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Hi I'm new to WH40K and I'm planning a Deathguard army. During my research I looked at other factions as well and I really wonder about Kataphron Breachers. Here's why:

They are troops so I compared them with Plague Marines. The thing with those is that they are relatively resiliant (no pun intended) but they still have just one wound. When it comes to their loadout they are restricted to two more powerful shooting weapons (I'm not talking about the champion or melee to keep it simple). Let's assume Blight launchers. So what you do is to put these two high value weapons in a unit and make the rest 3 or 5 Marines cheap so when they get shot and lose models you can remove these first and don't lose the high value weapons that quickly since they have only one wound. Correct me if I'm wrong with anything.

If I look at Kataphron Breachers now they have the same toughness and save value but 3 wounds. They might not have Disgustingly resiliant but are still harder to remove than Plague Marines. With 4+ they have a slightly worse BS but with AdMech reroll auras you can easily get them to a 75% hit chance wich is better than a 3+ BS. Interestingly their Heavy arc rifles are somewhat comparable with Blight launchers. Same strengh, AP and damage. They are slightly more expensive than Plague Marines even if you include the loadout but their weapons are actually cheaper. So they are harder to remove and even if you lose one, you dont lose a high amount of loadout value as it is the case for Plague Marines. But thats not even the real problem.

The real problem is that every model in the unit can have this weapon. That means that their shooting capacity per unit is ridiculously higher than that of Plague Marines. If you fill a unit with 12 Breachers you also have 12 Heavy arc rifles. To get the same shooting power with Plague Marines (12 Blight launchers) you need 6 units of them. Next to the fact that this is unfair in terms of detachment slots it is also massively unfair in terms of unit costs. A unit with 12 Breachers is worth 360 points. 5 units of Plague Marines with the minimum amount of 5 models and 2 Blight launchers each comes at a price of 500 points! Additionally the Breacher unit has 36 wounds compared to the 25 of the 5 Plague Marie units! Isn't this not only a little but massively unfair?

I calculated the Damage output of Breachers and it's actually stupid. A 12 men unit can remove a relic contemptor dreadnought in only one shooting phase with under avarage damage output at 36" range! And as if all of that is not enough their weapons become D6 damage against vehicles so they counter basically everything!

Plz somebody help me understand this. They have high damage output, high range, are very tanky and effective against every unit type. Isn't that stupid?

Also can somebody tell me what I can do against them as death guard? Plague Marines are much weaker. Terminators don't do gak if they don't make a 9" charge after teleport strike. Hellbrutes, Bloat drones, Blight haulers, Dreadnoughts are all vehicles and take much more damage from them than they could put out against them. I don't see what is left beyond these, that could be effective. Is there something I don't see? Plz somebody enlighten me!

If you are able to tag the kataphrons in combat they can't shoot. Breachers are ok in melee, but nothing special. You can kit out a plague marine squad and with the right buffs they can be really scary in combat. Plus plague marines got some new strats that make a really scary shooting threat too.

Basically you are comparing apples to oranges. They aren't the same.

I'm sure more detailes tips will come but just from the top of my head:
Admech have absolutly no psykers and while they have the Graia strategem to stop a psychic power on a 4+, they can only use it once per phase I think.

I thought about this as well but with 5" movement against 36" range? You need to hide really really good to reach them right?

Deep-strike in a unit of 10 blightlords with combi-bolters and blight launchers. Make those combis rapid fire 3 for a total of 48 bolter shots and 4 blight launcher rounds. Season with Vets of the Long War to taste. Then let them eat the death porridge.

Even if you don't wipe the unit, you'll make one hell of a dent and you can tank an awful lot of firepower, allowing the rest of your army to go about their day unmolested by arc rifle fire.

Koalakacke wrote:
I thought about this as well but with 5" movement against 36" range? You need to hide really really good to reach them right?

Well a death guard army isn't fast, the new smaller board size helps with that. And they can always take rhinos to get them up the table faster. Plus, boards seem to have more obscuring terrain on them now, so that should help people trying to reach the kataphrons and make it harder for the kataphrons to shoot.

 Drakeslayer wrote:
Deep-strike in a unit of 10 blightlords with combi-bolters and blight launchers. Make those combis rapid fire 3 for a total of 48 bolter shots and 4 blight launcher rounds. Season with Vets of the Long War to taste. Then let them eat the death porridge.

Even if you don't wipe the unit, you'll make one hell of a dent and you can tank an awful lot of firepower, allowing the rest of your army to go about their day unmolested by arc rifle fire.

This actually sounds really good. I didn't think about bolters at all but with with vets of the long war they basically go to strengh 5 which improves their damage output specifically against T5 units significantly. You could even drop a chaos lord terminator with them to reroll 1s.

Thank you for your really good advice!

Also mind that AdMech don't have the best morale values and very few ways of increasing it (staying within 3'' of a vehicle with Broad Spectrum Datatether is the only one that comes to mind on the top of my head, and that is only +1).
Breachers have LD 7. I'm not really into DG, but roughly scrolling through 1d4chan I see that The Dolorous Knell relic forces enemies to roll 2D6 take the lowest for morale, Vulgrar Tricecursed gives -1 morale and maybe there are more. Removing a 3 wound Breacher due to a failed morale test can be a nice bonus.

Koalakacke wrote:

 Drakeslayer wrote:
Deep-strike in a unit of 10 blightlords with combi-bolters and blight launchers. Make those combis rapid fire 3 for a total of 48 bolter shots and 4 blight launcher rounds. Season with Vets of the Long War to taste. Then let them eat the death porridge.

Even if you don't wipe the unit, you'll make one hell of a dent and you can tank an awful lot of firepower, allowing the rest of your army to go about their day unmolested by arc rifle fire.

This actually sounds really good. I didn't think about bolters at all but with with vets of the long war they basically go to strengh 5 which improves their damage output specifically against T5 units significantly. You could even drop a chaos lord terminator with them to reroll 1s.

Thank you for your really good advice!

You're very welcome! Death Guard may not be swimming in anti-tank weaponry and the like, but they have ways and means of dealing with heavy infantry no problem.

In response to original post. As a multi faction player including admech

Breachers are not OP

They don't even make most of my lists and were rarely seen in 8th outside agripinaa (and 9th ended that)

In order to get the 75% accuracy the original post you have to take a specific 200pt buffing character that locks you into a specific subfaction by comparison we have good HQ at 35 and 55 pts

Having taken that 200pt character ( you are then obligated to make use of it which tends to mean cramming dakkabots and vehicles near by) I mean you could technically take 5 breachers and cawl at 475pt for 10 S6 shots but for those points you could take a knight crusader

This means that you end up with a huge % of your points on the table within a 6" bubble this is pretty terrible for board control

Finally breachers aren't that shooty by admech standards try a a pair of dakka bot with 36 S6 shots for 25 pts less than 5 breachers

1) not all factions are equal at everything admech are the shootiest faction in the game and as such should win a straight shoot out. GW has emphasised that some design choices e.g. price difference in guardsmen and conscripts are to reflect the way those armies should operate not for balance

2) GW suck at balance there will always be discrepancy's between units that are similar look at what your faction does well.

3)There are some pretty huge drawbacks admech uses cawl it hits 75% but fails to effectively do the missions because all its points are in a small board area or admech only hits 58% of the time with breachers (and so chooses not to take them) but is free to play the mission

4) So what should you do with death guard vs mars admech - don't try and win a shoot out you won't. Instead take a bunch of resident hard to kill units and play the objectives you should outscored them even if they kill you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Heafstaag wrote:

Koalakacke wrote:
I thought about this as well but with 5" movement against 36" range? You need to hide really really good to reach them right?

Well a death guard army isn't fast, the new smaller board size helps with that. And they can always take rhinos to get them up the table faster. Plus, boards seem to have more obscuring terrain on them now, so that should help people trying to reach the kataphrons and make it harder for the kataphrons to shoot.

I'd disagree boards are a lot more open now there is no GF LOS blocking . terrain models themselves haven't changed much as venues still have the same pieces and only one type is obscuring


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pyroalchi wrote:
Also mind that AdMech don't have the best morale values and very few ways of increasing it (staying within 3'' of a vehicle with Broad Spectrum Datatether is the only one that comes to mind on the top of my head, and that is only +1).
Breachers have LD 7. I'm not really into DG, but roughly scrolling through 1d4chan I see that The Dolorous Knell relic forces enemies to roll 2D6 take the lowest for morale, Vulgrar Tricecursed gives -1 morale and maybe there are more. Removing a 3 wound Breacher due to a failed morale test can be a nice bonus.

Poor advice as you won't see breachers at more than 5 models ld7 but pretty much every vehicle we have (and there will be some near cawl) grant +1 to ld in moral tests to nearby infantry (and inquisitors arnt uncommon for 9 or 10ld) leveraging moral will make very little difference

So, a breacher is 35ppm total and a plague marine is 18ppm...so there is that...if we're comparing blight launcher plague marines vs breachers for some reason it is a pretty solid comparison for the breacher. Blight Launchers deal more damage vs non-vehicles with the reroll 1s to wound and the +1bs, breachers do more vs vehicles. But blight launchers are also hidden behind Plague Marine bodies, you can stick them in transports, and you can't just charge a unit of plague marines with any old chaff unit and tie them up basically indefinitely. Don't let their melee weapon fool you breachers suck eggs in melee. They get like 1 WS4+ attack or something.

In practice, no, Breachers probably would not feel OP in comparison to your plague marine squads. Each one you kill removes a "blight launcher" from the squad, and you can use a cheap squad to jump in and tie them up in melee and then they're down for the count. Doing the job both units want to do (rolling into the middle and holding objectives while being tough) plague marines are better at that role even if the breachers have a slight edge in offense.