Calling Mark Ferek ?!

[Morticon]

Stumbled upon this only recently:

 

http://www.baldandscreaming.com/army-lists...ament-finalist/

 

Was really, really amazed and interested.

 

The list is unarguably solid, but must take one bastich of a general to wield.

Any thoughts and contributions from the creator as to how it works?

 

Its not overwhelming in the CC area, so I'm assuming it uses a combined arms approach to whittle down the opponent before engaging in CC - if it ever engages in CC?

Its blindingly fast, since everything is moving up 18" as opposed to your 12" with razors. There are so many rhinos that everything is blocked (problem for you too though?) but, then what?

 

 

Its worth noting that the list went undefeated right into the finals.

 

Guess im asking for a little thought behind the list and its tactics!!

 

 

 

Mark Ferek – Blood Angels – 2000 points

 

250 Mephiston

100 Librarian – Shield of Sanguinius, Fear of the Darkness

 

145 5 Honor Guard – Meltagun x2, flamer x2

50 Rhino

145 5 Honor Guard – Meltagun x2, flamer x2

50 Rhino

 

140 5 Assault Marines – Remove jump packs, meltagun, infernus pistol, power weapon

16 Rhino – Searchlight

140 5 Assault Marines – Remove jump packs, meltagun, infernus pistol, power weapon

16 Rhino – Searchlight

140 5 Assault Marines – Remove jump packs, meltagun, infernus pistol, power weapon

16 Rhino – Searchlight

140 5 Assault Marines – Remove jump packs, meltagun, infernus pistol, power weapon

16 Rhino – Searchlight

 

115 Baal Predator – Assault cannon

115 Baal Predator – Assault cannon

 

135 Predator – Autocannon turret, lascannon sponsons

135 Predator – Autocannon turret, lascannon sponsons

135 Predator – Autocannon turret, lascannon sponsons

[Demoulius]

tbh Mort it doesent look like that much of a good and solid list...

 

aside from meltaspam he has 6 lascannons all who are on combi preds...

 

at 20 assault marines and 10 honour guards hes very light on infantry and the 2 baals with no sponsons are unlikely to hold off a horde army on their own either ;)

 

aside from mephi this army will DIE horibly in close combat... no powerfists so if a MC or walker gets in h2h you can kiss that unit goodbye.

 

seems like he figured out what units he liked and copy pasted those a few times :)

 

Not saying its a bad list but it doesent strike me to be the grandfather of all lists either ;)

 

i dread to think what would happen if his opponents brings a raider and manages to wreck/stun/shake his predators on turn 1 :(

[Brother_Byhlli]

tbh Mort it doesent look like that much of a good and solid list...

 

aside from meltaspam he has 6 lascannons all who are on combi preds...

 

at 20 assault marines and 10 honour guards hes very light on infantry and the 2 baals with no sponsons are unlikely to hold off a horde army on their own either ;)

 

aside from mephi this army will DIE horibly in close combat... no powerfists so if a MC or walker gets in h2h you can kiss that unit goodbye.

 

seems like he figured out what units he liked and copy pasted those a few times :P

 

Not saying its a bad list but it doesent strike me to be the grandfather of all lists either -_-

 

i dread to think what would happen if his opponents brings a raider and manages to wreck/stun/shake his predators on turn 1 :(

 

Thing is, for all that you're saying you think it's a bad list, it went right through to the final without losing a single game. Obviously there's something to it that you're not seeing... :P

[JamesI]

Thing is, for all that you're saying you think it's a bad list, it went right through to the final without losing a single game. Obviously there's something to it that you're not seeing... :P

 

I won't comment on the specific list without more study of it, but based on previous experience some lists can look awful to some players due to their own experience/preferences. I remember seeing lists that won events that I thought were really bad, but it worked for the person who used them.

[Brother_Byhlli]

Thing is, for all that you're saying you think it's a bad list, it went right through to the final without losing a single game. Obviously there's something to it that you're not seeing... :)

 

I won't comment on the specific list without more study of it, but based on previous experience some lists can look awful to some players due to their own experience/preferences. I remember seeing lists that won events that I thought were really bad, but it worked for the person who used them.

 

Don't get me wrong - I'm not pretending any kind of tactical nuance that lets me see the genius where others are missing it. I think I was pretty much aiming to say what you said, though I may have come off a little harsh.

 

^_^

 

I guess too that there's such a large element of luck in games that a genuinely bad list can sometimes do rather well.

[AGPO]

A good player is always more useful than a good list. In an ideal world you will have both, but it is your ability to respond to the vaguaries that fate brings up which will win you more games than anything else. This is a good thing, because anything else would drag us back down into the glorified dice rolling competition that was the last days of third edition.

[Venerable Jazzman]

Against horde armies though, would you not tend to use Fear of the Darkness on the leading units, as most hordes are low Ld? Make them run, rather than have to shoot them up.

Keep the shooting for the stuff that needs it, pick out the leaders/big gribblies etc.

 

Just an initial reaction - it does look like an odd list, but not unworkable. You can always shoot out the top hatch anyway on the Rhinos, although then you're in assault range for the next turn.

 

Can't argue with 6-0 either, so it must be doing something right.

[Morticon]

This reaction is exactly what was expected and im happy *grins*

 

But, as people have mentioned, its gone 6-0 or whatever, 4-0.

 

Jazz, i looked at it and thought "weird". I can see its "strengths" especially vs. heavy mech meta environment. But, I feel it has apparent weaknesses, however those didnt seem to come up or were dealt with well - which is why i'm keen to hear from the creator!

 

 

I want to know how it works. Because he made it work.

The SW list was very, very similar only with more fire support in the form of long fangs and razorbacks, but also used rhinos with 5mans instead of razors.

So, in essence, there has been a shift towards rhinos over razors with some really good success.

Why? How? How does it work?

 

 

Also, as far as horde is concerned, remember orks and nids are fearless! What other hordes are there?

 

 

Any other thoughts?

[JamesI]

Also, as far as horde is concerned, remember orks and nids are fearless! What other hordes are there?

This was the problem I had with FotD. Too many of the units I wanted to hit with it were fearless due to Mob size or Synapse.

 

Thinking about this, I need to try to get to NOVA some year. Its closer than Adepticon to me, not this year though.

[Brother Nathan]

commasar and guard army? also huge and fearless....

[Corby]

Its a very nice list , has plenty of redundancy and fast elements that are hard to put down , as well as mephiston hiding behind cheap rhinos to wreck face.

 

The cheap baal Predators can threaten side armour very early on in the game , and being Av 13 are quite surviable. The 3 combi-predators act as a screen for the weaker rhinos and try to force the opponents units out of transports , The rhino squads can be used to push midfield early in later in the game depending on the opponent and how quickly the Ac/lc predators get units out of transports , and mephiston is can be hidden very well behind the rhino wall to deter opponents assaulting him.

 

I'd say the main glaring issue of the list is that those 3 autocannon/lascannon predators are the main work horses of the list , other than that its a pretty sweet list and does everything blood angels do well , is it the best list our codex can put out? Doubtfull.

 

It does have a very boring and bland feel to it however.

 

Against mech he has a lot of anti-tank

 

To those who say he'll struggle with hordes , he can tank shock horde armies ( kan wall orks will give him the most trouble , with Snikrot and commandos coming on behind him) into favourable posistions and use a combined charge from several assault squads and the honor guard to break down large squads all the while shielding them from counter assaults in the following turn with rhinos.

[Venerable Jazzman]

Also, as far as horde is concerned, remember orks and nids are fearless! What other hordes are there?

Hmm, good point, I'd forgotten about the Mob size thing, just looked at base Ld.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Maybe the format of the missions helped give this list an edge. To me it's your typical razorspam with the AV13 included. I've seen lots of lists like this one. Their main power comes from the overall speed of the entire army.

 

G :mellow:

[Corby]

Maybe the format of the missions helped give this list an edge. To me it's your typical razorspam with the AV13 included. I've seen lots of lists like this one. Their main power comes from the overall speed of the entire army.

 

G ;)

 

 

Except the army doesn't have a single razorback.

 

Razorspam is an army comprising of large amounts of razorbacks with multiple small units. Mark Ferek's build above is a rhino rush build with av 13 and mephiston included.

 

Its like people who call any mech guard army a leafblower list , where an actually leafblower list is a 2500pt guard army built around having as much S10 ordance as possible.

 

I do agree with mission format may have played a role in this lists construction however.units.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I think you should know what I meant. ;)

 

G

[Corby]

I think you should know what I meant. ;)

 

G :)

 

 

Of course I do ;)

 

Thought I'd do the typical internet thing of leaping on anyone who makes a mistake for a change :)

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

No problem. :huh:

 

G :lol:

[earemir]

This reaction is exactly what was expected and im happy *grins* But, as people have mentioned, its gone 6-0 or whatever, 4-0.

 

Jazz, i looked at it and thought "weird". I can see its "strengths" especially vs. heavy mech meta environment. But, I feel it has apparent weaknesses, however those didnt seem to come up or were dealt with well - which is why i'm keen to hear from the creator!

 

I want to know how it works. Because he made it work.

The SW list was very, very similar only with more fire support in the form of long fangs and razorbacks, but also used rhinos with 5mans instead of razors.

So, in essence, there has been a shift towards rhinos over razors with some really good success.

Why? How? How does it work?

 

Also, as far as horde is concerned, remember orks and nids are fearless! What other hordes are there? Any other thoughts?

 

Razorbacks dont have fire points. With Rhinos, you can fire up to two guns from passagers (meltagun/infernopistol). So for 40 less points you have good close range fire. Why would you disembark your troops if they can stay safe inside?

 

My two cents.

[Black Memories]

What armies did the guy face? This list could be very effective against certain list types because everyone is in a transport and there's so many people and trucks to kill it makes it difficult to get a handle on. Honestly a lot of these "very competitive" tournaments would run lists at an 1850 level that could potentially lose very badly during many different groups league tournaments. In my opinion people take lists to fight a particular type of list they know will be at this tournaments and those lists may actually be "weak" lists, but that's the way they feel they should run it to counter what the opposing team is doing.

 

 

Examples being, you're very likely to be able to do well against guard with this, which makes up a large amount of armies. On the same token you're likely to do well against razorwolfs and other blood angels razorspam armies (speed+close range firepower). Orks I can see taking some handiwork to accomplish but Mephiston himself is an absolute stomper of orks.

 

Basically this army has a lot of flexibility but I can also see where it has strengths in that flexibility. Again I will note that in some of these 1850ish or lower tournaments the competition takes such a flexible list that a lot of armies don't even have anything good to stop mephiston alone. At some point the flexibility starts to hurt, I think this list is teetering on the edge of that but due to a few entries it manages to stay on the very workable side of things.

 

I agree on paper it's a bland army and whatever else but he was likely playing against equally bland armies. Keep in mind below 2k points against a lot of the competitive armies out there mephiston can absolutely CARRY your army even in a competitive setting.

 

 

EDIT: I realize the tournament was played at 2k, but I'm basing this more the list building concepts which seem to be consistent with most 1700, 1850, 2000 point games (concepts tend to change or go more towards an extreme at 2500).

[Morticon]

Any other thoughts?

 

Razorbacks dont have fire points. With Rhinos, you can fire up to two guns from passagers (meltagun/infernopistol). So for 40 less points you have good close range fire. Why would you disembark your troops if they can stay safe inside?

 

My two cents.

 

I thought this initially as well.

 

But remember, we cant shoot out of a Rhino if we move over 6".

 

This means that to get that ability to shoot out, we're moving a "massive" 6" and we're allowing ourselves to be hit on 4+.

 

 

Earemir, irrespective of the problems I raised i think your point is the key to the list, the "hidden" firepower. But, i'm still trying to wrap my head around it (if that makes sense).

[Black Memories]

Again mort the key here, in my opinion, is look at who he played. There was a spacewolf player that won it with a very similar list. Sometimes these lists are just weird and the lists played against them are weird.

 

Personally I think a DoA list would absolutely shred his list. I don't think he'd have an answer for that many FnP assault marines. Mephiston would be the only model able to slow him down once they get into him. DoA lists and similar lists are not afraid of Baals or las/auto preds.

 

If someone is playing that BA list against a bunch of IG troops or other 5 man squads of other marine chapters they have a pretty good chance of doing well in combat and up close if they get the charge. The strength of the list is that there's just so many squads. For what it's worth he lost to a Space wolf player at the end that just outgunned him and had good rolls but a similar list. Long range firepower of the wolves trumped his list which required him to be close.

 

Personally I think this list is successful because of the melta meta game going on currently. This list isnt particularly vulnerable to melta in general unless it wants to be in that there is no major loss if something explodes. That said it gains strength in the melta meta because many armies lack powerful long ranged firepower that they fielded in previous editions barring lists like space wolves. Yes, this list has to get close in, but nearly everyone else's does too, and he has a lot of stuff to get close in with. Because of the way the other lists are structured if he closes with multiples on a single unit he has a good chance of being able to fend them off. That's my theory anyways.

[Pavement Artist]

Call me a tread head but id want a few more tanks instead of meph.

[Red Fury]

So the win against orks came down to the roll of one die! And he has blue Baals!! (sorry I could't resist... :P )

 

It reminds me of that winning list a couple of years ago from the pdf with 6 tac squads mounted up with meltas. This has a few less scoring squads but each has 2 meltas plus the HGs too.

 

As for playing this list, I don't know. I think if you used the RAS as counter attacking with the tanks out front, it might work. Sit back and make them come to you? I hope to find the feed of the tourny, that would be cool to see. And even though these guys are mounted in Rhinos, they can react pretty darn well to dreads and cans by moving up to 12" dismounting and firing off 2 melta shots. It may be somewhat sacrificial, but it can work. But if you are going to have to dismount to get close enough for melta shots, razors would be better.

 

found an army pic:

http://i740.photobucket.com/albums/xx50/da...ts/IMG_0854.jpg

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I think the list was built specifically for the missions which were released well ahead of the event.

 

G ;)

[JMac]

I did some research through google using his name, and found a batrep from dashofpepper over on dakkadakka. It seems that he used all the rhinos as a wall to block all mobility of the enemies vehicles while retreating his troops back to find cover while his predators unleashed their firepower.

 

I don't know is this was his tactic in all games, but that is all I've found so far.