How to argue for Mephiston?

[Godhead]

I found meph is unreliable with a runepriest close by (and I would imagine the same of any psychic hood or some other psychic defense). Take away his ability to move freely or his uber hits or rerolls and then he loses alot of his bite. Also IMO Meph has a tendency to be his own worst enemy, since he relies so heavily on his powers (and he rolls so many times to get them) that he ends up failing one or two a game making your job of taking him out a bit easier.

[Hellios]

I find myself in a debate among my play group. I need to know:

 

Is Mephiston too much for opponents to handle?

 

Allow me to explain my situation. I play Warhammer 40k with a small group of friends. Their armies are: (Guard, Templar, Eldar, Dark Angels, Orks, Chaos). As a group we tend to be a bit competitive amongst each other, but overall we do try to make the game fun for everyone involved. We constantly debate the more extreme elements of Warhammer 40k and try to come to decisions that promote a healthy metagame. A few examples of decisions we've made as a group:

 

-Our Guard player will not play a Leafblower style list.

-Our Chaos player will not play a Lash list.

-(While we do not have a Space Wolf player) We will never play Jaws of the World Wolf as we find it too powerful.

Ok I have a Dark Angel list that wasn't designed for tourny standard and was designed for 4th and I haven't updated it... and I still think I could beat your list... I'm not saying I would boot you in the face and it comes down to luck and player skill but I don't see anything that makes me cry out "Noooooooooooooooooooo"... so the DA player has no reason to cry... My main army is Eldar and a well built list used in a good manner should be able to beat your list... so the eldar player has no reason to cry... Guard have no excuse to cry... the amount of fire power they can bring is sick! I can see Templars having some trouble and certain Ork builds but I'm not an expert on either of those armies.

 

If you are wooping them all so bad maybe you should play handicapped as this will help you improve with your army and will give them a chance to win... Also maybe your group needs to look at what bthey think is powerful... Lists can be very powerful... individual options out os synch with the rest of the lists are often not so JotWW and Lash are not IMO over-powered. Lash was very powerful in 4th when foot slogging and gunlines happened more often... but now people mech up because vehicles are better and people need to move. When people are meched... lash is pretty much useless... for example it wouldn't do squat to your list unless they popped your transports or could get Mephiston... who could try and shut the lash down with his psyhic hood... JotWW as a guy who takes up to !four! rune priests at 1,500pts depending on how I feel (Hey I play eldar I love psykers and now my 13th company list has gone :'()... and JotWW is actually the 3rd or 4th power on my list... again aginst your list... it could only target meph who would most likely survive or people after they are out of transports and most of them have a fair chance at surviving as well... Living Lightning... d6 S7 shots at your transports yes please! not so bad against your infantry... but with unlimited range and a chance to hit on a 2+ I wouldn't laugh... Murderous Hurricane... 3d6 S3 hits... and causing difficult and dangerous for your next turn... hey guess what I'm controlling your movement or making you take a risk like lash... as the Ork player how he feels about up to 18 hits and then rolling 30 dangerous terrain tests... as well as slowing him down.

 

If you are really beating people that bad... you have to look at the cause... 1) Your lists are so much better than theirs... either yours is good or theirs are bad. 2) Player abillity is different... not much you can do about this except help them improve and/or take handicaps.

 

If lists are the issue your group needs to make a choice... No holds barred and just play the game and find that a lot of the stuff you think is over-powered isn't really over-powered unless people play weak lists... The other is you decide to play a softer maybe more fluffy game and in that case you need to write a list of not only what people can't take but also what army composition they need to take... this is like at soft scoring tournies where you need 1 FA, Elite and HS before you can take a second of any of them. Personally my advice would be to tell the chaos player to take lash if the only reason he wont take it is because he thinks it is too powerful... if it is a fluff reason for his army then fine... but if you take weak armies on purpose you can't complain... I have a 1kson army... it has a hard time and I think I'm a pretty good player but it isn't the strongest list so I deal with it.

[maverike_prime]

forgot to account for the Tzeentch Upgrade to Abby's Inv.

 

1) Meph doesn't have Might of Heroes. He gets 4 attacks base, so +1 for charging.

2) S8 Vs T7. Abaddon would need 3+ to wound.

 

Eternal Warrior just means you can't be doubled out. The Mark of Nurgle specifically looses it's effect when when the model is hit by a weapon that is 2x, or more, it's base toughness. S10 vs T4, Meph's gonna be wounding him on 2+ and he gets to re-roll failed wounds.

 

You've got mark of nurgle wrong, it means abbadon is T5 for ALL intents and purposes except ID, but seeing as he has EW it is basically T5 for ALL intents and purposes. he doesnt suddenly get wounded easier because the hit is S8. In other words a S8 attac still rolls against his T5.

 

Seeing as this thread is under the Blood Angels section, I won't debate the effects of Non-instant death Vs Mark of Nurgle here. I made a new thread under the Official rules section and brought that question up.

[Isryion]

@Sang,

 

Metagame means the game within the game --not "pretend playing." In most cases, I hear people use it in reference to designing lists based on their local tourney scene (for example, if there are a lot of IG armies in a player's area, his metagame is to build a list that would be tailored to take on IG not just an army that can take on any army in the 40k game).

 

I agree that switching lists is definitely an interesting way to help someone see other ways to defeat it or just keep things fresh.

 

One point I think you are missing, though, is that just because those lists are BEATABLE! does not make them interesting or tactically challenging or balanced, and that might be what they are looking for, too.

[Quantra]

Not saying this has any weight on the argument but I have fought abaddon with mephiston probably about 12-15 times as a friend of mine has him and we have a little grudge match between those two characters. Out of all of those attempts mephy has won once only. I'm liking the graphs, neat way of comparing raw data but thought I would throw that piece of real world experience in for interest's sake.

 

I originally typed this to ask if you were running Abby with a squad or not, but I started to plot that out and I figured it'd be more beneficial to plot out my thoughts :

Mephiston charging with a successful Psychic tests: 5 attacks, that get to reroll misses and wounds striking at Strength 10 at initiative 7 and ignores normal saves.

Abby charging rolling a full 6 Attacks: 10 attacks at strength 8 at Initiavive 6 with ignore normal armor saves.

 

One on one Mephiston is going to be Attacking Abaddon's base toughness of 4, not 5 (Strength 10 is double Abaddon's Toughness no matter how you look at it) meaning he's gonna wound Abaddon on 2+ compared to Abaddon wounding Abby on 6+. I don't see it being unreasonable to figure that Meph can land 4 of his 2+ attacks that get to re-roll his to-hit and to-wounds. Abby's 2+ save is toast leaving him to trust in on his 5+ Inv save. Those are long odds, by no means impossible to make, but long odds none the less. If Meph is followed up by just about anything in the BA codex it's almost a guaranteed dead Abby.

 

So now I would like to ask if you ran Abby with a Squad those times you fought Meph? If you were running him solo all those times I would have to question how Mephiston didn't win the majority of the time.

 

You may assume all these battles have been 1 on 1 (I think one of them wasn't). As samanagol said it is his 'eternal warrior' ie immune to instant death that makes him extremely hard to kill. The only time I did kill him was when he spammed up his demon weapon roll and got a 1 thus spanking himself in the face.

 

Most of the attempts resulted in Abaddon killing Meph in one round of combat at most 2. If I remember correctly Abaddon hits on 4's and wounds on 2's with re rolls and no armour saves. Meph hits on 4's (with rerolls) and wounds on 2's (hopefully with rerolls) but then Abaddon gets some kind of inv. save, not entirely sure what. The long and the short of it is that Abaddon gets more attacks and every wound is confirmed, Meph gets less attacks and Abaddon has a chance of saving any wounds caused.

[maverike_prime]

Not saying this has any weight on the argument but I have fought abaddon with mephiston probably about 12-15 times as a friend of mine has him and we have a little grudge match between those two characters. Out of all of those attempts mephy has won once only. I'm liking the graphs, neat way of comparing raw data but thought I would throw that piece of real world experience in for interest's sake.

 

I originally typed this to ask if you were running Abby with a squad or not, but I started to plot that out and I figured it'd be more beneficial to plot out my thoughts :

Mephiston charging with a successful Psychic tests: 5 attacks, that get to reroll misses and wounds striking at Strength 10 at initiative 7 and ignores normal saves.

Abby charging rolling a full 6 Attacks: 10 attacks at strength 8 at Initiavive 6 with ignore normal armor saves.

 

One on one Mephiston is going to be Attacking Abaddon's base toughness of 4, not 5 (Strength 10 is double Abaddon's Toughness no matter how you look at it) meaning he's gonna wound Abaddon on 2+ compared to Abaddon wounding Abby on 6+. I don't see it being unreasonable to figure that Meph can land 4 of his 2+ attacks that get to re-roll his to-hit and to-wounds. Abby's 2+ save is toast leaving him to trust in on his 5+ Inv save. Those are long odds, by no means impossible to make, but long odds none the less. If Meph is followed up by just about anything in the BA codex it's almost a guaranteed dead Abby.

 

So now I would like to ask if you ran Abby with a Squad those times you fought Meph? If you were running him solo all those times I would have to question how Mephiston didn't win the majority of the time.

 

You may assume all these battles have been 1 on 1 (I think one of them wasn't). As samanagol said it is his 'eternal warrior' ie immune to instant death that makes him extremely hard to kill. The only time I did kill him was when he spammed up his demon weapon roll and got a 1 thus spanking himself in the face.

 

Most of the attempts resulted in Abaddon killing Meph in one round of combat at most 2. If I remember correctly Abaddon hits on 4's and wounds on 2's with re rolls and no armour saves. Meph hits on 4's (with rerolls) and wounds on 2's (hopefully with rerolls) but then Abaddon gets some kind of inv. save, not entirely sure what. The long and the short of it is that Abaddon gets more attacks and every wound is confirmed, Meph gets less attacks and Abaddon has a chance of saving any wounds caused.

 

Right. I was totally forgetting Abbys 4+ inv.

[SamaNagol]

Wait, Mark Of Nurgle loses it's effect when hit by models of double strength? Since when?

[the jeske]

since never , but there is very few units which actualy have a mark of nurgle and not icon of nurgle in the chaos dex.

[maverike_prime]

since never , but there is very few units which actualy have a mark of nurgle and not icon of nurgle in the chaos dex.

 

The mark of Nurgle specifically reads:

"like the toughness bonus from a bike, this mark does not affect the models toughness in regards to the instant death rule"

 

The Instand Death rule reads:

"Some models can gain improvements to their Toughness by using wargear items like bikes, Chaos Marks, etc. When it comes to instant death, such bonuses do not count (IE, riding a bike won't save you from being obliterated by a lascannon blast!) In these case two values will be shown for the toughness characteristic of the model, one of which is in brackets. Use the lowest value for working out instant death."

[Sanguinarian]

@Sang,

 

Metagame means the game within the game --not "pretend playing." In most cases, I hear people use it in reference to designing lists based on their local tourney scene (for example, if there are a lot of IG armies in a player's area, his metagame is to build a list that would be tailored to take on IG not just an army that can take on any army in the 40k game).

 

I agree that switching lists is definitely an interesting way to help someone see other ways to defeat it or just keep things fresh.

 

One point I think you are missing, though, is that just because those lists are BEATABLE! does not make them interesting or tactically challenging or balanced, and that might be what they are looking for, too.

 

Thanks Isryion. That changes the tenor of A LOT of my posts then. I really thought it was strictly mathhammer using paper list vs. paper list. I call that Strategic Planning and lots of AARs (After Action Reviews). I guess I'm not too old to learn something new. ;)

 

Sure those lists are beatable, and they are not very balanced or fun after playing them for more than a few go 'rounds, but at least they would all see that what one person thinks is OP is not to the others. Or by each army having something OP in their army would relax them a little when playing each other. Now, with that said, if all they do is play amongst themselves day in and day out, that in and of itself would get boring no matter what list(s) they're using. On top of that, if they are only playing Pitched Battle everytime, then...sorry, I fell asleep thinking about that. ;)

 

There are many different ways to spice up their games without resorting to exclusion. How do you think those Basilisks or Daemon Princes or Meph would feel if everybody was playing without them? :D

 

• Switch armies/expand each others' armies.
  
• Use the BRB Missions/Scenarios or buy expansions to get new flavors.
  
• Play on different tables/different scenery/terrains.
  
• Play APOC style: 2 on 2, 3 on 1, etc.
  
• Bring in new blood to the group.
  
• Pit-fight Meph vs. anyone else's 250pts of anything to see what can or can't stand the pain; or replay a Meph scenario in C:BA.
  

[Sanguinarian]

Not saying this has any weight on the argument but I have fought abaddon with mephiston probably about 12-15 times as a friend of mine has him and we have a little grudge match between those two characters. Out of all of those attempts mephy has won once only. I'm liking the graphs, neat way of comparing raw data but thought I would throw that piece of real world experience in for interest's sake.

 

I originally typed this to ask if you were running Abby with a squad or not, but I started to plot that out and I figured it'd be more beneficial to plot out my thoughts :

Mephiston charging with a successful Psychic tests: 5 attacks, that get to reroll misses and wounds striking at Strength 10 at initiative 7 and ignores normal saves.

Abby charging rolling a full 6 Attacks: 10 attacks at strength 8 at Initiavive 6 with ignore normal armor saves.

 

One on one Mephiston is going to be Attacking Abaddon's base toughness of 4, not 5 (Strength 10 is double Abaddon's Toughness no matter how you look at it) meaning he's gonna wound Abaddon on 2+ compared to Abaddon wounding Abby on 6+. I don't see it being unreasonable to figure that Meph can land 4 of his 2+ attacks that get to re-roll his to-hit and to-wounds. Abby's 2+ save is toast leaving him to trust in on his 5+ Inv save. Those are long odds, by no means impossible to make, but long odds none the less. If Meph is followed up by just about anything in the BA codex it's almost a guaranteed dead Abby.

 

So now I would like to ask if you ran Abby with a Squad those times you fought Meph? If you were running him solo all those times I would have to question how Mephiston didn't win the majority of the time.

 

You may assume all these battles have been 1 on 1 (I think one of them wasn't). As samanagol said it is his 'eternal warrior' ie immune to instant death that makes him extremely hard to kill. The only time I did kill him was when he spammed up his demon weapon roll and got a 1 thus spanking himself in the face.

 

Most of the attempts resulted in Abaddon killing Meph in one round of combat at most 2. If I remember correctly Abaddon hits on 4's and wounds on 2's with re rolls and no armour saves. Meph hits on 4's (with rerolls) and wounds on 2's (hopefully with rerolls) but then Abaddon gets some kind of inv. save, not entirely sure what. The long and the short of it is that Abaddon gets more attacks and every wound is confirmed, Meph gets less attacks and Abaddon has a chance of saving any wounds caused.

 

Right. I was totally forgetting Abbys 4+ inv.

 

These graphs were just for comparison sake only, not to be dissected for every little discrepancy, ommission or inaccuracy. We can all summize our own conclusions using the same method. Chillax people. I will say, it opened my eyes a tad bit and...I'm ready to get Abbadon's Black Crusade underway!!!

[SamaNagol]

The thing with Abaddon is, you can get a huge unit of Khorne Berzerkers for the same price, and they score too.

 

Abaddon is just a killing stick. And as such isn't really worth taking. Nothing in the BA list can kill as well as Mephy AND score.

[Liltom]

I'd be more worried about the challenge of the mechanised element of the OP's list than Mephiston. Anyone who is more fearful of a powerful single character than they are a powerful overall army build, such as that mechanised one, is going to end up losing and becoming bitter.

 

I'm not a powergamer, I don't really play in tournaments. I play for fun, play around with my army lists to make them interesting as well as capable of winning, value fluff and reflect it in my army and love breaking out inefficient but entertaining units. However, too spite all this I think your group needs to suck it up and deal with mephiston like they would any other character rather than moaning.

[Stormshrug]

Few people in this thread have taken it at face-value: is Mephiston balanced in the OP's specific, resource-limited, casual environment? Instead, it's turned into a grand mathhammer thread about whether or not Meph is balanced overall, which is a different question entirely, and one that has been thrashed like a dead equine already.

 

Here's my suggestion to the OP: switch armies with one (or more) of the people in your group for a while. Play against your army for enough games to get comfortable with fielding your opponent's forces across from your own. If you're getting tabled and no minor, affordable changes can make the games winnable, you have your answer. If you find yourself saying "Man, this game was winnable, and then Mephiston wiped out half my force," then you have your answer. And if you keep killing him without too much trouble, then you've got your answer.

 

The fact is, very little that the 'general wisdom' found in this thread that is terribly applicable to your specific situation.

 

-Stormshrug

[flameseeker574]

I would say that Meph is perfectly acceptable at 1500 points. He eats up a ton of points, has no invulnerable and with perils of the warp is more than capable of killing himself. I can understand all of their arguments except for the last one:"meph forces them to react to his presence and change their play style"

 

Well guess what my playstyle/plan when I enter a game is to beat the other player, I am not a power gamer by any means but it is simply human nature to want to win, and if I am constantly reacting to my opponent, I never get to execute my plan, and barring insane dice rolls I will probably lose if I am fighting every battle on the other person's terms. The way to win a game is to make the other player react to your army, and hopefully be unable to come up with a viable counter plan before you have ripped them to pieces. So saying that they don't like meph is more or less saying that they really don't like you having a pretty good chance of winning.

[Brother-Captain Lucius]

Also maverike Prime Mephy doesnt get his rerolls to wound with transfixing gaze when he charges as you have to be in B2B at the START of the assault phase for it to go off.

[the jeske]

If you're getting tabled and no minor, affordable changes can make the games winnable, you have your answer

how is he suppose to win with other armies being A bad build B no testing of other army dex and C possibly having 0 fun playing them[because If he wanted to play orks/IG or chaos he would have done that in the first place].

[Stormshrug]

If you're getting tabled and no minor, affordable changes can make the games winnable, you have your answer

how is he suppose to win with other armies being A bad build B no testing of other army dex and C possibly having 0 fun playing them[because If he wanted to play orks/IG or chaos he would have done that in the first place].

 

He wanted to know if Mephiston is too powerful for his opponents, who are not able to change their lists dramatically. This will get him an answer.

 

To your alphabetical points:

 

A. How do you know they're bad? How are we even defining bad? And who says he has to win. If he loses, hey, that says something about the metagame.

 

B. I said play a few games to get comfortable for this very reason. It only takes a few games to learn the basics of army, especially if you read any tactica. Plus his opponents will be in the exact same situation, since they too will be playing a force they don't know how to use. Unless you're suggesting that Blood Angels take no skill or experience to play.

 

C. This is just silly. Are you saying you've never had fun trying anything new? Playing new armies may actually lead you to discover things you didn't know, learn new strategies, and think about things in novel ways. There is no downside to *trying* a new army if you don't have to purchase/build/paint it.

 

-Stormshrug

[Morticon]

Guys- lets tidy up this thread a bit. Please keep it relevant and on topic.

[Crynn]

Not saying this has any weight on the argument but I have fought abaddon with mephiston probably about 12-15 times as a friend of mine has him and we have a little grudge match between those two characters. Out of all of those attempts mephy has won once only. I'm liking the graphs, neat way of comparing raw data but thought I would throw that piece of real world experience in for interest's sake.

 

I originally typed this to ask if you were running Abby with a squad or not, but I started to plot that out and I figured it'd be more beneficial to plot out my thoughts :

Mephiston charging with a successful Psychic tests: 5 attacks, that get to reroll misses and wounds striking at Strength 10 at initiative 7 and ignores normal saves.

Abby charging rolling a full 6 Attacks: 10 attacks at strength 8 at Initiavive 6 with ignore normal armor saves.

 

One on one Mephiston is going to be Attacking Abaddon's base toughness of 4, not 5 (Strength 10 is double Abaddon's Toughness no matter how you look at it) meaning he's gonna wound Abaddon on 2+ compared to Abaddon wounding Abby on 6+. I don't see it being unreasonable to figure that Meph can land 4 of his 2+ attacks that get to re-roll his to-hit and to-wounds. Abby's 2+ save is toast leaving him to trust in on his 5+ Inv save. Those are long odds, by no means impossible to make, but long odds none the less. If Meph is followed up by just about anything in the BA codex it's almost a guaranteed dead Abby.

 

So now I would like to ask if you ran Abby with a Squad those times you fought Meph? If you were running him solo all those times I would have to question how Mephiston didn't win the majority of the time.

 

You may assume all these battles have been 1 on 1 (I think one of them wasn't). As samanagol said it is his 'eternal warrior' ie immune to instant death that makes him extremely hard to kill. The only time I did kill him was when he spammed up his demon weapon roll and got a 1 thus spanking himself in the face.

 

If you do the math correctly, with Meph charging he will beat abbadon more often than abaddon will beat him, irrelivant of what or how many times you've rolled dice.

 

To the point of this thread though

 

Mate, If your opponents are having problems with Meph you have to look at it from a few angles.

Most of the attempts resulted in Abaddon killing Meph in one round of combat at most 2. If I remember correctly Abaddon hits on 4's and wounds on 2's with re rolls and no armour saves. Meph hits on 4's (with rerolls) and wounds on 2's (hopefully with rerolls) but then Abaddon gets some kind of inv. save, not entirely sure what. The long and the short of it is that Abaddon gets more attacks and every wound is confirmed, Meph gets less attacks and Abaddon has a chance of saving any wounds caused.

 

If you do the math correctly, with Meph charging he will beat abbadon more often than abaddon will beat him, irrelivant of what or how many times you've rolled dice.

 

To the point of this thread though

 

Mate, If your opponents are having problems with Meph you have to look at it from a few angles most of which you have explained in your post.

Your gaming group is rather soft, ehile you say you are all compeditive with each other, you really mean you want to have compeditive games against each other by softening your lists to the point where people can play the game without the fear of 'UBER' armies which is fine.

 

Specifically with Meph though, and as a compeditive gamer I will say hands down Meph is a top tier unit, an absolute monster if and only if the players you play with have no idea how to deal with him. He is hard in your army because of the synergy he creates with your vehicles. He can hide behind them and requires the same weapons to kill him as your vehicles, so this this is adding to his strengths. On the other side of this many of the armies you are playing have really no reason to complain about him.

 

If your eldar player cant just take the ability to make all psychic tests taken on 3d6 and perils on 12 and above then he is not playing a soft list but is rather just ignorant to his own army who in fluff are supposed to own the psychic phase of the game. The eldar player should leterally have no problems dealing with him.

 

IG is the most compeditive codex out at the moment, If he cant pack the fire power to deal with your army then by that definition every other army is doomed. Tell him to explore his codex for options to deal with Meph, he will find many. Not to mention the fact he takes 2 Vendettas in 1500 but you cant take 2 Vindicators? seriously, Vendettas are one of the most undercosted units in the game, 3 twinlinked lascannons on a scouting fast vehicle and he's struggleing against your list? really? This guy isnt playing softly he's playing worse than the local 9 years olds down at GW on saturdays.

 

Black Templars will struggle a little bit, but 1 5 man unit of TH/SS termies WILL bewat Mephiston in combat especially if they charge from a raider. He is more than capable of fielding this.

 

Now to the Black sheep of this, the One army I believe can complain and others may disagree. Orks.

Meph willbeat them in combat by so much he will run squad off the board each turn weather charged or charging. Only the PC nob in each squad can really hurt meph with his 3 attacks averaging 1.3 wounds. Nobs will kill him with enough PC's but at strength 10 meph will kill more points of nobs every time than it takes to kill him, and all their shooting is effectively useless against him. With your Mech list and the fact that orks struggle to kill armor 13+ at range, you should be dominating most ork players, i know i do with a similar list.

 

So in short, please tell your friends to search their codex more thoroughly before they complain to you, most of them have very simple ways of dealing with meph, who for the cost of a terminator assault squads an added terminator and SS/SH is really not that unbeatable. With that said though, people are kidding themselves if they dont believe Meph is one of the more powerfull units in the game at the moment, but he does have his weaknesses that a good player can exploit.

 

Hope that helps.

[the jeske]

How do you know they're bad? How are we even defining bad? And who says he has to win. If he loses, hey, that says something about the metagame.

they cant counter mefiston with normal builds , that is kind of a bad . because if they cant stop him any form of uber unit build stomps their armies hard . I mean one could take 2 LR with terminators inside and they would probably be too OP for them too.

B. I said play a few games to get comfortable for this very reason. It only takes a few games to learn the basics of army, especially if you read any tactica. Plus his opponents will be in the exact same situation, since they too will be playing a force they don't know how to use. Unless you're suggesting that Blood Angels take no skill or experience to play.

as they dont play for tournaments , this will take a few months. To properly test an army , even if you played before you need 4-5 games. so 4-5 games against orks/IG and chaos is around 15 games , so minimum 2 months [considering 2 gamers per weekend/gaming day]. and is considering that your opponents are always there . + how can you be sure that his opponents[who dont want/know how to] build good lists or even counter basic units like mefiston will know how to play BAs ? specialy a counter list the razorback build .

 

This is just silly. Are you saying you've never had fun trying anything new? Playing new armies may actually lead you to discover things you didn't know, learn new strategies, and think about things in novel ways. There is no downside to *trying* a new army if you don't have to purchase/build/paint it.

yes there is nothing bad about trying something new , that you make yourself . But there is 0 fun in playing someone else army [a bad one to boot] , you cant learn "new" strategis because the armies dont work + considering the number of builds is rather small [a gunline is a gunline . mecha or LR rush builds work in the core the same way , no matter if you Play BAs/chaos or some other sm ] , what someone has to learn is the rulings/FAQ and the special rules an army has .

 

Or are you saying that the OP should buy an ork/IG and chaos army he would like to play and then show his friends how their armies should be played.

 

 

Personaly I think this is either the case of bad players or people who bought their armies with models they like[and they either dont want or cant buy more] and suddenly they have to play against an army that is not a random selection of models , but an actualy army list . It is normal that in a setting like that every unit [because of list synergy] seems to be OP. SoB would be op too [all those "rending"flamers , unkillable tar pit HQ etc] . There are two ways out of it . First down grade your army to their level , play stuff that doesnt work or lose on purpose . It sucks , but if you dont have anyone else to play against and you still want to game at least a little bit there is no other way around it . The second thing you can do is find different people to play against . Again not so fun , if your friends with your opponents in real life . But lets be honest . They arent having fun playing against your optimized build and I guess you dont have much fun with wining big against their list every time too .

[Freman Bloodglaive]

Mephiston beats Abaddon? In what universe?

 

Mephiston hits Abby on 4+, wounds on 2+ if he got the power off, Abaddon saves on 4+. 1/2 x 5/6 x 1/2 = 5/24 chance of wounding with each attack. Abaddon is immune to instant death, so the force weapon won't help. Mephiston has 6 attacks if he charges.

 

Abaddon hits Mephy on 4+, wounds on 2+ with re-rolls, Mephiston gets no save. 1/2 x (1-1/6 x 1/6) = 35/72 chance of wounding with each attack. In addition Abbadon gets +D6 attacks per turn in addition to his 4 basic attacks (although there is a chance of rolling a 1 and hurting himself) If he got the charge he'd average around 8 attacks, with a potential for 11 (or a chance of none).

 

By any reasonable standard I'd give Mephiston one, maybe two combat phases against Abaddon, but no more. Abaddon could easily kill him in one phase with a decent daemon weapon roll.

 

Even if we assume that Mephiston successfully transfixes Abaddon we're still looking at 4+ to hit with re-rolls, and 2+ to wound with re-rolls. (1-1/2 x 1/2) x (1-5/6 x 5/6) = 3/4 x 35/36 = 105/144 x 1/2 = 105/288. Abaddon's invulnerable save and immunity to instant death are still deciding factors, while his massive potential attack total gives Mephiston problems. With 6 attacks Mephy should average about 2 wounds in a combat phase, while if he rolls an average of 4 bonus attacks (even without charging) Abaddon can inflict about 4 wounds per combat phase. If he passes his leadership test, of which there is a chance even on leadership 6, then Mephiston's average drops to about 1.

[Stormshrug]

How do you know they're bad? How are we even defining bad? And who says he has to win. If he loses, hey, that says something about the metagame.

they cant counter mefiston with normal builds , that is kind of a bad . because if they cant stop him any form of uber unit build stomps their armies hard . I mean one could take 2 LR with terminators inside and they would probably be too OP for them too.

B. I said play a few games to get comfortable for this very reason. It only takes a few games to learn the basics of army, especially if you read any tactica. Plus his opponents will be in the exact same situation, since they too will be playing a force they don't know how to use. Unless you're suggesting that Blood Angels take no skill or experience to play.

as they dont play for tournaments , this will take a few months. To properly test an army , even if you played before you need 4-5 games. so 4-5 games against orks/IG and chaos is around 15 games , so minimum 2 months [considering 2 gamers per weekend/gaming day]. and is considering that your opponents are always there . + how can you be sure that his opponents[who dont want/know how to] build good lists or even counter basic units like mefiston will know how to play BAs ? specialy a counter list the razorback build .

 

This is just silly. Are you saying you've never had fun trying anything new? Playing new armies may actually lead you to discover things you didn't know, learn new strategies, and think about things in novel ways. There is no downside to *trying* a new army if you don't have to purchase/build/paint it.

yes there is nothing bad about trying something new , that you make yourself . But there is 0 fun in playing someone else army [a bad one to boot] , you cant learn "new" strategis because the armies dont work + considering the number of builds is rather small [a gunline is a gunline . mecha or LR rush builds work in the core the same way , no matter if you Play BAs/chaos or some other sm ] , what someone has to learn is the rulings/FAQ and the special rules an army has .

 

Or are you saying that the OP should buy an ork/IG and chaos army he would like to play and then show his friends how their armies should be played.

 

 

Personaly I think this is either the case of bad players or people who bought their armies with models they like[and they either dont want or cant buy more] and suddenly they have to play against an army that is not a random selection of models , but an actualy army list . It is normal that in a setting like that every unit [because of list synergy] seems to be OP. SoB would be op too [all those "rending"flamers , unkillable tar pit HQ etc] . There are two ways out of it . First down grade your army to their level , play stuff that doesnt work or lose on purpose . It sucks , but if you dont have anyone else to play against and you still want to game at least a little bit there is no other way around it . The second thing you can do is find different people to play against . Again not so fun , if your friends with your opponents in real life . But lets be honest . They arent having fun playing against your optimized build and I guess you dont have much fun with wining big against their list every time too .

 

Your much of your argument seems to hinge on the theory that his playgroup is a bunch of morons. If you can't radically change your list, then being unable to handle rapid shifts in the metagame caused by BA Herohammer shenanigans is somewhat understandable.

 

To give an example: I have a 6 Dreadnought SM list. When I first play an opponent, they often don't have enough anti-tank weapons to handle it - so even though it's a stupid one-trick pony, it frequently works the first time. It never works the second time, because they just change their lists. Now imagine that nobody is allowed to change thier lists, and I'm the last person to arrive in the metagame (just as the BA codex is the most recent). No amount of good play on the table is going to give you the sheer volume of meltaguns you need to counter that list. You may get better at fighting it over time, but you'll be at a serious disadvantage until you change your build.

 

You also seem to be of the opinion that ever limiting your unit selection guarantees that you can't have fun, so under your model, the OP just needs to accept that he's doomed to either table his opponents and not enjoy it or lose and not enjoy it. I disagree with the fundamental point that unit limitations necessarily negate fun. The game isn't all about building the most powerful synergistic combos off the tabletop and then mathhammering how good they are (although I know people who "play" this way).

 

But this argument is fairly off-topic, so I suggest we let it drop. To the OP, though, I still recommend switching armies if you want to know if Mephiston is OP, given your rather static metagame, or not. Even two or three games with one of your opponents should give you a sense of how powerful he is (or how counterable he is). If it's player error by your opponents that's making your use of Mephiston so good, then that's fine - if you can counter him with their list(s), they'll have no argument that they couldn't do the same. This will also prove to them that he isn't too powerful, which no amount of internet chit-chat will do to any effective lengths.

 

-Stormshrug

[SamaNagol]

The challenge for me to to build a list which is good enough to reduce every game to a battle of generalship rather than list writing. Catering to a specific build for a one off game is a waste of everyone's time and doesn't improve you.

 

The real task, for me, is to come up with a list that can deal with 6 Dreadnoughts, Mephiston, units of 30 Ork Boyz, Mech IG, Salamander TH/SS Termies in a Raider..... everything.

 

However one thing that I learned during the time I spent playing Grey Knights is instead of looking at countering one specific unit, people need to look at winning the game. Even if you never kill Mephiston in every game you play, as long as you win that is job done. Sending in wave after wave of units to die against him while the rest of his army goes untouched is a sure fire way of losing.

 

To fit any hammer unit into your list you do so at the expense of something else. So look where the holes are and exploit them, don't always try and find a weapon that will defeat the opponent's hammer head on. Taking an overload of Meltaguns will indeed beat 6 Dreadnoughts, but it will mean your list will most likely be ineffective vs horde. Far better to use your mobility and the vulnerable rear armour of Dreadnoughts, along with their inability to score to take out half of them with weight of numbers and attempt to neutralise his scoring units.

 

There's always ways round having to fight head on.

[the jeske]

Your much of your argument seems to hinge on the theory that his playgroup is a bunch of morons.If you can't radically change your list, then being unable to handle rapid shifts in the metagame caused by BA Herohammer shenanigans is somewhat understandable.

If they cant deal with single mefisto , then they cant deal with 2 DP chaos armies too , they cant deal with orks both the bike and the wagons version . Nids are a rather meh list , how do they counter them , because nids run a lot more MC then BAs[yes am classing mefi as a DP model]. The meta game didnt change becuase BAs got a new codex , SW or chaos or IG armies dont suddenly look totaly different. spaming melta , mulit shot stuff was and still is the way to go .

So it looks like they have bad lists to begin with and either dont want [i can understand that] or cant [i can understand that too , its not like models are cheap] make their army work . It should be impossible with orks, IG and chaos to get beaten/tabled [as OP says they cant deal with him] by a BA list . For that to happen one would have to try .

 

 

When I first play an opponent, they often don't have enough anti-tank weapons to handle it

not enough anti tank in an army in 5th ed . in an edition that can clearly be called mecha edition , even more then 3ed . what kind of armies are those and what kind of players build armies that cant deal with armor in 5th ed.

No amount of good play on the table is going to give you the sheer volume of meltaguns you need to counter that list

Did you test it ? Because a dread hvy list is actualy rather bad . And the whole "not enough melta" part , is false too. IG doesnt have enough melta to pop 6 walkers ?? chaos runs 2 DPS 6 melta guns on troops and 6 oblits . Eldar ... will laugh at the build .

 

he game isn't all about building the most powerful synergistic combos off the tabletop and then mathhammering how good they are (although I know people who "play" this way).

I actualy suck at math , and all my expiriance is from testing stuff .

he can either make a list that works better or a list that works worse . the closest thing he can get to something like balance is to play a mirror match against an identical build and even then depanding on the build or scenario the one who goes first or second has it better.

 

Taking an overload of Meltaguns will indeed beat 6 Dreadnoughts, but it will mean your list will most likely be ineffective vs horde.

see and here is where you take the wrong turn . IF you play BA/SW or Chaos you dont have to gear for anti horde. Two hordes are hth nids and orks , they die if charged by 3A meqs and if they charge them they bounce of normal line units unless they hit them with something like nobz or MC+unit of stealers [but then it normal that something that costs twice the points kills a unit of meq] . the third army that can go horde is IG and again they are so weak in hth that you actualy dont want to kill too many with shoting [with hth too , but it doesnt always work] . this is why spaming melta guns works . only army that has to deal and think about anti horde is loyalist sm and DAs . other meqs can spam melta , sometimes supporting their army with some longe range fire power[while the some can range from 2 lascanons in a razorback hvy army to 15 in a SW army with long fangs].