Are mutilators as awful as they seem?

[Dark Lord Kerventh]

First glance, these guys seem like a Diamond in a coal mine, But I played them against a orky dakka Army, and got my butt kicked! I mean seriously! What happens if it's regular deployment, and not "Close deployment." The mutilators are screwed so much slaanesh wouldn't poke them with a stick.

 

Now they can be good.

And I mean REALLY - Good.

Played on a dawn of war style match against some grey knights, Kicked the snot out of them!

So.. I have a question.. Are they just plain awfull? Or are they designed for specific roles.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

- Your master and overlord, Kerventh.

[Attomsk]

There is a 3 page topic discussing mutilators two posts down from this.

[Sception]

In general, they are awful. In a big, expensive unit, with a character attached, like they're some sort of super melee terminator escort? Super awful. Delivered into combat with a land raider? Awful on awful. Honestly, I hate them. They're such a pathetically boring idea (obliterators, but with melee weapons!), their fluff runs so completely counter to their appearance and game play. I mean, when you think "peerless weapon master", what do you think? I bet you think lighter, faster, duelist kinds of units. You don't think ponderous oafs with malformed meat cudgel arms, and expressions on their faces that make them seem like they have no awareness of their surroundings. I bet you envision high weapons skill and initiative, not extra wound and slow and purposeful.

 

They are so obviously a half hearted attempt to come up with an alternate option for a dual box plastic kit, and it's just laughably sad that said kit didn't even materialize.

 

 

And, after all that bitching, there are some rumors that they're not completely worthless. Though I remain skeptical, some have reported reasonable success running them in units of one with Mark of Nurgle, suicide striking them in the opponents backfield for disruption purposes. Now, would obliterators be better at that? Probably, but Heavy support slots are valuable, while elite slots are not (cult units and chosen are kind of bad as elites, terminators eat up points you want to spend on fast and heavy units). While individual mutilators are easy to deal with, the argument goes that they're hard to deal with economically, that they require more attention than it's worth to deal with them, but can cause too much damage to just ignore, and while they're so slow that their targets can generally just walk away from them, the backfield shooty units they're trying to menace end up giving up their shooting ability to do so.

 

Of course, that's dependent on good reserve rolls. And good deep strike rolls. And you not flubbing saves. And the opponent having backfield shooting units that can be legitimately menaced by lone oblits. And you actually not wanting those elite slots. And if you're running multiple bike or spawn squads, there's some question about whether or not backfield disruption units are necessary when your main hammers are likely to hit the enemy at the same time that your reserves are arriving, anyway. So....

 

Yeah. Like I said, skeptical. But if you want to give them a fair shake, try taking 2 to 3 individual MoN mutes and deep striking them, and see what that does for you.

[Brother Nihm]

There is a 3 page topic discussing mutilators two posts down from this.

This.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...howtopic=263363