BA Death Stars

[Israfel]

Brethern,

 

With the era of 6th, descent of MSU and rise of blobs I have started to see a lot of death stars in my gaming environment.  5th edition was not kind to these kind on units a lot however I see more and more of these units on the table these days.  To name a few necron destroyer lord with wraiths, GK terminator squad with brotherhood banner, librarian and champion, juiced up DA deathwing terminator squad, Invisible Daemon princes (with ou without the maul), Khorne bikers with characters, Nurgle marked chaos spawns with biker sorcerer for invisibility, the ever destroying Tyranid megabug team, etc.  The list goes on and on. 

 

I have been in a hard place to find an adequate counter for these types of units in our codex.  Bear with me, I'm not looking for counter tactics to deal with death stars, I'm looking for a death star to end the opponents death star and survive to run havoc among enemy lines.   

 

I tried a death company squad reclusiarch, 8 man, 1 pw, 1paxe in a stormraven.  Although they are impressive on the charge and murder terminators and blobs alike they are very fragile if charged and they also struggle gainst t6 units.

 

I am yet to try Assault terminators 3 TH&SS + 2 LCs + librarian (for re-rolls) + Corbulo in a Storm Raven.

 

How is your experience on death stars? What are death star units that you like?  And find competitive?

 

Cheers,

 

 

[Ushtarador]

Well, we have mephiston..

As you mentioned, DC+reclusiarch murder EVERYTHING in assault, I don't think there's a unit out there that survives getting charged by this - unless it has defensive grenades, then you're screwed.

You also found the other possibility, terminators with rerolls and FnP. Not much to say there, they're terminators with stormshields and they kick ass.

However, I generally feel that BA are not a good army to do huge death stars with, it's just really not our style. Rather outmaneuver his ridiculous blob and win the game by not letting him get his points back.

[Corby]

Brethern,

 

With the era of 6th, descent of MSU and rise of blobs I have started to see a lot of death stars in my gaming environment.  5th edition was not kind to these kind on units a lot however I see more and more of these units on the table these days.  To name a few necron destroyer lord with wraiths, GK terminator squad with brotherhood banner, librarian and champion, juiced up DA deathwing terminator squad, Invisible Daemon princes (with ou without the maul), Khorne bikers with characters, Nurgle marked chaos spawns with biker sorcerer for invisibility, the ever destroying Tyranid megabug team, etc.  The list goes on and on. 

 

I have been in a hard place to find an adequate counter for these types of units in our codex.  Bear with me, I'm not looking for counter tactics to deal with death stars, I'm looking for a death star to end the opponents death star and survive to run havoc among enemy lines.   

 

I tried a death company squad reclusiarch, 8 man, 1 pw, 1paxe in a stormraven.  Although they are impressive on the charge and murder terminators and blobs alike they are very fragile if charged and they also struggle gainst t6 units.

 

I am yet to try Assault terminators 3 TH&SS + 2 LCs + librarian (for re-rolls) + Corbulo in a Storm Raven.

 

How is your experience on death stars? What are death star units that you like?  And find competitive?

 

Cheers,

Death stars in stormravens are no longer viable in any shape or form. We need the stormraven to handle other flyers whilst retaining its surviability against ground units, not to for-go that surviability which we pay for. Flyers really hurt deathstars in 6th. Big close combat death stars can't really deal with them unless the flyer hovers nearby, Which should never happen. Mephiston is still excellent though. Hidden powerfists and the like no longer mess him up thanks to challenges and with players fielding more and more marines and less termiantors , Mephiston can just carve through marine scoring units and the like , while still leaving plenty of points for shooting units in a list.

[Father Mapple]

To echo the above, Mephiston is a 1 man death star, but he's not general purpose like Assault Terminators. I would start thinking death-nebula, as in, 2 above average units working together. It would be Assault squad with Sanguinary Guard, or Terminators with Assault squad, etc. You use one squad to pin down the target, and the powerful unit to annihilate it. The Assault squad, or a tooled up Honor Guard are perfect for Mephiston - then he can choose where in the unit (away from AP2, say) he wants to charge.

[Xenith]

I find a death star too easily avoided. Multiple threats work better, imo. You can send one of your threats to thin out the enemy death star (if they have one) while your other threats wipe the rest of the foe. Your units can then round on the enemy death star.

 

My 2000 uses Meph, 9xJPDC, Sanguinary guard. This are my hammers.

 

This is backed by 10 asm for mobile scoring/tank busting, 20tacs for shooty, and a dev squad. 

[Leonaides]

And a point to note, if you're sending your deathstar against your enemies deathstar, don't expect to have much of yours left afterwards. Smack two bricks together and you'll end up with 2 broken bricks...