Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey I play ultra marines and my buddy I play with always uses the avatar, I don’t have guilliman or marneus so I was thinking of using vanguard vets or a chapter champ with a captain I dunno if I should even try to use CC. Please someone help me

maybe not try to kill it in melee. agressors could work well.

Protrudingmanhole wrote:
Hey I play ultra marines and my buddy I play with always uses the avatar, I don’t have guilliman or marneus so I was thinking of using vanguard vets or a chapter champ with a captain I dunno if I should even try to use CC. Please someone help me

pew pew pew would be the way to go.

hellblasters, or aggressors, or other forms of dakka. but deffo pew pew the boy.

Kill everything around it.

The Avatar is expensive and relatively easy to kill. What units do you use that can't kill it?

Ok , I’ve killed him once using my primaries repulsor but it typically dies the turn after cause it’s suck a huge target, I’m trying to build an original marine army so maybe two razorbacks with twin assault cannons and a squad of devs. I don’t have any aggressors as of yet just cause I’m not a fan of the models themselves and that always plays a huge part into my armies

Wait for the avatar to get closer to you, then hit him with volumes of ranged attacks.

Odd question but is it actually worth trying to kill it (let alone including dedicated units for this task)?

I ask because his aura isn't amazing and he basically doesn't do anything else outside of combat.

Doesn't seem like something that would be a priority target.

If you are set on killing it, I'd consider weapons with profiles along these lines:

S7+ (so you're wounding on 3s), AP-2 (enough to negate its armour - anything more will be wasted due to the invulnerable save), Damage as high as possible.

(Apologies for being a little vague but I don't know exactly what weapons Marines have access to atm.)

Ideally you should be looking to take him down at range - since that's where he's weakest and least able to retaliate. However, since he's a character, this might not be possible - especially early on.

Melee would be the secondary option (probably with a lot of Power Fist or Thunder Hammer attacks), but I'd be really careful here because the Avatar has 5 attacks and hits incredibly hard. I believe there's even a Stratagem that can let it get back up after being killed the first time. The last thing you want is for it to survive (by whatever means) and then spend both your and your opponent's melee phases turning your squad to jam.

Shoot it with eliminators.

Have you tried shooting it until it dies?
If it's hiding behind units try using eliminators or snipers. Or just keep it locked in combat with a tarpit while you kill everything else. If you can't focus down the Avatar in a single turn, there's probably better targets for you to engage.

Can the Avatar do much damage or is it a distraction carnifex?

 Sim-Life wrote:
Can the Avatar do much damage or is it a distraction carnifex?

Not sure about this edition, but if its anything like earlier editions, it should be a beast in melee with a short ranged ranged attack that has a single shot a turn...and that's about it.

I shot a Vulcan Mega Bolter at one once. It didn’t live.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Can the Avatar do much damage or is it a distraction carnifex?

It's an expensive unit which excels in one tiny thing; killing larger things in close combat - and even then it doesn't do as well as your average Tyranid beastie. It benefits from almost zero stratagems, spells, etc. It's only strength is that its shooting attack and sword are the same, a melta gun which always rolls two dice for damage, picking the highest.

It has unimpressive armour, and is only kinda/sorta saved by a 5+ FNP. At 220 points he's more than a lot of much stronger characters while doing a lot less. As with most Avatars since they were nerfed around 3rd-4th, the key is actually lots of weaker shots...and not wasting lascannons and big things on it. The mediocre toughness, and 3+ basic save (with a 5+ invulnerable, and 5+ feel no pain) mean that heaps of bolters are a better choice than strong guns that may be blocked by the occasional invuln, etc.

 Elbows wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
Can the Avatar do much damage or is it a distraction carnifex?

It's an expensive unit which excels in one tiny thing; killing larger things in close combat - and even then it doesn't do as well as your average Tyranid beastie. It benefits from almost zero stratagems, spells, etc. It's only strength is that its shooting attack and sword are the same, a melta gun which always rolls two dice for damage, picking the highest.

It has unimpressive armour, and is only kinda/sorta saved by a 5+ FNP. At 220 points he's more than a lot of much stronger characters while doing a lot less. As with most Avatars since they were nerfed around 3rd-4th, the key is actually lots of weaker shots...and not wasting lascannons and big things on it. The mediocre toughness, and 3+ basic save (with a 5+ invulnerable, and 5+ feel no pain) mean that heaps of bolters are a better choice than strong guns that may be blocked by the occasional invuln, etc.

It has 2 stratagems one of which is locked to Biel-Tan. It also has the oh so useful buff aura of reroll charge and morale immunity.

It's alright at what it does and I love it but there's no world where I'd also call it good for the cost.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Can the Avatar do much damage or is it a distraction carnifex?

basically its just a distraction carnifex. i run em sometimes. they are ok and can kill down squads and vehicles but I want the opponent concentrating on it instead of the actual army.

GW have laid out in excruciating detail over the last 10+ years how to kill an avatar, it kind of became a sport.

Your best bet is to hire Matt ward to start with...


Jokes aside, surely a squad of 2damage bolter intercessors will do the job quick?

I can usually kill it by the end of the game and typically I do have to hole it back with lesser troops whilst I pick away at the rest of the army, I’m just curious if there’s a super quick way other than just fire everything at it. I mostly want it outta the game early just to really stick it to my opponent. I’ve got a pretty good CC side of my army and then vehicles and devs for range. Gunna try sticking a squad of scout snipers in just to get some quick shots off on it early and then get razor backs within range for my combat squads to dump a bunch of Bolter fire into him. I just don’t have a super competitive list is all

At the risk of point out an over used unit, I'd think a Smash Captain would make short work of an Avatar. How many S8 D3 hits can the Avatar survive via it's Invulnerable Save and FNP?

All depends on what's in your list, but I doubt Ultramarines in particular are going to kill it in melee.

Maybe dump tons of thunderfire battery fire on him? Or any long-ranged fire that's going to force a lot of saves.

Be it a grot, a Titan, or anything in-between, my go to answer is: SHOOT IT!

And then shoot it some more.

Repeat as necessary until it's dead.

Yeah… He dies to shooting easily. Agressors and hellblasters would shred him..

You could shoot the screen and feed him a unit of intercessors to bait him out if hes being aggressive then fall back and blast him with whatever. .
He only has 5 atatcks... So might have to transhuman with a 5 man combat squad but I doubt it would be needed.

And if hes holding him back just shoot the rest of the army.

 Elbows wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
Can the Avatar do much damage or is it a distraction carnifex?

It's an expensive unit which excels in one tiny thing; killing larger things in close combat - and even then it doesn't do as well as your average Tyranid beastie.

I will say as a Tyranid and Eldar player, the Avatar CC is way better than most Tyranid monsters, barring Swarmlord and OOE. It's hitting at str 8, ap -4 and 2d6 pick highest is waaaaay better than most nid monsters.

Avatar is just obscenely overpriced. Make it like, 160 and it'd be a nice throw away distraction carnifex that is fairly self sufficient with reroll charge aura

 Elbows wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
Can the Avatar do much damage or is it a distraction carnifex?

It's an expensive unit which excels in one tiny thing; killing larger things in close combat - and even then it doesn't do as well as your average Tyranid beastie. It benefits from almost zero stratagems, spells, etc. It's only strength is that its shooting attack and sword are the same, a melta gun which always rolls two dice for damage, picking the highest.

It has unimpressive armour, and is only kinda/sorta saved by a 5+ FNP. At 220 points he's more than a lot of much stronger characters while doing a lot less. As with most Avatars since they were nerfed around 3rd-4th, the key is actually lots of weaker shots...and not wasting lascannons and big things on it. The mediocre toughness, and 3+ basic save (with a 5+ invulnerable, and 5+ feel no pain) mean that heaps of bolters are a better choice than strong guns that may be blocked by the occasional invuln, etc.

Yeah, I do use him and it's nice I can give him warlord traits and a relic (+2" movement and pheonix gem FTW) but for 220pts he's pretty lame.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Elbows wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
Can the Avatar do much damage or is it a distraction carnifex?

It's an expensive unit which excels in one tiny thing; killing larger things in close combat - and even then it doesn't do as well as your average Tyranid beastie. It benefits from almost zero stratagems, spells, etc. It's only strength is that its shooting attack and sword are the same, a melta gun which always rolls two dice for damage, picking the highest.

It has unimpressive armour, and is only kinda/sorta saved by a 5+ FNP. At 220 points he's more than a lot of much stronger characters while doing a lot less. As with most Avatars since they were nerfed around 3rd-4th, the key is actually lots of weaker shots...and not wasting lascannons and big things on it. The mediocre toughness, and 3+ basic save (with a 5+ invulnerable, and 5+ feel no pain) mean that heaps of bolters are a better choice than strong guns that may be blocked by the occasional invuln, etc.

Yeah, I do use him and it's nice I can give him warlord traits and a relic (+2" movement and pheonix gem FTW) but for 220pts he's pretty lame.

I don't think he can take a Relic. He can take a Warlord Trait, but not a Relic.

He can pretty much only take the phoenix gem relic.

Because Eldar relics are really really crap. We have a whopping 13 relics to choose from... of which 5 are craftwolrd locked as well as being very weapon sepcific. E.g. Lance of saim han (saim han autarch on bike armed with a star lance Only).

ALL of them are locked to either <craftwolrd> or unit locked I.E. Autarch only/psycher only or infantry only.

We have exactly one relic that is not locked in some way: The Phoenic Gem. How great is that?
As per an FAQ AOK does not count as named character and can, therefore, benefit from Craftworld traits, warlord traits and relics (of which he can only take the one lol).
Incidently ther phoenix gem relic works in very similiar way to the avatar resurgent strat which is 3CP!!!!. Yeah those pesky AOK are ruining the game with their 2 CP reoll everything aura.. wait a minute..

Ynnari relics and traits are great by comparison I think. But the AOK cannot be ynnari because despite being ruled as not a named character, he counts as one for the purposes of ynnari, because ynnari have to pay for their past sins.. Ohh and hes also 220 points and doesnt give a single reroll to hit or wound or any CP or anything. Isin't that great!? He makes our 8pt/11pts base T3 1W 4+/5+ infantry fearless which is pure awesome.. Riiight ?

But hey!!! The CHE is the best unit in the game which auto wins us games and raises the NPC diffuclty for the players to hard.

Ok rant finished.

Considering that they just shoehorned them in you'd think GW would put less effort into screwing over Ynnari. Maybe with sensible rules or letting them take Avatars of Khaine.

FAQ 1.3:

Page 122 – Remnants of Glory
Change the second sentence of the first paragraph
to read:
‘Avatars of Khaine and named characters such as Prince
Yriel already have one or more artefacts, and cannot be
given any of the following items.’

CODEX: CRAFTWORLDS
Official Update Version 1.4

Q: Is the Avatar of Khaine a named character?
A: No.
Q: Can the Avatar of Khaine have a Warlord Trait?
A: Yes.

My official printed codex states: "If your army is led by a craft world Warlord, then before the battle you may give one of the following items to an Asuryani Character. Named characters such as prince Yriel already have one or more artifacts and cannot be given any of the following items"

I misread that I guess and battlescribe is inaccurate in this regard...
So youre right, no avatar of khaine cannot get Pheonix gem it seems. Fear not thugh...you are free to pay 3CP for a similiar thing...
I guess id either give him falcolns switfness or eye on distant events so he cant be overwatched.

Im going to try out a mark of the hunter to see if I can snipe characters for lolz..

Isn’t it still a fairly slow model?

My friends used to put a cheap unit in the Avatar’s way to keep it occupied and away from more important units. In older editions the Avatar would be tied up the whole game with chaff infantry it couldn’t make it points back from and kept away from more important units and battles.

With units being able to walk back from a melee, this seems like it would work even better - let the Avatar charge a cheap-as-chips unit instead of something important, take a step back and let volume of fire from long range units vaporize the remains of the Avatar.