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Okay. It's a pretty model, but is the God-In-A-Box actually any good?

I found myself thinking about an unbound force with a few Tesseract Vaults with some Doom Scythes flying top cover. But - unlike most "giant stompy thing" lists I think about, I can't figure in my head how to make an army built around vaults work.

The spheres are nice. Lots of independently targeted S7 firepower with tesla needs no explanation, and an AV14 superheavy with Living Metal is equally good.

What I can't get my head around is the Coalescent Powers. They look awesome, but - unless I'm misunderstanding - you have to pick a target then roll to see what the C'Tan decides to throw at them. A normal superheavy has weapons for any job - or at least fairly flexible ones (A Baneblade Cannon is useful in pretty much any situation, for example) - but the 1/3 potential to throw low strength shots at an AV13+ tank or to hit two orks in a green tide with a spectacular display of overkill makes me suspect the 'main weapon' isn't actually that good in practice.

Has anyone got any experience with these things, and if so, what advice would you offer in using them? Could a force built around 2-3 Vaults work?

I've been sitting on a Tesseract Vault sprue since last codex that I got as a Xmas gift. At the time, the Transcendent C'Tan was so much the better option, that there was no reason to build the Vault (and I never got around to building the Obelisk option).

I've asked this same question on this forum before with no replies, so I get the sense not many people (at least here) are using them.

Your concerns about the randomness of the shooting profile are spot on. I don't personally think these guys would end up being All-Stars on the table. You mentioned the exact reason why. Keep in mind too, that the randomness also effect Flyers and FMCs. Some of the profiles cannot even touch Flyers and FMCs, so targeting one is a dubious proposition.

All that said, despite that it might not be the most dependable, reliable unit, I'm certain there's gotta be some fun to be had by shooting those powers off at long range, not to mention I think the thing would be cool as hell to see on the board in a game.

I'll probably end up building mine into a Tesseract Vault since the T C'Tan got nerfed so hard. But I'd think twice before spending $450 (or whatever it would cost) to get an Unbound list with three of those things...because you may end up finding out they play like crap on the board.

Just build the Obelisk. It might be a touch underwhelming because it's a balanced model for it's points and most of the major superheavy units are excessive, but it certainly contributes well enough and is the closest thing you'll ever get to a classic Monolith. Remember you have Thunderblitz, good to have an extra attack mode in the shooting phase.

As for "upgrading" it to the simmilar in rules but more expensive Tesseract Vault, here's the pros and cons:

Pro:

-3 Extra hull points.
-1 Extra gun, even if said extra gun's effects will be resolved in a completely arbitrary manner.

Cons:

-Much wider blind spots for the Tesla Spheres. Harder to aim them.
-Loses the aura of flyer harassment. It's fairly minor, but still a useful thing to have.
-As has been covered, you have no idea what the C'tan is going to do.
-Looks absurd.
-Really hard to transport.

As said above, build Obelisks and the C'tan separately... My friend says his vault is only good as a suicide bomber

Vaults and Obelisks have that aspect of a suicide bomber. You throw them in the middle of everything and then hope they explode in the middle of the opponent's army. It isn't something I've tried though.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Vaults and Obelisks have that aspect of a suicide bomber. You throw them in the middle of everything and then hope they explode in the middle of the opponent's army. It isn't something I've tried though.

My other friend who plays tau said hed just put Aun'va next to it XD

Keep in mind too, that the randomness also effect Flyers and FMCs. Some of the profiles cannot even touch Flyers and FMCs, so targeting one is a dubious proposition.

That isn't so much the issue - if you're trying to play flak battery, the spheres put out a good rate of fire (even if you can't tesla something with snap shots) and there are precious few flyers that are going to seriously inconvenience you.

The larger blind spots is a fair thing to note, and something I hadn't thought about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Okay. Had a quick try last night against a tyranid tervigon swarm.

1500 points was two Tesseract Vaults and two Doom Scythes in support.

First impressions...the Vaults were never at serious risk of injury - they lost a hull point here and there when they got hit by electroshock grubs but even crushing claw tervigons have trouble reliably punching through AV14.

Tesla Spheres are awesome. More importantly, they're reliable. But getting two to bear on the same target is incredibly unlikely. You need to push forwards and trust your armour to unmask more than 2 of them, or you're paying for guns you aren't firing.

The Vaults won in the end, due to eventually getting the right powers. T6 monsters with multiple wounds and feel no pain are hard to hurt, but eventually they'll go down. Seismic Assault and Time's Arrow were the key powers; rolling the last one at the critical moment essentially won the game.

Ultimately, it's going to be a question of target selection. Having tried them, I don't think you can afford to fire them at AV14 if you have a choice. Realistically, the only thing that's going to inconvenience a land raider is Time's Arrow - Transdimensional Thunderbolt could, but the odds are against you and Antimatter Meteor is a joke.

Against hordes, you're okay - 2/3 of the powers should take a nice bite out of hordes, and tesla spheres can fry small guys fairly well.

Against mid-range stuff, like a knight or wraithknight? Hmmm....
Maybe. Cosmic Fire is pretty useless, but Seismic Assault can hurt a knight from the flank. Sky of Falling Stars doesn't do too badly on a monster because 6 S7 punches should land a hit or two, and some of them should hammer a knight from an unshielded side. Obviously Thunderbolt or Arrow should take a nice piece out of it.

Ultimately, whatever you choose as a target, you've got about a 1/3 chance of the C'tan's powers doing nothing to it. That's not great odds, but I guess if you have a couple the odds improve.

Was it a fun game? In particular, were the Vaults fun to play with?

They were quite fun. Non-walker superheavies need to use their speed to keep clear of assault threats (or at least, of getting "penned in" by serious threats - the odd meltabomb or haywire grenade is fine when you've got 9 hull points. Being a skimmer helps a lot here.

As noted, the tesla spheres really did the heavy lifting - but then with light infantry and T6 3+ save monsters, you can in theory win with sufficient lucky tesla fire, and pretty much any power can do some damage - sky of falling stars happened a couple of times, as did time's arrow, antimatter meteor, and all of them did some good.

Cosmic fire actually did some good too - whilst it did bugger all to a Catalyst-blessed Tervigon, they were surrounded by swarms of little bugs who were perfectly flammable.

For the first couple of turns, not a lot was happening except the bugs were overruning objectives, hunkering down and just farming objective cards and there wasn't much the necrons could do. Turn 3 (maybe 4?) the necrons suddenly got competent - a tesla sphere nearly killing an unwounded tervigon and then the C'Tan rolling sky of falling stars and fininshing it off, punching a hole in the army's synapse. The bugs recovered, shifting a tervigon over and dominion-ing to pick up the slack, but suddenly the vaults which hadn't been doing much suddenly started to kill things a lot faster.

I agree with people saying "throw them forwards", by the way - a tesla sphere is a massive chunk of firepower, and each one you can get a shot with is not far short of an annihalation barge's firepower.

What I'm not sure is how they'd do against an army featuring AV14 or 2+ saves. The Doom Scythes did okay but not great (death rays are bloody lethal, though!).

It's the first time I've really used flyers - moving them so as to get shots on multiple turns clearly needs more planning. Flying Monstrous Creatures can (a) fly slower and (b) have 360' arcs of fire, so it's a lot easier with them.....

The sad thing is, if done the other way around (roll for power THEN choose target), the things preform exactly how you'd expect them to for their price.

Maybe an errata will come out that will fix it?
...
*snort*
Yeah, okay, not a f'king chance.

I thimk the best use is when they explode at the enemy ranks....

 skoffs wrote:
The sad thing is, if done the other way around (roll for power THEN choose target), the things preform exactly how you'd expect them to for their price.

Maybe an errata will come out that will fix it?
...
*snort*
Yeah, okay, not a f'king chance.

Oh definitely. They should compare to a Baneblade with sponsons pretty closely, and they do. AV14 all round, 9 hull points. One's a tank and one's a skimmer but they both have move through cover and thunderblitz for being superheavies so that's irrelevant. The Tesla spheres are good...really good. BS4 Tesla means each shot is worth about twice its weight in BS3 autocannon shots, so it has easily as much secondary weapons firepower. The problem is that as soon as you look at what should be the main gun you have a chance of rolling a completely useless result after locking yourself into a target. I'm not quite sure why they did that; it's not like the powers are that lethal (at least; not compared to equivalent super-heavy weapons).