General concerns with non-armour builds

[Crynn]

. wait was a triple.

[thundrchickn]

First of all, thanks for your input! And don't worry about being blunt, straight or curt: I'm looking for insight, not praise! :)

 

Sure, we can go back to 2ed and claim the Angels of Death enviroment :P

 

1.- Sanguinor and Dante I've pretty much disregarded... you've convinced me!

 

2.- Mephiston... the issue I have with him is that you can't hid him in a a blob, so he is going to be target number 1 ASAP. That has the up side, because he doesn't score and it does take some fire power to bring him down... what saves does he have? Only the 2+? No inv?

 

3.- Astorath/chaplains... I love. Re-rolling to hit when assaulting is a big what. I'm not specially fond of named characters... even though Astorath does have a very cool model... but that doesn't mean I have to play him! hehe

 

4.- Libbies I'm not familiar with. I've never really been into the hood's guild. However, I understand that beyond the possibility of denying your opponents psych powers, there are some cool powers going around. I've suffered the S8 line and the S10 in CC.

 

5.- Honour Guard: I like Crynn's reasoning regarding the priests. Specially not giving away points (although you can always hide a normal SP in an ASM blob).

 

Note: I've read/seen that usually 2 SP are enough and 3 are too much... I guess it just comes down to how you play and practice. This thread does not attempt to deliver an uber-JP list... getting to know thy army is way much decisive than choosing Dante or Astorath :(

 

Note 2: I'm used to taking marines in either 5 or 10 batches (wonder why :P) but I liked the idea of an 8 man unit, hence getting that extra base to assault if needed.

 

To sum it up, I think the list then should go somewhere like:

 

1x Mephiston - big fire target and can deliver quite a pain.

1 x Librarian - protection and interesting powers.

2 x Honour guard - kitted for wound allocation but mainly vs infantry (shields, claws).

2 x Chaplain - to attach to big ASM squads

2 x Vanguard veterans, tooled for close combat. Makes no sense in assaulting a vehicle when you just shoot him... sound like a waste to go melta/powerfist. Could add a couple of melta bombs "just in case".

3 x ASM tank/MC hunting geared (meltas, PF or a TH even better)

2 x AMS anti infantry geared (flamers, PW)

 

Note: I've intentionally left out how many marines per squad... that will depend on the points available.

Note 2: Could somebody give me an estimate of how many points this would be? Lets assume 8 men strong, no gear payed for.

 

I'm not concerned about infantry (except for close combat specialists... but still, an 8 ASM force, with a chaplain and in the FnP bubble is bound to deliver pain) but I am a bit about tanks (mainly the heavy ones with AV13+) and specially MC.

 

How I am supposed to deal with a Bloodcrusher or a Trygon or similar? Always within this list concept :)

 

this is for all of you out there n wonderland.

 

you can give mephiston a 4+ cover mobile save with the all jump pack list. Move your jump pack bubble squad forward and form yourself up in a nice looking circle with mephy in the center. Anything shooting at him will have a 4+ cover save. Just don't bunch up to draw fire from battle cannons or whatnot. If its a tight fitting area your models don't have to adhere to the 1 inch gap rule so you can move the squad all over him without breaking any rules still give him 4+ cover and prevent anything from assaulting him so you can get a counter charge off of zoom off after a higher priority target.

[Zealadin]

this is for all of you out there n wonderland.

 

you can give mephiston a 4+ cover mobile save with the all jump pack list. Move your jump pack bubble squad forward and form yourself up in a nice looking circle with mephy in the center. Anything shooting at him will have a 4+ cover save. Just don't bunch up to draw fire from battle cannons or whatnot. If its a tight fitting area your models don't have to adhere to the 1 inch gap rule so you can move the squad all over him without breaking any rules still give him 4+ cover and prevent anything from assaulting him so you can get a counter charge off of zoom off after a higher priority target.

 

Thanks for providing that gem of insight just incase anyone wasn't ALREADY aware of how easy screening is in this addition. My point remains however that a 4+ cover save compared to NOT TAKING ANY WOUNDS is a slightly different story. (/sarcasm)

The point however remains that Mephy relies upon psychic powers for movement, and despite some figures that where stated earlier that are totally wrong, when facing certain anti psyker models or weargear your chance of getting these powers off becomes highly unreliable. In fact if you take a look at the Mephy threads you'll probably notice that alot of people find he takes more wounds from perils and is more hamstrung by failing his own abilities than by opponents playing smart.

 

Just for those of you out there in 'm***nland'

 

Also SP's can only hide in ASM from shooting not combat (without significant micro management), but again playing tactically can overcome this problem in alot of situations.

Mephiston also largely plays the role of a monstrous creature, he is there to soak up wounds and kill troops choices, and things he will damage enough to destroy their ability to significantly retaliate. He is like a LR, he draws plenty of fire, especially if used correctly.

 

If you want to run squads of 8 thats up to you, but there is a reason people only run 5 or 10, a very good reason. You may be saving a few points but your just hamstringing your ability to properly gear up your ASM squads.

 

Alot of people actually use HG as the anvil of your force, they are just too expensive fully kitted out with both SS AND a PW/LC/TH, whereas with just SS they are great for bogging down units particularly deathstars.

 

ASM with flamers.... most people seem to consider the fact that they will be Str5/I5 with FC to be enough anti horde, but if you face alot of horde in your meta then the flamers might be valuable.

 

There is nothing wrong with Dante he just represents a very specific playstyle and army composition. He doesn't bring anything to the table unless you follow what he was designed for, but thats called balance. Everything sucks when used wrong.

 

Generally people using two HQ's to be able to feild two HG units avoid named characters because they are all so expensive. If you search around the blogosphere there are lots of examples.

 

Your army is quite combat orientated from what you've talked about now, one of the common themes among competitive BA JP armies is the inclusion of Dev squads for what basically boils down to some hardcore missile support. They are basically the most flexible heavy weapon available, are relatively cheap and offset the lack of longer ranged weaponry on many of the choices. If your including VV however the opportunity to assault on deepstrikes is invaluable and can in part make up for this.

(Devs with missiles are also quite good anti horde)

 

Its also important to remember even with DoA if you intend to DS the squad into gameplay there are still dangers, far less so than normally but you risk losing your squad if you try and rely on 'average' rolls or other such concepts. Its one of those situations where you can win big or lose big. In the end they don't have quite the same protection that a drop pod offers.

 

Also as said above the ML Devs would cover your tank worries, as well as MC worries, while the standard ASM setup of 2 melta, PF is good for pretty much any role, you have two high strength low ap shots + pistols before charging, followed by your high strength power weapon attacks thanks to the fist (so unless your entire squad gets slaughtered those should hit, despite going last)

 

Mephiston actually can be quite good against certain CC specialists (the glass cannon kind) since he has high toughness, hits extremely hard, and his initiative means he hits first. Having only I5 (with FC) on pretty much the rest of the army except Chars/HQ you can face some pretty big problems if your trying to take out an opponents CC specialists with say I6 and don't have the perfect conditions to negate their I.

 

Also remember one of the biggest boons that marines have from a former xenos players perspective is being able to hide fists in almost any squad, with VV and other units who you don't strictly want to be facing vehicles, still being able to take down dreads and similar is extremely good.

[Tanhausen]

Again, thanks for the input.

 

- Regarding the SP... I'll just get a couple of games ASAP and see if 2 bubbles are enough or if more are needed.

- I agree that Mephiston is a MC-concept unit... more like a DP than a LR, since he can't transport, but the idea was clear.

- @ Zealadin The 8 man squad is not a taken decision and I'd be delighted to learn from you why to take either 5 or 10 men squad.

- About Ds... I'm no proplayer, but quite a few games of Deathwing are in my background... I have suffered the perils of mishap more than once :) 1D6 sounds quite an improvement!

- About Ini 6 specialists...beside some eldar unit and Khorne in juggernauts, I don't think I'll find many like those. Maybe genes... but I'm not going to attack a WS6 rending unit ;)

 

All in all, I'll try and get some games with the JP concept and see how it goes.

 

Thanks everybody for your input and I promise to come back with my conclusions.

[Farmer_Geddon]

As someone who is also wanting to start up a jp heavy army (incidently also taking a break from the big boys in bone) I'm finding this thread very useful - thanks to all contributers!

 

For myself I'm starting with the following at 1500:

 

Librarian

Honour guard 3 melta

2 SangPriests

10 ASM 2 melta pf

10 ASM 2 melta pf

5 VV PF 3 storm shields

2 DevSquads 4 MLaunchers

 

Various shuffling to follow!

[Hergrmir]

I quite like your list Farmer-G.

 

Re: Meph and the chances of failure for Wings. Fair enough, the odds may well be 1 in 1000, but with the amount of psychic hoods and runes out there, I'd rather just pay less for a regular libby with a jump pack and have that extra bit of reliability. Don't get me wrong, Meph is a BAMF and if he works for you, go right ahead. If I find I lose an unacceptable amount of games or something and I want more heavy lifting from the characters selection, I'll give him a shot.

[Donkeycow]

if you wanna go for an all jump pack army, a Librarian Dread might work for you. A Dreadnaught that can count as jump infantry in terms of movement *drools* also you can give him d3 extra attacks.