Mephiston

[Morticon]

Dont mindshackle thingies allow a model to attack other members in the unit?

[Mutters]

What I've found from Mephiston is that he's the Anti-MSU. He can pop most transports with his plasma pistol or his S10 attacks. Jumping into melee, he'll eat any small squad alive in a turn. I find him best when he runs in a mob of dreadnoughts. Together they can take down anything that moves.

[Blitzkrieg861]

Morticon, the entirety of the Necron codex is just chalk full of rules that are hard to make sense of. I believe the intention is to allow Mpehy to attack himself with the scarabs ability but who knows for sure. Another question is, does he have the ability to actually use his force weapon on himself and activate the power? Another hard to answer question. I don't own the codex myself and only had a time to look through it first hand on launch day.

 

I take my buddy's word for it and assume you can do both. Nonetheless, if Mephy is allowed to use a force weapon on himself then I don't see why he wouldn't be able to psychic hood the ability either.

[Morticon]

Morticon, the entirety of the Necron codex is just chalk full of rules that are hard to make sense of. I believe the intention is to allow Mpehy to attack himself with the scarabs ability but who knows for sure. Another question is, does he have the ability to actually use his force weapon on himself and activate the power? Another hard to answer question. I don't own the codex myself and only had a time to look through it first hand on launch day.

 

I take my buddy's word for it and assume you can do both. Nonetheless, if Mephy is allowed to use a force weapon on himself then I don't see why he wouldn't be able to psychic hood the ability either.

 

Ill send that question off to the OR - sounds dubious.

[DV8]

Mindshackle Scarabs forces one random model in Base to Base with the owner of said Scarabs to take a Leadership test on 3D6. If they fail, they attack their own unit, using any wargear and powers that the Shackled model possesses (at the Necron player's discretion).

 

This means that if an Independent Character or single model unit (Crowe, Mephiston, etc) is Mindshackled, they will attack themselves as they are their "own unit".

 

The Necron player can then use any and all of Mephiston's powers (up to 3 as per Mephiston's rules, 2 if he used Wings of Sanguinius to get there) against himself, including Meph's force weapon.

 

Of course the real question would be, is Mephiston allowed to use his Psychic Hood to ago any/all of these powers? My only thought is yes but only against the Force Weapon. But the exact wording of the Psychic Hood item/ability will determine that.

 

 

DV8

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

A RAW take on MSS is that Mephiston would attack himself since the rules state the controlled model attacks it's own unit.

 

Grey Knights are very popular now (obviously) - a five man Strike squad charging Mephiston can ID him due to their psykout grenades and force weapons. Sure they have to activate their Nemesis force weapons and roll a six to wound if they don't have a daemonhammer - you can say the odds are not favorable but to me it's still a strong deterrent. If the Strike squad has a daemonhammer then the odds go up quite a bit versus the Lord of Death.

 

G :rolleyes:

[Blitzkrieg861]

He wouldn't be able to use any psychic powers aside from the Force Weapon, and that's if he hasn't used all three spells for that player turn already. Reason he can't use Rage or Sword is because it says specificly it must be cast at the beginning of either player's assault phase. After you've moved people into base is well past the beginning. He can only use force weapon. And to be honest, even that seems really over the top. I don't think I'd allow anyone to use this unless they also allowed me to use psychic hood on it.

[HERO]

There's been times I wanted 2x Libbys over Meph.

 

Reasons why is as follows:

-Squad support in the form of Unleash Rage.

-Shield.

-Two models that can be at two places.

-No psychic tests when flying.

-Could have two Sanguine Swords! (multiple powers, more coverage)

-Always think price: 2 for 1 Meph!

-Can't be picked out by shooting when in big squad.

-Less of a target/imprint.

 

Don't get me wrong: I love Meph, but those reasons above are very good reasons to take 2x Libbies over 1 Meph. Especially when psychic defense can negate his ability to FLY. Why doesn't a Master Libby have a Jump Pack is beyond me.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

He wouldn't be able to use any psychic powers aside from the Force Weapon, and that's if he hasn't used all three spells for that player turn already. Reason he can't use Rage or Sword is because it says specificly it must be cast at the beginning of either player's assault phase. After you've moved people into base is well past the beginning. He can only use force weapon. And to be honest, even that seems really over the top. I don't think I'd allow anyone to use this unless they also allowed me to use psychic hood on it.

 

Mind shackle scarabs aren't a psychic power - it's just a piece of wargear - so can't use the psychic hood as it has no effect. It's not anymore over the top than Blood Talons, psykotropic grenades, rad grenades, lash or Jaws of the World Wolf... To name but just a few of things in 40k commonly considered broken or over the top.

 

G ;)

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Well it was confusing what you said. Anyway I doubt a unit can use its own hood against itself, especially seeing the Necron player has control of the enemy under the influence of MSS.

 

G :)

[AbusePuppy]

Gotta say Im gonna disagree with that part.

I think the libby offers less flexibility not more.

The amount of things Mephy can deal with should be the focus, not the amount of things he cant.

His "can kill" list is much, much longer than the "cant kill" list.

Where as the libby you have a unit only adds to the target priority threat level of an already existing target of your enemy's and at most can either grant 5++ saves from shooting (hardly worthwhile in my opinion), PE - which is great but again, see previous sentence or Fear - which is very good, but much more situational.

 

That's not what I meant by flexibility. Mephy kills things that are in his charge radius; that's what he does. But a regular Librarian can do stuff that isn't just killing infantry models. Do you need to keep a critical vehicle or squad alive? A Librarian can help with that by casting Shield of Sanguinous. (I'm surprised you think it's worthless, because I find shrugging off 1/3 of hits to be pretty handy) Do you need to break up a parking lot? A Librarian can help with that using Blood Lance to spear a bunch of those stupid Rhinos/Chimeras. Do you need to really put the hurt on a horde? A Librarian can buff another squad with Unleash Rage to insure you cause the casualties you need. Do you need to break a really tough enemy "hammer" unit or backfield shooting? A Librarian can send them skittering off the board with Fear the Darkness.

 

Don't get me wrong, Mephiston is a great buy- he scythes through basic troops of all sorts pretty efficiently and even most mid-level combat units will be hard-pressed to hurt him. But there are plenty of things he can't handle and his lack of invuln means that a bad roll or three can easily put him on the back foot in a fight or even kill him if he's taken some wounds on the way in (which isn't unlikely.) He has his uses and, well-supported, he can be an excellent tool for BA, but he is not an "auto-include" in every list.

[breng77]

Just to put a word in on Mindshackles vs Mephiston. Yes he would attack himself, but remember it is only D3 hits (so average 2), of which he wounds once. The rule states that these hits happen at the affected model's strength and benefit from any abilities/penalties of its close combat weapons. So no where does it say you can use psychic powers. Arguably you could use the force weapon, though I would say that likely you cannot as the instant death caused by the force weapon is a psychic power not an ability of the weapon, but I could see it both ways. If you were allowed to force weapon though none of your hoods (mephiston, or other libby) could be used to stop said power as the hood states that it works against enemy models within 24", and Mephiston is not an enemy model. Really this is about as likely to happen as getting force weaponed by any other model in the game (or at least by things like Gks)

 

Mephy will fail his LD on 3D6 50% of the time. On average when he fails he will take one wound, at which point he has a 33/36 chance of dying. SO this happens about 46% of the time.

 

A GK with a hammer likely wounds him one time, succesfully activates his weapon 83% of the time and gets hooded 58% of the time, and so he dies 34% of the time (LD 9), so it is a little worse than an LD 10 force weapon wound (which kills mephy 53% of the time).

 

Basically what it comes down to is either charge the squad with the mindshackles with mephy and another unit and put something else in BTB with the weilder, or don't charge at all. (at least until this is FAQed to not use the force weapon which is dubious at best, at which point, mephy will get to swing every other turn and when he does you will likely kill the necrons.

[Zhukov]

People should be carefull when they talk about all the usefull powers of the Libby. You need to select 2 after all, so they're not thát flexible... only when making the actual list.

 

Biggest thing for Libririan is overall I think simply the "Shield" power. This is the major reason why you, reasonably speaking, always want Libbies for Jumper focused lists.

 

However, Shield is a little less necessary for Mech lists, although still very good. Mech lists have other ways with generating cover after all, mostly by smoke and usage of other vehicles and simply cover.

 

-Less of a target/imprint.

Doesn't it show that it's an awfully dangerous unit for your oppenent when he's such a huge target? I'd say this is a pro for Mephy :P

It's maybe bad if the unit in question is a glasshammer, but Mephy is not ofc: When you can back up an easy to hide model with 5 T6 wounds and a 2+ save then you're hard to bring down.

[Bartali]

It's maybe bad if the unit in question is a glasshammer, but Mephy is not ofc: When you can back up an easy to hide model with 5 T6 wounds and a 2+ save then you're hard to bring down.

 

Cover is fine and all from shooting, but he still doesn't have an invulnerable save in cc. He is a glasshammer against certain units, and if i'm taking an expensive combat character I expect him to deal with those kind of units.

[Zhukov]

Cover is fine and all from shooting, but he still doesn't have an invulnerable save in cc. He is a glasshammer against certain units, and if i'm taking an expensive combat character I expect him to deal with those kind of units.

I don't think that's a problem if the rest of your list cán eliminate those few things. There are almost no armies who don't care at all about him... Only ones I can think off are Mechdar/DE and Fatecrusher.... he's *weakest* (still far from useless) against those armies, but happily those are the armies a good Mech BA army does well against anyway.

 

Yeah a very few combat units beat him. So? You honestly expect to take an HQ choice with a Hood, who's mobile, who's hard to take out by shooting to be able to stand up to almost anything in this game? Would make it a little bit too easy no? ^^

[HERO]

I think Meph's biggest problem is that his flight can get hooded. It absolutely sucks when he has to walk and not be in combats I want him in.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

The batrep versus Cronz is a classic example of him imploding.

 

G ;)

[Bartali]

Yeah a very few combat units beat him. So? You honestly expect to take an HQ choice with a Hood, who's mobile, who's hard to take out by shooting to be able to stand up to almost anything in this game? Would make it a little bit too easy no? ^^

 

I don't expect him to deal with everything - I expect him to deal with stuff that's a problem for ASM, and there's too much of crossover with things that trouble ASM also troubling Mephiston, as neither have an invulnerable save.

It's like Sanguinary Guard and Death Company. Both kill stuff that ASM can kill, but faster. Both again fall over to the same things as ASM do.

 

Anyhoo, I'm going to pick up the Mephiston mini today to see if my opinion backs up after playing with him for a while. If nothing else I'm looking forward to running him through some non-MSU Grey Hunter squads :whistling:

[Dunnaeph34rn473]

Even without an invulnerable save Mephiston can handle a great many things that ASM can't due to his higher toughness and initiative. Mephiston has the benefit of most units having to roll a 4 or 5 to hit and 6 to wound. Not to mention he usually strikes first with I7. The lack of an invulnerable save can be a bit problematic against anti tank weaponry and MCs but honestly I think he'd simply be too broken with even a 4++ built in.

[AbusePuppy]

I don't think that's a problem if the rest of your list cán eliminate those few things. There are almost no armies who don't care at all about him... Only ones I can think off are Mechdar/DE and Fatecrusher....

 

Tau don't care about him because his melee prowess is irrelevant against them (everyone beats them in melee) and he is not unusually tough for a 250pt model (they can easily mitigate his cover save.)

 

DE don't care about him because they wound on 2s and ignore armor, spam wounds onto him, minimize his attacks and drag him down with numbers, avoid him completely, or flat-out beat him in CC (depending on what they bring.)

 

Daemons don't particularly like him, but neither is he hugely troublesome. A number of their units can equal or beat him in a fight and their general high stats and invulns negate his big advantages.

 

Orks are often happy to see him, since he dies to hidden Klaws pretty easily. He'll drag down a dozen models in doing so, but so what?

 

Many other armies have ways of dealing with him reasonably well, if not always easily. GK have Daemonhammers (and, if they get lucky, their other Force Weapons as well); BA and SM have TH/SS Terminators, who can shrug off the worst of his hits and deliver severe punishment in return. BA, SM, and SW all have LasPlas Razorbacks, which can put out some pretty devastating fire on him, especially as he closes to his preferred short range of engagement. IG can have power weapon blobs, which, like Orks, will drag him down by attrition while shrugging off the casualties.

 

Again, Mephiston is not bad, but there are plenty of ways in the game to stop him. Simply throwing him into every army won't work nearly as well as some people seem to think it might.

[Zhukov]

I expect him to deal with stuff that's a problem for ASM, and there's too much of crossover with things that trouble ASM also troubling Mephiston, as neither have an invulnerable save.

Myeah, which is why he's more suitable for a Mech list. But S10 makes him good against quite a bit of more things than ASM, trust me ^_^

 

Tau don't care about him because his melee prowess is irrelevant against them (everyone beats them in melee) and he is not unusually tough for a 250pt model (they can easily mitigate his cover save.)

They still care about him, because he does beat anything and has a fairly large threat range... Sure, they can shoot him down but that still costs a lot of shooting. (plasma rifles wound on a 4+, you need basicly a complete round of shooting with your suits to kill him; if you see him) At the least he can simply prevent Tau from going anywhere by hiding somewhere and therfore denying them objectives and so winning the game.

 

DE don't care about him because they wound on 2s and ignore armor, spam wounds onto him, minimize his attacks and drag him down with numbers, avoid him completely, or flat-out beat him in CC (depending on what they bring.)

What beats him in CC? ;) Only the big boss himself, if he doesn't fail his 2++ or kills him in 1 round. But I said myself: DE doesn't really care about him, although they still have to shoot him down.

 

Daemons don't particularly like him, but neither is he hugely troublesome. A number of their units can equal or beat him in a fight and their general high stats and invulns negate his big advantages.

That's what I said too.

 

Orks are often happy to see him, since he dies to hidden Klaws pretty easily. He'll drag down a dozen models in doing so, but so what?

Nah, this assumes you throw him into a large mob. What about using him to kill Kan Walls? Nobs? Lootas? Multicharging into mobs? Letting him get killed because you got stuck in a 30 man Mob with a Klaw repeatingly hammering into you is just bad play Puppy, you know this too ;)

 

Again, Mephiston is not bad, but there are plenty of ways in the game to stop him. Simply throwing him into every army won't work nearly as well as some people seem to think it might.

With this I fully agree! :)

[Morticon]

Out of curiosity, can someone provide what they consider to be a stronger 1750 without mephiston, than one with?

[Blitzkrieg861]

Seconded, preferably mech because mech is the best!!!

[Zhukov]

Out of curiosity, can someone provide what they consider to be a stronger 1750 without mephiston, than one with?

Sorta, yes. Points don't allow Mephy in a shooty focused build.

 

Librarian 100

2x Priest 100

2 MM Attack Bikes 100

2 MM Attack Bikes 100

5 Sternguard; 2x Missile Launcher 135

5 Sternguard; 2x Missile Launcher 135

5 ASM; melta, HB-Razor + dozer 135

5 ASM; melta, HB-Razor + dozer 135

5 ASM; melta, HB-Razor + dozer 135

5 ASM; melta, HB-Razor + dozer 135

5 ASM; melta, HB-Razor + dozer 135

Las/AC Pred 135

Las/AC Pred 135

Las/AC Pred 135

Total: 1750

 

You could take out an ASM squad + dozers and put Mephy in, but I don't think this list would benefit from that. But I give it you, it's a doubtfull case :lol: (I love Mephy myself too ^^)

[breng77]

Is the question whether I can make a list that would not be improved

By mephiston or whether whether or not the best list involves mephiston. If it is the former that is not all that hard the latter is more difficult to describe. In the former an all drop pod army would not really work with mephiston but it is not one of the stronger builds. I really think though that it comes down to play style. I prefer some of the other Libby powers to those mephiston has so it would come down to if I wanted/had points for 2 hqs.