Some thoughts inspired by this board

[riddles]

Now that my predators have been requisitioned by the 5th company, I'm going back to my stock belial, chaplain, 5 deathwing squads, 3 speeders.

 

I've seen a lot of posts advocating belial+chaplain+banner squad death stars. I see the benefit, it will smash pretty much anything in its path. But is it really any good? It's a whole whack of points tied up in 1 unit, especially if you mount up in a crusader. The question is, do you really need it?

 

Some math for you;

Banner squad (all equipped with a fist equivalent, for my sanity)

20 attacks on the charge, hitting on 4s.

10 hits, wounding on 2s

8.33 wounds

Now, unless you are fighting other stormshielded troops, how in gods name is that not enough for you to win that combat? That's 6 dead paladins, 3 dead wraith, a decimated tactical squad etc. against orks, you have won the combat by a minimum of 4 unless you get wiped. In short, just what does the extra 5-6 wounds from the chaplain, or 2-3 from belial add to that unit except overkill?

 

Consider the chaplain attached to a normal, non-banner squad;

15 attacks hitting on 4s with a re-roll

11.25 hits wounding on 2s

9.375 wounds

Plus 4 attacks hitting on 3s with a re-roll

3.54 hits wounding on 4s

1.77 wounds

 

So 11 wounds. Better than our banner squad.

 

Add thunder hammer belial to a squad;

15 attacks hitting on 4s

7.5 hits wounding on 2s

6.25 wounds

Plus 4 attacks hitting on 3s

2.66 hits wounding on 2s

2.21

 

8.4 wounds in total, similar to the banner squad.

 

What I'm saying is that, rather than 1 unit that will blow through everything short of big DCA units, you can present 3 units that will devastate most units on the charge, are all fairly resilient (thanks to belial and the chaplain bullet sponging for you). It makes your oppoenent seriously consider their target priority - no longer can they focus fire on one unit and be safe from reprisal because there's 2 more of the buggers. ESPECIALLY if those 3 squads are your DWA drop.

 

And why is it I think of this when I'm on a train??

[Wayward]

I did somehting like that in my last games, belial+cmnd squad and chaplain+cc terminator squad. That gave me two buggers instead of three, andit worked fairly well, consider my absolute inxeperience in 40k (not much of a gamer meself). Had thought of this before, I'll surely setted them up to be 3 menacing drops instead of two! Think I'll try this next time I can throw some dice against somebody ;)

[riddles]

It's fast becoming my preferred tactics for this list. Without the predators, I have to get stuck in quick most of the time. Just remember to keep them in mutual support of each other if there are death company/thunder pups/assault termis around. If there's storm raven loaded DCA...sit at the back of the board and shoot them. You don't want none of what they're packing. Though deep striking into terrain is viable

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Your math is right riddles, but (and there's always a but ;) you must also account for wounds and losses.

What I am trying to say is that 90% of the time the DW command squad doesn't arrive intact at the hands of the enemy and even if so, it will take a casualty or two.. specially against power weapon wielding opponents. That's the reason why I go with belial gets attached to the command squad.. so he can soak up wound thus saving terminators. I fully agree with you that we don't needs all the eggs in one basket meaning if a unit has standard + belial, the chaplain is better supporting another unit thus creating 2 headaches for the opponent instead of just one... I'm not so sure about leaving just the command squad alone... I'll have to playtest that.

[riddles]

Perfectly valid criticism and belial + command, choppy + squad is perfectly fine. But by spreading the threat across 3 squads, you increase the survivability of all. Sticking wounds on belial and the chaplain protects the combat potential of 2 squads. Feel no pain and storm shields protect the other.

 

What you are trying to do is like chess - create a fork. You threaten 2 or 3 units so your opponent has to deal with 3 units at the same time. All of your units are very resilient to all but the most focused fire so the likelihood is you get a couple of charges off. I prefer splitting across 3 units because it gives me a bit more flexibility and more opportunity to create that fork. Splitting it across 2 is just as good combat wise

[Chaplain Lucifer]

As I said, I'll give it a try, I've got a game tomorrow so I'l dust off the chaplain to give this a shot. It'll be against chaos so Obliterators and plasmaguns will be a good match to test this. :)

[riddles]

Ewwww...obliterators. Unless you're storm shield heavy, for goodness sake rn after deep striking!

[Cactus]

All very good points, and I totally agree with your chess analogy riddles.

 

Another benefit of increasing the number of attacks a squad can make (either by the banner or a character) is reliability. The more dice you are rolling the more likely it is that you'll land somewhere near the middle of the probability curve. Sure, on average those five termies will do enough damage, but the further below average you can go and still get an acceptable result the better.

[march10k]

So...three crusaders charging on-line...one with bels, one with chappy, one with banner and apo...nice...

[riddles]

If that's what you like. I prefer deep strike and having 2 squads in reserve to come down later

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Ok, two test games vs Chaos. Lash prince, oblits and zerkers. In the first one I played it safe and had one unit with Zeke and command squad, another with belial and normal squad. both zeke and belial took wounds that otherwiise killed terminators thus increasing survivability of said squads. Zeke never saw CC, Belial died in the line of duty, but squad survived two more turns.

Second game I threw caution in the wind since my opponent had deploy and there were 5 objectives in the field. command squad, zeke+ squad and belial+ squad made deepstrike on turn one. none saw CC, both were usefull absorbing wounds, command squad wasn't even targeted. Both games were win. Diving the eggs for all baskets has been sucessfull. Special thanks to Zeke for keeping the lash prince tamed. :jaw:

[Cactus]

Hang on, Zeke = Ezekial, right? How is he getting to deep strike?

[Chaplain Lucifer]

Yep. Zeke is Ezekiel. and he doesn't deeptrike. My bad, I totally forgot he doesn't .. used to play with DW where everybody DS so I forgot zeke doesn't.

Still no major harm done since I just used DS to piss off my opponent, it ended up being good for him because 2 plasma cannons took 4 termies of a squad (I didn't run, trying to squeeze off a crucial) cyclone shot

[BoonKin]

Good thought about it (abeit on the train) riddles.

 

But, is this still viable if you footslog / go second?

[riddles]

Yes it's viable if you footslog. I don't use land raiders anymore so I have to slog. Deep strike away from your opponents counter punch, or on both flanks if they only have 1 counterpunch unit. It breaks the general rule of keeping your squads together though, so you have to weigh up whether you can make that target priority issue for your opponent.

 

Lack of deep strike is why I don't use zeke in deathwing armies. Against lash chaos I don't deep strike unless I'm running all storm shield. The prince is a priority target, then you can spread out so the plasma cannons don't hurt so much

 

And it's viable if you go second. Hide your support elements and your opponent moves, at which point you can pick your spot better. Or they don't move and you have more time to analyse where best to drop. I prefer going second in most games anyway

[Darth Badguy]

Do you usually go all storm shield? When you don't, what's the set up like?

[riddles]

2 thss, 1 cml/pf/sb, 1 pf/sb, 1 cf/sb

 

Command squad has an extra storm shield and 2 sets of claws

 

Don't think its tournament optimised though