Master of the Forge!

[Ravenfeld]

I was wondering what everyone felt is the best way to customize their MotF. I am making an Iron Hands army and the MotF is going to be a gauranteed and integral part of what I field so I wanna make sure I get everything right. That being said I do not want to hear about how awesome the "Biker Beam" combo is, I have seen everyone sing its praises but to me it is a little too much meta game and too little fluff oriented. I intend my MotF to fulfill one of two roles, sit back with my snipers and use a beamer, or stick behind my dreads and fixem up nice and shiny.

 

I would also like to know what everyone thinks about servitors and how they should be equipped to maximize their effectiveness in each of the roles I stated above. Any and all opinions are welcome!

[Warprat]

He, he...

 

I think I would put them in a Land Raider with a modified "Servitor Chronus". He does have a servo-arm after all! Would add some interesting counter attack... or give them a heavy weapon or two.

[waaanial00]

Well there are a number of things to think about with MotF and Servitors.

 

Firstly they will reduce the Toughness of the unit to 3 for ranged shooting due to the majority toughness rules. This means that if you are thinking of running Master + Servitors as a unit then you run the slight risk of a cheeky wound getting put on your techmarine far easier than it would normally be possible.

 

Secondly if your Master gets toasted the Servitors run the risk of doing nothing for a turn, each turn of the game.

 

MotF with C-Beamer

 

Arguably you might think that keeping your MotF with C-beamer with Sniper Scouts is better because the majority toughness is 4. It all depends on whether you think a unit this far deep in your own half will be getting hit enough to warrent the risk. The argument becomes stronget when you have camo cloaks on the scouts because then your entire unit gets a 2+ save from ranged fire.

 

However what the servitors have are double heavy weapons and cost effective body bags. In cover without taking into account camo cloaks your Servitors will be getting exactly the same save profile as Scouts. This means that after they have been wounded they have just the same survival prospects of your alternative bodyguard. Leadership makes no difference whilst the MotF is alive. In terms of counter attacking the Servitors have a heaftier punch but are much more likely to lose units before they get to strike, though of course they are just as likely to get hit than Scouts its the toughness that makes them hurt.

 

More heavy weapons for the servitors goes quite a way to compensate for the fact that each scout is armed with a long ranged weapon. Multi shot weapons mounted by the Servitors means that losing members of the squad which are not heavy weapons does not diminish the effectivness of their shooting. The same cannot be said of a sniper scout unit, each sniper shot is precious to the effectiveness of the unit because of the hitting and wounding averages. However it has to be said that scouts remain just as effective against low toughness units than they do high toughness ones, whilst the fixed strength of the servitors means that they will be better against low toughness.

 

In general though both units do fairly well against infantry, servitors can be made much better against other units but then you require a lot of luck (Multi Meltas hitting 50% of the time and even worse Plasma Cannons which scatter).

 

However if you field the MotF with a unit of servitors and have scout snipers there are two long ranged units to fire with and be fired at. If you take the scouts then you have less flexibility, especially if you are going to take scout snipers anyway.

 

So in summary if you have the points to field servitors and Snipers then I would suggest taking both. I would also run heavy Bolter Servitors if you are not feeling particularly lucky or Plasma Cannon ones if you are.

 

Dreadnough close support

 

The options for Dreadnought support really depend on which dreadnoughts you will be running. I put Dreadnoughts into two categories close fire support and long ranged support.

 

Close fire support dreads

 

Close Fire Support dreads are your Ironclads, Melta/Flamer Dreads etc who are likely to be Drop podded. Their mission is to cause havoc and take out choice targets. Their life expectancy is fairly low and will likely be destroyed fairly quickly or damaged significantly in the enemies own half.

 

Supporting these with a MotF is, in my opinion, a little bit wasteful. Not only are they in prime melta range but your only real option for supporting them is by Drop Podding in. Not only can you not do this with Servitors but due to the drop pod rules it makes this operation disjointed but it also damages what can be a rather helpful tool by forcing you to divert a drop pod to support a damaged dread.

 

I think if you only have these dreads in your army you are better off with a C-Beamer MotF. Or you need to find a way of getting your MotF really mobile, which is not easy if you want him to be fixing you dreads effectively (you need servitors to guarentee that).

 

Long Ranged Support dreads

 

These dreads are you plasma cannons, Lascannons and Autocannon dreads. These will be advancing with your main push and providing covering fire on the move. These are much less likely to be take out early on due to the amount of firepower they absorb at range, they are also less likely to be in Melta range which are the biggest threats with the new vehicle damage chart. They are likely to take damage, though it is likely that this damage will be imobilised and weapon destroyed.

 

As these dreads will deploy with the main push and will be moving at 6" most of the time they are an ideal candidate for a MotF and Servitor gaggle to follow them in. Not only does the bulk of the Dread provide cover for the unit but as they are likely not to get exploded easily they will really benefit from some tinkering. If I were to arm a unit to support this type of dread I would keep it cheap and minimise the shooting upgrades. Not only would you be able to almost guarentee that any repair would be successful you will be at hand to provide a decent charge that will hopefully reduce the risk of your dreads getting tarpitted.

 

If you have only shooty dreads (rifleman and Missile Launcher variants) then you could include 2 heavies as these dreads are likely to keep at range from the enemy and will likely stop for a turn or two and allow your servitors to provide some heavy weapons firing.

 

I hope that this long post helps you. Sorry its so disjointed.

 

Wan

[chapter master 454]

Oh MotF is one of my fav non-named HQ choices because he is the bargain bucket of all the HQs but yet has some serious punch. So I will add my personal experience with them, I've had plenty because so far when I field one I field another.

 

Conversion beamer sniping:

This is the most potent ranged anti-armour tank over long range you can get, ofcourse finding the happy medium between your corner and decent LoS can be difficult however I tend to find a nice building that I can bolster (tends to be the majority of the terrain seen on 40k tables). This is important because I take 2 plasma cannon servitors, they are expensive as devastors however they have a good couple of saving graces: With the master of the forge bolstering their ruin (which they should be in) they gain a 3+ cover save, sure it's not a scouts 2+ but since when can scouts churn out terminator killing power like 2 plasma cannons. Oh yes, your opponent will want to close range however to ensure he won't get an easy ride those 2 plasma cannons will be running hot and laying waste to squads within the 36" bubble of their range (ofcourse this creates a rather annoying 6" gap that is out of range of the plasma cannons but the conversion beamer is still Str8 AP4. However more often than not you won't get this if your guesstimation skills are up to scratch). The servitors also add body bags, these guys will be the ones taking all that long range plastering for the first two wounds hopefully and with a 3+ cover save more often than not it will be overheat removing them (however that isn't a real concern, they are expendable from turn1). So far my tower-top-sniper conversion beamer of Gorm has done some nice work on the enemy, his first battle tallying up a leman russ on turn 2. The conversion beamer looks tricky to handle but is quite easy acculy (curse my moments of forgetting how to spell some words!), just keep a close range support unit handy or something that can cover his buildings ground floor. A nasty idea may be MotF with his servitors in a building having cluster mines in it, he doesn't move and he doesn't get hurt. Enemy gets in and he's the one getting the damage, not sure though need to check up on that one!

 

Dreadnought support:

Ok only ever used close range support here however I doubt it would really change much. 5 tech servitors with the MotF hiding behind two venerables, the master and his servs get a 4+ if you position them right and your dreads get a nice repair crew to slap any damaged arms back on. Good idea to give this one a power sword, often he will get close to the action and while he is escorting the dreads, the dreads will also be escorting him. He keeps them ticking so remember only to split up the dreads when your performing a 2 sided attack (dealing with enemy armour or cutting off an infantrys route of escape) which can be devastating but don't risk it unless you know the area is now just needing cleaned up of survivors (had my venereables use a bastion for this, one walked round forward and got some wounds on bikers making a dash for my objective while the other walked in front giving them a fully gusto of heavy flamer and assault cannon to ensure that even if they tryed to side step the second quickest route things were going to go pete tong anyway, the bikes were promtly smashed to bits when they tryed a turbo-boost through with only 2 men left. Some controlled assault cannoning later we were watching cart-wheeling marine bikes).

 

 

You will find out of the 5 HQ choices you have, he is by far the one with most to offer for anyone taking armour. Even then without any armour in your army he is very good at CC, for 115 points you get 4 power weapon attacks on the charge (BP&PW + Charge bonus + plus base 2) and a further 2 MEQ power fist attacks, thats some serious CC power for that many points (I would consider in dire straights to throw him at a DP, chances are high of death but he could most likely cause some damage at least).

[Ravenfeld]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the insight and it seems pretty solid to me either way you look at it. In the end how do you guys feel about TWO MotF, I mean if any chapter can get away with it its the Iron Hands right? If I do that I can have my conversion beamer in the back with my scout snipers / plasma servos, and still have one escorting my rifle dreads (I plan on having 1 ven with a Plasma / Missile and a reg Dred with two Autos). That sounds like it would be solid, and barring that what other HQ choices show promise in a Drop list?

[Rythlan]

I hate bikes.

 

But if you are going to take two MotF's, might as well have the repair guy on a bike. Gives you more freedom in dread positioning and still being in range of a quick fix-up.

[chapter master 454]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the insight and it seems pretty solid to me either way you look at it. In the end how do you guys feel about TWO MotF, I mean if any chapter can get away with it its the Iron Hands right? If I do that I can have my conversion beamer in the back with my scout snipers / plasma servos, and still have one escorting my rifle dreads (I plan on having 1 ven with a Plasma / Missile and a reg Dred with two Autos). That sounds like it would be solid, and barring that what other HQ choices show promise in a Drop list?

 

I get away with two by saying one is his apprentice. As for the repair guy on bike, yea thats the current fad: if it's a loner give him wheels. However the MotF does get a down side to this, the servitors can't mount up so they get left behind and while repairing on 4+ is good when your just going to put him with some dreads you may as well give him 5 servitors (something like a 70pt cost) to not only give him body bags, abuses the 50% rule (have 3 or more servitors hide behind the dread) but also make it you opponent will have to watch you repair your dreads on a 2+ til he gets rid of at least 4 of them (then it's 3+ for one) and it's not as if he suffers from armour problems (2+ armour save as his default makes him the only to have this bonus out of the HQs) and to boot he can take a squad of multi-purpose body bags for cheap and they don't take up FOC space.

 

As for your two dreads, you may as well make them both venerable to redundant the venerable rule, killhammer quite easily puts the second dread as a better target (for one it attains killing potiental when at range and with 48" that isn't hard. The factor is that makes it more targetable is it not having venerable, it's D factor is lower). I personally have two dreads (and I'm thinking about giving the two of them an upgrade to forgeworld venerables with all the weapon choices available to them!) that currently go as venereables with one being an assault cannon&DCCW/SB and the the other being a assault cannon&DCCW/HF which while I would like to up the other to HF, they perform with some great ability. So far even without techmarine support they do damage since I also pair them up (a very very key tactic, always have them able to help each other). Ok it's hard on the points but being able to tell that lucky lascannon to re-roll that six is quite handy.

 

The armaments are quite nice, one is a heavy infantry killer/light armour counter while the other is a transport hunter/mild heavy infantry killer. Not too shabby, like the idea of them so all they need now is some names and your learned marines are good to go (learned as in: 'oh so I shouldn't stay in front of a krak missle' kind)

[Ravenfeld]

Just thinking about it now and lets say I do hide one MotF with my snipers in cover, and lets say I go ahead and ALSO give him a couple HW Servos, can you imagine? Naturally I couldn't have the MotF in the Sniper squad itself in this instance but I would have even more fire coming from that firebase.. and if I add another MotF I can reinforce a second terrain peice so I can have my snipers and MotF beamer doing a crossfire. Which would mean that any Drop Pod Dreads aiming to take out my Scouts will get shot in the back by my Servos, or vice versa? It sounds like it could work nicely if implemented properly. Unfortunately I haven't picked up my C:SM yet, or more importantly I am expecting it as a late B-day present so I can't work out if this concept of mine would be solid with my point limit. Anyway what do you think?

 

And once again I don't want to put my MotF on a bike, to me it just doesn't work, it is doing it because its good for the game, not doing it because a MotF would really drive around the battlefield on a bike. If I was going to make him mobile I would give him a servo squad and maybe a Razorback to putter around in, which would also give the Dreads themselves some fire support to add onto their fire support.

 

Edit: Added a second paragraph

[Warprat]

Just thinking about it now and lets say I do hide one MotF with my snipers in cover, and lets say I go ahead and ALSO give him a couple HW Servos, can you imagine? Naturally I couldn't have the MotF in the Sniper squad itself in this instance but I would have even more fire coming from that firebase.. and if I add another MotF I can reinforce a second terrain peice so I can have my snipers and MotF beamer doing a crossfire. Which would mean that any Drop Pod Dreads aiming to take out my Scouts will get shot in the back by my Servos, or vice versa? It sounds like it could work nicely if implemented properly. Unfortunately I haven't picked up my C:SM yet, or more importantly I am expecting it as a late B-day present so I can't work out if this concept of mine would be solid with my point limit. Anyway what do you think?

 

And once again I don't want to put my MotF on a bike, to me it just doesn't work, it is doing it because its good for the game, not doing it because a MotF would really drive around the battlefield on a bike. If I was going to make him mobile I would give him a servo squad and maybe a Razorback to putter around in, which would also give the Dreads themselves some fire support to add onto their fire support.

 

Edit: Added a second paragraph

 

Problem is they can't get a dedicated transport... which is why I like the Land Raider. You get a couple TL lascannons and can repair the hits, (on AV14). Just as powerful as a couple standard dreads w/TL lascannon. It's kind of goofy keeping the Servitors in it, but it does keep them alive and mobile to either fix things or be counter chargers.

 

If you added a Thunder Cannon or two, you could also get some pretty cheap Tech Marines who could ride along with the Servitors after thier guns get blown up, fix nearby dreadnoughts/other vehicles, support nearby squads.

 

 

Mmmm... Scouts, Dreads, Conversion Beam Master, Techs and Thunderfires, Servitors, Land Raider (yes w/Chronus!), maybe some LS Storms. Could work rather well together to make a very interesting Gunline.

 

 

 

 

OK, its non-conventional... and for that narrow minded reason alone, many will hate it!

 

Warprat ;)

[chapter master 454]

Just thinking about it now and lets say I do hide one MotF with my snipers in cover, and lets say I go ahead and ALSO give him a couple HW Servos, can you imagine? Naturally I couldn't have the MotF in the Sniper squad itself in this instance but I would have even more fire coming from that firebase.. and if I add another MotF I can reinforce a second terrain peice so I can have my snipers and MotF beamer doing a crossfire. Which would mean that any Drop Pod Dreads aiming to take out my Scouts will get shot in the back by my Servos, or vice versa? It sounds like it could work nicely if implemented properly. Unfortunately I haven't picked up my C:SM yet, or more importantly I am expecting it as a late B-day present so I can't work out if this concept of mine would be solid with my point limit. Anyway what do you think?

 

And once again I don't want to put my MotF on a bike, to me it just doesn't work, it is doing it because its good for the game, not doing it because a MotF would really drive around the battlefield on a bike. If I was going to make him mobile I would give him a servo squad and maybe a Razorback to putter around in, which would also give the Dreads themselves some fire support to add onto their fire support.

 

Edit: Added a second paragraph

 

He's a master a the gunline army for a reason and I support the 'anti MotF on bike' stance, it really ticks me off to see the steam beamer (my term for the conversion beamer on bike) or the 'formula on track repair man'. You seem a little lost on how things work with him, for one pick between beamer or repairer and that will help and if your taking two take one of each. Let me lay down one of my older personal favourite army lists for you to get a grasp on how he runs

 

Forgemaster Gorm: conversion beamer

2 servitors: plasma cannons

 

Forge apprentice eilean: power weapon

5 tech servitors

 

Techmarine steward: full servo harness

5 techmarines

 

Venerable dreadnought ventris: assault cannon, DCCW/HF, extra armour

 

Venerable dreadnought Kayvaan: assault cannon, DCCW/SB, extra armour

 

Tactical squad II: flamer and plasma cannon

 

Tactical squad V: flamer and plasma cannon

 

Predator Annilator 'Blue man': HB sponsons, Storm Bolter, Hunter Killer missle, Extra armour

 

Predator destructor 'selkie': LC sponsons, Storm Bolter, Hunter Killer missle, extra armour

 

Vindicator 'donan': Siege shield, extra armour

 

 

This list has done me proud and has some serious range firepower. One can see I have made sure there's plenty of armour with good values to keep damage minimal and even then my repair crews keep them ticking even if they sustain damage. The sheer amount of fire power is present to soften up targets before the dreads get into maximum killing range, they often secure a flank with the forge apprentice (just a MotF for reference) keeping their assault cannons and DCCWs going. The tanks set up firing lanes on where most enemy armour might be or is (depending if I get first or second) so as one can guess the destructor is tank hunting while the annilator goes infantry gunning while the vindicator pushs up center with no fear of terrain and let loose it's pie plate. Often this threat is actually quite useful since it can drawn fire from my other groups. The tacticals in KP missions will take up roost with the MotF while in objective missions they spilt up and I have the heavys become homeguard while the others run for the other objectives with my other men firing. This is where the conversion beamer kicks in, I've told you how the repair one works now for the sniper. He's lean and mean and normally up high in the sky within a tower, he finds the longest range target there is first and then works his way to shorter ranges (don't want to risk overheating the body bags now do I?) and when 36" is the range my plasmas open up and level squads dispite a weaker blast from the beam.

 

This list puts all the strengths of what the cog marines can do, the techmarine kicks about as a loose ace about the two preds who often don't stray to far apart. I say this list is actually very effective and while I no longer play it (got bored of it so switched out for some raiders and lysander leading). Getting a MotF is never a bad choice, he's the swish army knife of HQs as he can CC quite well and even do range with some good ability. Ironically the best all-rounder HQ choice in my opinion.

[Bannus]

I use the MotF as my Iron-Father as well. Typically, I try to keep him cheap (only adding a power axe and digital weapons). Despite their limited utility, I give him a varying number of servitors for support. I stay away from the heavy weapon equipped version because they aren't really that effective and tend to attract unwanted attention that way. Typically, I will only take a single heavy weapon (if that - heavy bolter or plasma cannon) and the rest are regular tech servitors.

 

The Iron-Father/servitors serve as a support unit. Escorting the Dreads is their primary duty. The Iron-Father and servitors can keep the Dread(s) functioning by keeping them repaired and can double as a half-decent skirmish unit to keep the piddly units that are inteneded to tie up and delay the Dread from engaging the Dread.