Upgrade weapons for Priests or no?

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

MSU is not the best but it seems to be what most people feel most comfortable playing.

 

G :)

[Deschenus Maximus]

It's just too easy to pick apart a bunch of weak units that can't punch back very well when you have much more powerful units.

 

Well, it is when you let your opponent dictate the course of the game. One of the strengths of MSU is that because they have more units they are better able to control the board. That is how MSU beat non-MSU armies: for the opponent to engage only small parts of your army while the rest faces off against the non-MSU armies' support units. When those are gone, the MSU gangpiles whatever big scary unit is left.

 

Obviously, if you have trouble playing that way, you're not going to have good results. That is not a failing of the army concept or because of "meta" either.

[Black Memories]

Uh not to get too far off topic but in relation to the subject of tooling up something specific the strength and weakness of the MSU concept is the same as the theory of federalization of a government. You break up the "center of power" and spread it out evenly. In the MSU situation the effect is that losing one squad or even a few units/squads is non-critical since you have power spread evenly. In Sanguinary Priest gearing terms that is to say you keep the priest cheap to spread points elsewhere and not put your eggs in one basket. Conversely jacking up the price by making him better and "harder hitting" is in line with the concept used by players who trend towards deathstar units. I think that is a major inherent divide between most of the posters here. Sometimes they view power weapons as worth it because they use the SP to augment assaults for example. Other times they try and keep the priest in the truck for protection.

 

Either way works. For the record a strength and weakness at the same time of MSU is that it can be picked apart, but individual pieces themselves aren't critical. Sure losing one unit at a time is no big deal, but most of your critical scoring units are in chimeras or rhino chassis. Those aren't exactly leman russ/land raider levels of heavy armor to crack. If someone takes down 3-4 units in one turn your MSU army is very much in trouble. The difference is it's generally much easier to take down 3-4 MSU units than 3-4 critical units in a deathstar type list (there are no "critical" MSU units) due to target priorities, thus the style conflicts. Of course dice always have a say so this isn't always true.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

That was very well said sir ! :( I couldn't have said it better myself.

 

MSU has been around for a long long time and it works well for SM armies in general because they have access to many units that are cheap and effective for the cost. Deathstars is more of a new concept although Death Company back in third edition was one heck of a deathstar. Kill points hurt MSU armies in my opinion - it is the Achilles heel. Generally what I see now when an MSU army faces off versus a deathstar army is that the MSU army will try to grab and contest objectives late in the game but random game length can toss in the proverbial monkey wrench... At some point the MSU army has to commit (turn 5 at the latest) - if the game goes a couple more turns then the small units can get trashed hard as they are then over extended and get caught with their pants down. I've lost count of how many battle reports I've read where the MSU style army is winning on turn 5 then the game goes to a draw in the 6th turn and on turn 7 they end up losing. It's inertia versus mass in my opinion.

 

G :P

[Drunken Angel]

If you're striking first - which a jump army should - then you can wipe most units in melee. It's only 15 points.

 

G :P

 

And the bonus is returned in spades, WS5 with a power weapon is priceless. I will always give my priests a PW its what happens on the charge that determines the outcome with a DOA list, you have control of model placement at I5 that priest is earning his points. I became a believer when my preist dropped 3 GK terminators (with NFS) a few weeks ago. Non-DOA preist weapons become more debatable but in a DOA list everyone fights in combat, give them the weapons to do it with.

[Israfel]

I used my priest(s) with JP only so far and I'm pretty fond of them. I think keeping them alive is vital for keeping up the FnP thus my RAS going, so I position them at the back. IMHO a glorious charge, usually, is not that important as having the RAS being more durable in the upcoming turns. He is a 1W character after all and is susceptible to dying even to nonpowered attacks...

[JamesI]

I think it depends on the list and use of the priest.

 

A priest who isn't planning to get out of a vehicle doesn't need upgrades.

 

Jumpy priests or priests who are more likely to enter combat, I would generally give upgrades.

 

If a priest is attached to Sanguinary Guard or Assault terminators they need the upgrade to avoid wound allocation issues (though this may change come 6th edition)

 

Of course, you could always just take Corbulo instead.