing every game but the Arcs have taken final wounds off flyers and light vehicles pretty frequently. So where I can i try to swap as many Galvanics for Arcs as i can. Meanwhile Vanguard regular guns do great even wounding on 6s in some matchups due to weight of fire (but especially against stuff like Orks that don’t have a great save). I was actually debating ditching another plasma for 3 arcs haha. But that might be based too much on my experiences and not enough on the actual math, so I’ll try to practice both loadouts and see which I prefer. Thanks again!
2019/07/29 07:19:14
Subject: Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
My Secondaries
Gangbusters
Butcher's Bill
Engineers
FINALLY, I run into one of the dozen Tau players at the tourney.
This is my third time at the same table, so I had massive familiarity with the terrain. He deployed his Devilfish, Crisis suits, and Commanders, aggressively, intending to seize the centerline of objectives. I deploy defensively in my deployment zone, with multiple layers of defense. I push the Dragoons into the center to force him to shoot them.
Round 1
His Turn
As expected, his army uses Mont'ka and advances his entire army into the center. He pours fire into my Dragoons, killing all but one, and the lead Grator, killing it. He also wounds some of my Skitarii and my Manipulus with snipers.
My Turn
I root and shoot Robots, killing most of his Crisis teams and most of his Shield Drones. I thin out even more Drones with Stubbers and try to drop Mortars on the Crisis Suits, finishing them off. The Crawlers pour into a transport, damaging it.
3-3
Round 2
His Turn
He blows a gap in my defenses and smuggles a Coldstar Commander in. He kills an Enginseer and ties up my Robots. I heroically intervene with the other Enginseer, who scores an axe hit on him. He also shreds a bunch of infantry, and his transports also charge and tie up various vehicles.
My Turn
I fall back with all of my CCed vehicles. I move my Cawl and Manipulus into the fight. They murder the Coldstar with their tentacles and axes. I gun down infantry and secure the objective with the lone survivor of my Skitarii unit. My surviving Skitarii manage to charge a unit of Breachers, then combat slide to tie up a vehicle as well.
My Dragoon charges and kills his Ethereal. My Callidus deep strikes behind the objective that I placed, assassinates the Marksman, and takes it for bonus points.
8-5
Round 3
His Turn
He disembarks his Breachers, and they kill a lot of my Skitarii. His transports go in for the charge. I destroy the one my Crawlers had been focusing on in OW. His second transport ties up my Robots and a Grator. He brings another one down to the last wound table.
He kills my last Dragoon. He almost kills my Callidus, leaving her at one wound.
13-7
My Turn
I fall back with the vehicles, again. I clear his infantry and secure the objective.
Round 4 We were out of time, having spent too many minutes trying to carefully position everything to prevent or enable charges. We had agreed to do an even split of time earlier for points (tourney has a four round minimum), so we both did nothing this round.
On a side note, I sort of regret my phrasing of this resolution to my opponent. When we were told that we each had 10 minutes to finish our turns, we were in the middle of my opponent's turn. I told him that I did not want a zero for not finishing four rounds, so we should agree to an even split here on out for score. So he would get an additional ten minutes, and I would finish my entire turn in ten minutes. He agreed. But I think he thought I meant that we would evenly split the SCORE in round four rather than the time remaining between us in round three. It did not make a difference, but I don't think that it would have been legal, so this is a good reminder to everyone that when this sort of thing happens, you should take an extra moment to be clear.
16-8
His Secondaries
Big Game Hunter 2/4
Headhunter 1/4
Recon 4/4
My Secondaries
Gangbusters 4/4
Butcher's Bill 3/4
Engineers 3/4
26-15 WIN
Game 5 - Tau'nar
Spoiler:
For reasons I am not willing to air in a public forum, this was the least fun game of 40K that I have ever played and thus will not write a report for it. But in spite of the frustrations, I want to be positive. So I will say that these are easily the most beautifully painted Tau models that I have ever seen.
Take-aways:
-I really, really, really miss my Las Striders. Whether it's shooting down a flyer a turn with BS3 rerolling Lascannons, out-punching tanks from my deployment, or using Dunestriders+Manipulus to advance 12"+2D6 up to a character's face and then shooting it with Lascannons that hit on 4+. Curse the hype for causing me to stray from what I know works.
-I am beginning to feel that I need both the Grators and the Transports. But that price tag is no joke. Maybe Drills with Plasma Vanguard or Fulgurites?
-This list is really expensive in terms of the clock. My previous list had a Knight Crusader with 4 Robots and 4 Las Striders. Easily managed to get four rounds done in 2.5 hours. This list? Man, there are a lot of units to move and weapons to shoot.
@Hulksmash
Very nice. I too am thinking that AdMech needs more ways to project power. If there is anything that this tournament has taught me, it's that we can't just sit in our deployment and shoot anymore. Too many extremes for us to handle with that sort of dominant strategy; no list can do well against hordes, Knights, aircraft, and battlesuits all at once. Being able to better play the board will be important.
I am worried that without high strength shooting, extreme matchups like Knights will be very difficult. Almost impossible.
@the_Grak
Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to reroll everything to kill stuff. Haha. But I actually think the biggest improvement for Cawl is the consistent Shroudpsalm.
@Agamembar, MrMoustaffa
Yeah, as I mentioned above, I totally regret no taking them this time. They have almost 100% hit rate, wound everything on 3 or better, and just force invulnerable saves. If they fail, you D6 damage them. Use the command reroll to secure kills.
On top of this, they are FAST. You can grab objectives and provide 2+ fire support without rerolls. You can run up to characters and snipe them at point blank. You can use them as a wall (Cognis Overwatch for 3+ on a full unit of 4 instantly kills most lone attackers).
This message was edited 6 times. Last update was at 2019/07/29 09:25:42
2019/07/29 10:25:54
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
Unfun and Tau go together like bangers and mash. Whether playing them or playing against them, their games seem to actively sap the fun out for me. I do love the Tuna model though.
Lastriders are amazing. Wish I had any! I used to proxy dragoons but my scene after I moved cities is no longer cool with that in casual games. And I need a better storage+transport solution if I am to buy any more chickens. I think Ferrumite Newtanks could help compensate but I feel like I want every Newtank doing mortars instead. If only they could squadron.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/07/29 10:30:23
2019/07/29 10:56:16
Subject: Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
It's okay. We're one army that can make things very unfun for Tau. Normal ones anyway. My last opponent brought a Tau'nar (the Tau equivalent of a Warhound, valued at 1200 points or so), a Sky Ray, 15 Breachers, 2 Markers, and 48 Shield Drones or something. He basically just hid everything in ruins next to the Tau'nar and deleted things. Mortars and the Assassin were the only things that kept me in the game. Anyhow, while this was a challenging matchup for me, it was honestly not what made it unfun. Unfortunately, player conduct had more to do with it. I honestly had never felt so put upon before. But I'd like to think my opponent is a good guy, and we both perhaps were having an off game. I'll just leave it at that.
The Mortar tanks are irreplaceable in my opinion. I feel just about every competitive AdMech list I will be making in the future will feature at least two.
2019/07/29 18:32:41
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
@Suzuteo: I wasn't being rhetorical. I'm genuinely interested in how to deal with plaguebearers without Cawl. Seems like his rerolls are the best answer but I don't run Mars.
I'm headed to TSHFT and I still haven't played against Chaos this edition so if anyone has tips, I could use them.
2019/07/29 20:55:03
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
the_Grak wrote: @Suzuteo: I wasn't being rhetorical. I'm genuinely interested in how to deal with plaguebearers without Cawl. Seems like his rerolls are the best answer but I don't run Mars.
I'm headed to TSHFT and I still haven't played against Chaos this edition so if anyone has tips, I could use them.
I have, but not competativly. however multidamage weapons are fairly effective due to doubling difficulty of FNP saves. e.g. Belleros Mortar, Ironstrider Autocannons, Taser Lances and even Vanguard due to 6's to wound for 2D. Heavy Stubbers and Phosphor blasters would be a good backup. probably skitarii over Cult Mech due to Doctrinas & 3+ to hit. Failing that Fulgerites probably are good with mortal wounds bypassing the ++ saves.
Chaos usually has less firepower than Marines, but you could probably expect them to hit hard in combat.
If up against Mortarion hope you get first turn and focus fire before he gets all of his psychic/stratagem buffs off.
Praise the Omnissiah
About 4k of .
Imperial Knights (Valiant, Warden & Armigers)
Some Misc. Imperium units etc. Assassins...
About 2k of
2019/07/29 20:57:10
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
the_Grak wrote: @Suzuteo: I wasn't being rhetorical. I'm genuinely interested in how to deal with plaguebearers without Cawl. Seems like his rerolls are the best answer but I don't run Mars.
I'm headed to TSHFT and I still haven't played against Chaos this edition so if anyone has tips, I could use them.
Oh. Both Dragoons and Fulgurites can kill a ton of them; I think something like 8-10 a turn? They are T4, 6+/5+++, with minus 1 to hit over 20 models, right?
Aside from that, you can use a Doctrina to overcome their minus to hit. Otherwise, you can tarpit them and deal with them later (which is what I usually do).
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/07/29 21:00:43
2019/07/29 21:58:54
Subject: Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
Plaguebearers have a 5++ which can be increased to a 4++ via warpsurge stratagem. And they can get an additional minus 1 via a psychic power.
But yeah plaguebearers ate not the scary thing, it's those characters hiding behind them.
2019/07/29 22:42:16
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
Whats your thoughs on drill loadout?
I personally like volkite a lot, but it doesnt even have the volkite rule, less range, about the same shots as the stormbolters. It has its +1 Strength and Damage going for it, but it also costs a lot more and is heavy, and you want to move with it.
2019/07/29 23:05:04
Subject: Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
Depends how much D2 you got in your list is the determining factor to me. After all, when we got Rangers and Vanguard, how much more anti-horde do you want?
CaptainStabby wrote: If Tyberos falls and needs to catch himself it's because the ground needed killing.
jy2 wrote: BTW, I can't wait to run Double-D-thirsters! Man, just thinking about it gets me Khorney.
vipoid wrote: Indeed - what sort of bastard would want to use their codex?
MarsNZ wrote: ITT: SoB players upset that they're receiving the same condescending treatment that they've doled out in every CSM thread ever.
2019/07/30 05:14:32
Subject: Re:Adeptus Mechanicus Tactica 3.0: Riding the Dunes
I usually feel like the extra points aren’t worth it for -1 to hit and +1 to wound, which seems to be the tradeoff you’re making most of the time. While it does have the extra damage, there aren’t too many T4 multi-wound units with bad enough saves that it reliably kills more than the storm bolters do for all those extra points.
An ork with an idea tends to end with a bang. 
14000pts Big 'n Bad Orkz
6000pts Admech/Knights
7500pts Necron Goldboys 
