Mephiston vs Monstrous Creatures

[Leksington]

 

But how does a fleet in being work when both sides of a conflict are de facto equivalent in size/strength? You're talking about leaving more than 10% of your force out of the actual fight....

Ah see Fleet in Being is a defensive strategy. Fleet in Being is the option to use exactly when you are outmanned/outgunned/etc. When your opponent has zero answer to Meph then he becomes a wrecking ball, but that is actually a very rare occurence (fun though). Normally, when the opponent has credible threats towards Meph then all you have to do is keep Mephiston alive and unreachable--- this will ensure a diversion of the opponent's attention. An uncommitted Mephiston usually can spell dire consequences for an opponent's endgame. 10% of your points? Totally worth it if he distracts 25+% of the opponent's points OR effort.

 

Taking Mephiston, because you are expecting your opponent to blunder like that, seems to be an unwise underestimation of your opoonent.  And frankly, it sounds more like rope-a-dope than fleet in being. :P

[Ushtarador]

Well, e.g. either you opponent commits his Bloodthirster to catch Mephiston (and risks losing it if he doesn't roll a 6 as well), or Mephi wrecks everything else in the daemon army.

 

There are not many units that can counter Mephiston and they are all expensive. You can very effectively guide their movement by positioning Mephiston such that they have to stay in a certain area. Just imagine being on the other side - you must take Mephi out, if you commit too few units or get bad rolls he will stomp most of your army.

[Pezza1989]

 

He will lose to the Swarmlord

Everyone looses to swarmlord :-P

[Vivster]

But will the swarmlord lose to the swarmlord :P

[SamaNagol]

Swarmlord does as Swarmlord pleases..... no, wait that's someone else

[CitadelArmyGuy]

Here is my take (no math crunched, just experience and opinion) on Mephiston versus MCs in the game-- conventions being a straight fight with no prior damage on either fighter and no charging through terrain considerations.

Meph will probably win easily:

• Carnifex (also Old One Eye)
• Tervigon
• Trygon (nonprime)
• Mawloc
• Harpy
• Riptide Suit
• Canoptek Spyder
• Wraithlord
• Cronos & Talos Engines
• CSM Daemon Prince (no Black Mace)
• Fateweaver
• Ku'gath

Could go either way:

• Tyrannofex
• Trygon Prime
• *Edit* Dreadknight
• C'tan Shard
• Hive Tyrant (no 2+)
• Lord of Change with Str8 Staff
• Great Unclean One (lots of variables on this one)
• Keeper of Secrets (again tons of variables)
• CD Daemon Prince (you guessed it... variables)

Meph will probably lose:

• Swarmlord
• Hive Tyrant (with 2+)
• Avatar of Khaine
• CSM Daemon Prince (with Black Mace)
• Bloodthirsters & Skarbrand

The absolute worst matchup is Skarbrand, because all Skars attacks are ID at I10.

For the topic of The Swarmlord, it is worth mentioning that Swarmie wins a vast, vast majority of the time. However, if he doesn't have Iron Arm (rare) then the task can become far easier. Shadow in the Warp means passing Psychic tests on 3D6 is exactly 50%.... if you slip even one wound through Swarmies' 4++ then flip a coin--- you might bugzapper him before he even swings. Remember, no FnP versus successful Force so Endurance/Catalyst doesn't matter. You only get one chance though, all of Swarmies melee have ID attached.

[knife&fork]

What about the dreadknight?

[ianj253]

The dreadKnight would be risky In my opinion. He has 4 attacks in CC and His 2+ sv could be Mephistons down fall if he makes the saves. 

 

I dont necessarily think the Tyranid's MC would be easy pickings for Mephiston. It pretty dependent on whether they get Iron arm or not.  

[Cmdr Shepard]

He will lose to the Swarmlord

Everyone looses to swarmlord :-P

Not every one.. one day at local store we were a little bored so we decide to put my Angron against swarmlord.... Swarmlord dead... it was so amusing

[SamaNagol]

Dreadknight is a risk, but they should statistically fail one save. Then they die.

 

It's round about the same chance as a Bloodthirster killing Mephiston actually

[CitadelArmyGuy]

Swarmlord does as Swarmlord pleases.....

Lol an Iron-Arm-Swarmlord is pretty up-there... However have you checked out Skarbrand? He makes Swarmie look like a punk loser. 9 Attacks (charging) WS10 I10 Hatred Fleshbane Instant Death. One failed 4++ and Swarmie dies.... it's not even close, not even a little bit.

I dont necessarily think the Tyranid's MC would be easy pickings for Mephiston. It pretty dependent on whether they get Iron arm or not.

Which MC do you mean? The Tervigon is only WS3 with 3 attacks... really bad. I don't care what his strength/toughness is, he ain't puttin enough wounds on Meph in a 1-on-1 vacuum fight before a Force Weap eventually gets him.

Dreadknight is a risk, but they should statistically fail one save. Then they die.

I think you're right Sama, probably need to recategorize the DK as a "could go either way" matchup for Mephiston. It all relies on your opponent failing a save... but considering Meph goes first, then the DK will swing back but won't have enough attacks to kill Meph outright (mathammered at 2.91 wounds with Sword) so then Meph can try one more time. The math seems right, the DK "should" (lol) fail at least one save and suffer a Force Weaponing.  In a pure-vacuum, Meph should beat a Dreadknight-- but can quite easily go sour.

[ianj253]

@CAG Iron Arm also gives the Tervigon EW so no Force weaponing him. Mephiston's not killing it in one turn, and half of the time he'll only be wounding on a 5+ or 6+ depending on what gets rolled for Iron arm. They can also take regen to get back some wounds they've lost. If you consider it outside of a vacuum it can be even worse as the prolonged combat can easily see mephiston get tar pitted with small bugs that join the assault. On top of that there's a higher chance of rolling POTW.

[CitadelArmyGuy]

@CAG Iron Arm also gives the Tervigon EW so no Force weaponing him.

Wow I feel pretty dang sheepish LOL. I've never ever even had the chance to attempt ID on something using Iron Arm. Since it has never come up in any game for me, I honestly have missed the fact that it gave EW. No clue... funny, that. Amazing how you miss things simply because you've never come across it. Things you don't know can wreck you...

 

In fact, that is now TWO new things I never knew about the Swarmlord--- the other one was that he forces reroll of successful invulnerable saves. Until 5 games ago, I had never had to melee him before! I simply shot to death or ignored him. Well, cue a 2000pt Purge the Alien where I was playtesting Belial with a full 10 DWT (2 AC, 8 THSS... first Shock Unit I've played in ages and ages). Plopped 'em right on Swarmies doorstep, because I had no clue at all the he would chew through the stormshields with very little problem. Oi vey.... ended that game with a tie instead of a win for my ignorance.

 

With IronArm granting EW in mind, Swarmlord got way tougher obviously. Probably an even fight now between him and Skarbrand, not the pushover he seemed.

 

Edit: Also with EW on Swarmlord in mind, Mephiston has absolutely zero chance then. Forget my earlier musings about sneaking a Force Weapon past his 4++.

 

Swarmlord will almost always have Iron Arm, right? The first time he rolls on Bio, he has 1/6 chance to receive it. The next throw has a 1/5 chance (because you can't have a duplicate power). The next throw has 1/4 chance. His last throw has a 1/3 chance. Probability mathematics say the total chance to receive Iron Arm is the sum of all of those chances.

 

In other words.... 16.6% + 20% + 25% + 33% = 95% total chance. But wait, does that seem ridiculously high? It does, because the math just lied to you.

 

Instead of examining it from a summation of independent mutually exclusive events, you have to look at it from the perspective of solution sets. The Swarmlord will have 4 of 6 Biomancy powers. So he will NOT have 2 powers. The total list of outcomes for which two powers he doesn't receive is:

 

1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-5, 1-6, 2-3, 2-4, 2-5, 2-6, 3-4, 3-5, 3-6, 4-5, 4-6, 5-6

 

So there are 15 unique combinations for the Swarmlord's final loadout, and 5 of those outcomes he will not have Iron Arm. See? 95% chance lied to you. Beware the Mathammer folks, it can bite you if you don't know what you're doing.

[Brother Immolator]

Given the fact that most players who learned to juice everything out of their codex these days, Id say every psichic MoC the tyranids posses would be geared with biomancy. And that is a scarry proposition in general.

 

From the list proposed by CitadelArmyGuy I have to make these remarks:

 

1)The entire deamon MoCs and greater deamons cannot enter into any of the three categories. Except the bloodthrirster who will statistically whipe the floor with memphiston every time. As for the rest you have to take account of their weapons options, rolled for gifts and even the damnable warp storm table.

 

 

2) 

So there are 15 unique combinations for the Swarmlord's final loadout, and 5 of those outcomes he will not have Iron Arm. See? 95% chance lied to you. Beware the Mathammer folks, it can bite you if you don't know what you're doing.

 

Agreed 1000000000% but it should be though for as in my first remark. Psi and wargear/gifts are enough to turn the tables from the 1st category to the third, all in one roll.

 

All I am saying is best to avoid thinking like: Its just a Tervigon, ill force weapon it to death. What if you cant in this game?

[SamaNagol]

I wouldn't say a 66% chance is 'wiping the floor every time', because on the 33% chance the Bloodthirster fails to kill Mephiston, he is most certainly dead himself.

 

For some reason I had this weird idea that Nemesis Doom Fists did ID like a Force Weapon. Ha! Mephiston will win that fight by attrition. My bad.

 

Any of the Tyranid MCs that aren't CC orientated Mephiston will drag down over a couple of turns. Iron Arm will only protect a Tervigon for so long.

 

Also another reason why I run a Rune Priest as an ally. That 4+ is beautiful.

[SamaNagol]

Each instance of getting Iron Arm isn't just a one off event. So adding 1/6 to 1/5 to 1/4 etc etc isn't how you do it. Because to get to the 2nd pick you need to not get iron arm. Which means you have to multiply in the odds of not getting iron arm on the previous picks. As we only care about iron arm, obviously we stop caring about any other events after we get it. So the odds look like this:

 

At level

1/6 + 5/6 x 1/5 + 5/6 x 4/5 x 1/4 + 5/6 x 4/5 x 3/4 x 1/3 = 2/3

 0.166667 + 0.166667 + 0.166667 + 0.166667 = 0.6667

 

When it comes to picks like this in this manner it is always the number of picks (x) divided by the number of choices (n) 

[CitadelArmyGuy]

1/6 + 5/6 x 1/5 + 5/6 x 4/5 x 1/4 + 5/6 x 4/5 x 3/4 x 1/3 = 2/3

 0.166667 + 0.166667 + 0.166667 + 0.166667 = 0.6667

Dude! I knew there was a formula for it without having to rely on sigma-algebra fiddling with sets and such. My brain knew for a fact there was more to the story than simple addition of the probabilities. Thanks mate! I've been looking for this formula for awhile.

 

I wonder how many other warhammered calculations have fallen prey to inaccurate handling?

 

OH and excellent call about the Nemesis Doomfist on the Dreadknight. It IS still a freakin force weapon (duh) so Meph only gets one chance to sneak a wound before the DK goes all fisto-roboto then activates Force. SO no apologies Samanagol you were right the first time.