Upcoming game

[hendrik]

it seems i've got an upcoming game this friday to welcome both the new edition and our new dex (i'll be playing both for the first time). I'll most likely will be playing against a pure tau or tau/necron force.

 

Now that 7th edition allows superheavies as standard i've decided to include my stormblade in this list, just to see what it can do. I plan on deploying it on the skyshield, getting a 4+ invunerable save and a clear line of sight. put some guardsmen arround him to protect him against deepstriking suits and i think i've established a solid firebase!

 

Here's the list!

 

-Punisher-pask: HB sponsons+ executioner: PC sponsons

 

-platoon:

  PCS:mortar

  inf sqd: AC

  inf sqd: AC

 

-veterans: MG, chimera: ML, HF

 

-veterans: MG, chimera: ML, HF

 

-veterans: MG, chimera: ML, HF

 

-stormblade: sponsons

 

-3 x armoured sentinels: 3 x PC

 

-vanquisher: LC

 

-earthshaker emplacement: 5 crew

 

-2 x wyvern: HF

 

-skyshield landing platform

 

2000 pts to the letter.

what do you all think? A solid tactic or wishfull thinking? He usually fields a tooled up maxed out command farsight with bodyguard. Hopefully the stormblade has the firepower to remove the entire unit from play once it gets it in his sights.

 

 

[David Ravel]

I never take PCS to ''do nothing''. I much prefer them in transport with flamers and heavy flamer. Of course it cost more, but since it doesn't need any BS, they're just as good as veterans. And against necron, those thing can put a world of hurt. As far as the rest goes, it looks good. Of course I'm an ''order-lover'', so seeing no CCS or Lord Commissar is not something I would do, but I like where you list goes. Anyone playing against this gonna have some trouble. The only problem would be against flyer. What is your tactics against that if the necron brings some flyers ? 

[hendrik]

here's a list of the units that i might face, so as to help you all figure out what i could expect:

necrons:

-lots of necron warriors

-tombguards

-2 monoliths

-tombspiderwalker thingy

-1 flying croisant

-some destroyers

-flayed ones

-c'than

 

Tau:

-fire warriors

-outflanking kroot

-pathfinders

-speeder thingy

-hammerhead character

-2 riptides

-kitted out farsight+bodyguard

-shadowsun

-stealthsuits

 

I'm actually assuming he'll try to make an anti infatry list, given that in our last game i fielded an all out infantry force and we recentyl discussed on  how superscoring made our simple guardsmen so much more better!

[march10k]

Longstrike auto-butt-sexes any imperial tank you aim him at, the only answer is pasquisher (good luck getting in range with punisher pask), who owns him.  Even if longstrike gets turn one, at best he kills pask's wingman.  Then pasquisher gets two penetrating hits.  Even if he doesn't explode, he's done shooting that railgun...permanently.

 

Does a superheavy even fit on top of a closed skyshield?  If not, put pask up there, especially if you give him a vanquisher.

 

Pask's plasmacutioner wingman doesn't get to reroll "gets hot" from preferred enemy, since "gets hot" on a plasma cannon is not a to-hit roll.  Maybe make the vanquisher the wingman (better yet, pasquisher and punisher wingman) and find a prescience-caster for the plasmacutioner?

 

Other than that, it looks like you're in good shape, I like that you're bringing a wide variety of tanks, although I'm no fan of a BS3 vanquisher.  

 

I wouldn't press you to field pasquisher, he's technically slightly inferior to punisher pask against all comers, but against longstrike, he's critical.

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

What's the deal with Longstrike? Like a Tau version of Pask? Is he good against all armour or especially Imperial Guard?

[Idlem]

Longstrike gets preferred enemy against us and has a BS of 5. I think Tank Hunter on there too. He's really good at popping our tanks, very deadly with a railcannon that's like S10 and AP1. Thankfully now the jerk can't be dodging us with a jink save and firing at full BS anyone. Against a superheavy, I'd wager on being it able to survive long enough to take him out, He's gotta sit still to get the full use out of that BS of his.

 

I like the list though, I'd wager you're going to be throwing a lot of pain out there.

[march10k]

Longstrike...BS5 tank hunting S10 AP1 preferred enemy: IG.  He's nasty.  He will hit, he will penetrate, and then he'll get +2 on the damage table.  And he won't be wasting his shots on the super-heavy, that's what tau have melta for.  He'll be dueling with the regular tanks, having a 1/3 chance to blow on up every turn, and basically a 100% chance that the tank he shoots won't be shooting the next turn.

[Frater Cornelius]

Firstly, per rulebook in 6ed and 7ed, any reroll to hit also allows the reroll of gets hot on blast weapons. Thus preferred enemy grants you a reroll of 1. In my eyes this rule is pretty clear.

Second, even with tank hunter, longstrike glances on 4. And given the new tank rules, he must rolls 5+ two times in a row to instantly kill Pask.. which will not happen because his wingman should be infront of him.

Pask Punisher is a solid choice for aggressive advances while paskquisher is better in more stationary long ranged dakka lists.

For extra protection btw, let him drive behind you chimeras (or let the chimera drive 12 in front of him so you don't waste a few inchss on deployment.

As for the list, I am not a fan of this minimal platoon but hell, they are cheap and you gotta have something for your SH. But, why not buy a techpriest and put in behind your SH to block LoS. Given how hard av14 4++ 9hp tanks can be in general, he will keep it running longer.

Also, Primaris. Neither Tau nor crons have good psychic defense so tossing around prescience and other buffs (like 4++ for pask). 2 lvl2 for 150 is reasonably good. Let them start in chimeras abd disenbark them on their own and huddle up behind chimera to block LoS.

 

As for general gameplay. Wyvern on pathfinders, no exception. plasmas on their meltas and SH on MC.

Against crons, take out what can hurt vehicles first (warriors take a whike to come over or arrivr via flying reserve, so they are no turn 1 threats).

[hendrik]

good point on the pasquisher,however i'm not entirely convinced as i'dd like to test the according to the forum-amazing paskunisher in an actuall battle and see how it fares. I could replace 1 veteran squad and the vanquisher for an allied armoured battalion command vanquisher and an armoured fist squad. here's what that list would look like:

 

-Punisher-pask: HB sponsons+ executioner: PC sponsons

 

-platoon:

  PCS:mortar

  inf sqd: mortar

  inf sqd: mortar

 

-veterans: MG, chimera: ML, HF

 

-veterans: MG, chimera: ML, HF

 

-stormblade: sponsons

 

-3 x armoured sentinels: 3 x PC

 

-earthshaker emplacement: 5 crew

 

-2 x wyvern: HF

 

-skyshield landing platform

 

-allied armoured battalion command vanquisher (BS4); LC, beast hunter shells (instant death to any it wounds!)

 

allied armoured fist squad: chimera: ML, HF

 

2000 pts to the letter.

i'm not sure about including a techpriest and psycher since i don't know what to drop. the tanks provide the much needed solid firepower. The sentinels, I'm hoping to outflank them on a good roll on the command trait table (1/3 chances) and bring an incredible amount of pain for their points, not to mention their CC potential if needed. the platoon? i'm already terribly light on scoring troops so don't like to drop them,even though they are only armed weakly. The veterans then? No, as i need these to superscore on my opponents objectives while he is busy being distracted by my stormblade. the only things i could drop are the wyverns (since i'll use my manticores for count as anyway, although i would like to see them performing), or the earthshaker emplacement (75 pts, thus only enough for a lvl 2 primaris psycher).

[Frater Cornelius]

Pask has a fixed trait and I do not see any other potential warlord, which I also would not recommend since preferred enemy on executioner is priceless.

Tell me how the Armoured Sentinels performed, I am curious.

[hendrik]

ah, yes my bad! it's only the normal tank commander that grants you a D3 chance of outflanking them. ah well, they'll work either way!

[WarriorFish]

Looks like you're well on your way here, all I'll add is that you shouldn't forget your opponent's agency. Both armies are boring little xenos who can move around a lot so your Shadowsword will likely not be targeting the best targets unless your opponent makes a mistake. The key here is to use this to your advantage; where the Shadowsword points you can be pretty sure your opponent won't want his good units there ;)

 

Good luck with the game and don't forget to let us know how it goes :)

[Fibonacci]

i'dd like to test the according to the forum-amazing paskunisher in an actuall battle and see how it fares.

I am curious about this as well. Even with the Rending changes, 20 shots with re-rolls for penetrating means about 5 Rending hits per turn of shooting. That will strip HP so fast you wont need AP2. But you got to get in damn close which exposes the side armor more and makes it vulnerable to assaults. It's killy enough; just a bit more risky tho.

[hendrik]

So here's what happened. I brought along the second list, expecting to face off against a mostly tau force with a slight hint of necron thrown in. Instead I ended up facing a necron army allied to chaos marines. here's a summary of what he brought:

-necronlord that grants tankhunter to necron warrior squads, these guys ruined me!)

-another necron lord that didn't do much

-some cryptek

-2x20 necron warrior blobs,joined by the necron lords and crypteks

-1 x 110 necron warrior that would sit on an objective

-3x3 scarab swarms

-monolith

-ghost arc

-flying croissant who he forgot to bring up in turn 2 and 3

-flying deamon prince, mastery level 3 (Daemonology)

-10 cultists that would hide on an objective, hidden from LOS on the bottom floor of a shrine of the aquila.

 

and here's how the game went. We decidced to try out the maelstrom game, rolled the recon mission. it turned out i have a mad skill for rolling unusable objectives while he made some mad rolls. either way, luck didn't favour me, and nor did the emperor. I ended up going second ans saw an entire necron infantry horde march up to me as the deamon prince took flight. He hit my lines and managed to summon 3 flamers of tzeentch, which immediatly removed my earthshaker carriage from play. Unfortunately I was only able to reply with the paskunisher(prefering to split fire so his bodyguard could fire on the necron warriors. However, it did not manage to impress me. 29 shots with rending and not a single one managed to do anything. Sure, i lacked skyfire but still...  that's pretty much what the lord did every turn, cast the "safe landing +1 inv save power" and summong deamonsMy stormblade did manage to almost wipe out an entire 20 man necron warrior squad. However, due to 1 carefully hiding behind his lord he managed to not be wiped out entirely and just return into play the next turn. And that's pretty much how the whole game went. My endless barrage wiped out almost every necron warrior squad marching forward but always 1 managed to hide and survive the onslaught, only to make his shot up battle buddies remain into play. The tank hunter skill also took care of my stormblade. in turn 2 he already managed to destroy it...

The true stars of the day however, were my wyverns(using count as manticore models). In total they managed to score over 70 wounds in only a mere 3 turns... I absolutely love them! They are a true auto-include as the amount of wounds they score is absolutely amazing!

 

However, by the time turn 4 was about to start my army was already badly mauled, most of my armoured might removed from the board and half of the infantry roasted by warpfire. his army was  at my throat and it was obvious there would be no escape. Also, due to the bad luck on the objective roll he managed to score 9 victory points whereas I only had 1... either way i had a lot of fun!

 

here's hwo the game looked at the start of turn 4; the remains of my army still fighting on as the deamons  and robotic sketetons marched over the fallen.

http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb281/amorfatipictures/IMG_20140530_191221_zpskkxdc17b.jpg

and this image shows how his force advanced:

http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb281/amorfatipictures/fa9c36a7-3da6-4586-bd18-361882a03c5d_zps650c8416.jpg

my entire right flank got overrun by the summoned flamers and necron warriors, and was crippled in 3 turns. and since the bad tactical objective rolls the only way i could still win this game was to table him, a task impossible to do.

 

either way i've learned so valueable lessons!

1) flying deamon princes are incredebly hard to wound, and rock as summoning deamons

2) wyverns are an auto include

3) due to everything being scoring platoons are less important, especially when veterans are only 10 pts more.

4) You need a lot of non-blast weapons as well to finish of entire necron warrior units. I'm thinking about including some heavy bolter units (either HB servitors, or heavy bolter teams.

5) superheavies are pretty "meh" when they are in reach of a lot of AT weaponry in turn 2. sure, they might be hard to remove, but i still think they are not durable enough.

6) the skyshield is actually quite unimpressive,although it did almost manage to save the stormblade an extra turn. more playtesting is needed as it does have a lot of potential.

7)paskunisher was pretty "meh". I'm wondering if a paskuisher would have made a bigger impact, although i'm not sure.

[Frater Cornelius]

Too bad your first game wasn't a delight. But it can only become better from here on in. Some valuable lessons have been learned. I am surprised Paskunisher did not do much for you. He rocks every time I field him. In today's first game he took out most points (with the help of the Executioner) and the second game he was crucial in clearing the last objective.

 

Here is some thoughts with the limited info I can get out of it. You needed to be more aggressive. He managed to encircle you and that matters a lot. Try to move up the flanks with most units while Paskunisher rolls up the middle. He is best used in a straight up move up the middle and increase his targets. Use him to shoot at targets that other units can not deal with efficiently and avoid overkill. Thus moving up the middle is the best way to use him. Hanging back limits him a lot.

 

Second, psykers. For psychic defense and a massive force multiplier. giving out 4++ and twin-linked is damn handy.

 

But I think the biggest mistake was unfortunate positioning (I can not decipher that image very well :(). Infantry should spread out at the back while AV12 should be covering the AV14. The Earthshakers must've beem rather in the open to be able to get flamed right after a summon, try to position a Chimera there or something or place them at the very back and block them with the platoon. Since you deployed second, you could've moved some Chimeras between the warriors and AV14.

 

But maybe it was wrong target priority with wrong units? I do not have much details so I can not give you all that much help. I could get a general list running what I would do against that list or, if you have some more info on who shot who, I might do a bit more.

 

But hey, :cuss happens. Next game you will probably rock since you learned lot from that last tussle ;)

[hendrik]

to be honest the positioning was not that bad. originally the entire back of the board was covered by units, a lot of them out of LOS of his army, thus ensuring a would survive the most part of turn one. the thing that ruined me was his deamon prince. it zoomed right into my right flank force, stopping right next to the right of my skyshield. there it managed to succesfully summon 3 flamers of tzeentch and the non-scatter spell so he could perfectly place those flamers where he wanted them to be. The earthshaker emplacement was hiding from all LOS unless you managed to get a unit within 6" of them, which was exactly what he did. for the most part it was the non-scatter that helped him the most since otherwise it would have been a guaranteed mishap/scatter of the board. he also managed to sneak up a scarab squad to my lines, always hiding from LOS on my right flank. now came my first turn. in my right flank his deamon prince and flamers were wreaking havoc, while on the entire board his necron horde (bar one 10 man squad and cultist squad) advanced forward. My turn 1 saw the onslaught of one of his 20 warrior units, removing them from play entirely and destroying about 16 necron warriors from his other 20 man unit. Aside from that his advancing scarabs on the left were met by my veterans and their chimeras and did not survive the encounter. The left flank had been secured. on the right flank paskunisher tried to take out the deamon prince. it's big rate of fire hopefully enough to ensure a couple of wounds. however,since most of his army was necrons I took prefered enemy necrons, thus unable to reroll my to hits. I only scored a couple of 6's of which only 1 or two managed to wound. unfortunatly he made both of his saves. further on the skyshield my infantry squad redeployed to the end of their platform, trying to take out the flamers together with another infantry squad. I failed my order but hoped that 34 lasgun shots would have been enough to hurt them. it turned out not to be the case since the flamers managed to get a 3+ inv save due to the non-scatter spell. in hindsight the only mistake i made this turn was to waste the paskunishers shots on the deamon prince instead of on his other 20 man necron blob, thus unable to finish of that squad like i had done with the other unit.

 

His turn 2 started with the WBB rolls. of his 20 warrior squad of which only 4 lived he managed to make a lot of WBB rolls. he then creeped his monolith a further 6" forward (I had taken off 1 hullpoint already with the vanquisher) and used it's special ability to redeploy the previosly decimated necron warrior squad that now numbered 18 models again within rapid fire range of my stormblade. now one of his special characters gave these necron warriors tank hunter.36 gauss shots later (with a reroll to get gauss on all non-6's) my stormblade was stripped of all his hullpoints in a single torrent of fire. It exploded and the ball of fire hit his deamon prince and necron warriors, however it failed to do any damage (all rolls of 1!). his flamers now flamed away the infantry squad on the right flank who honestly stood no chance.aside from that this was all he manage to do.

 

My turn 2 saw me slaughtering his necon warrior squad again, bar the last warrior since no untis could hit him anymore. unfortunatly this meant he once again got to roll WBB, and the removal of a couple more scarabs. I also redeployed the infantry squad on the skyshield to try and prevent my right flank from collapsing, shooting up the scarab swarms that had managed to sneak up underneath the skyshield. I managed to do some wounds but unfortunatly 2 scarabs remained. I tried to destory the monolith but failed to hit it with the vanquisher...

 

in turn 3 his scarabs ate paskunisher while his monolith, ghost arc and necron warriors stripped down the command vanquisher and the executioner to 1 hull point each. his deamon prince flew over my armoured might and struck my left falnk, succesfully summoning another 3 flamers of tzeentch which destroyed another infantry squad due to the non scatter aside from that he did not do much damage, but my entire right flank had already collapsed. his flamers there went to secure one of the objectives,having caused their havoc already. since the right flank now only consisted of a PCS and an infantry squad and was facing off against a monolith and a big necron blob it was the equivalent of a collapsed flank and would surely not do much dammage anymore. in my turn 3 i once again almost wiped out the necron warrior blob but again 1 lone warriro managed to hide from the onslaught, thus ensuring once more WBB rolls for his unit, aside from that i took out two of his flamers of tzeentch in my left flank and flamed his cultists out of the shrine of the aquila. by this time it was already 7 o clock and we decided to see where this game would go. my right side would keep on getting stumped on, his flyer woudl arrive and take out some armour. we concluded that since i rolled such bad tactical objectives (try to control twice the amound to objectives as your opponent, try to succesfully cast a psychic power, etc) i had been unable to secure many victory points, in fact, only 1. he however had managed to get 8 already (first blood, succesfully annihilate an enemy unit, slay the warlord,capture objective 1, etc) . this meant that the only way i ould still win was to table him entirly, which was something very unlikely to happen, thus we aggreed that he had won the game

[captain sox]

Good luck friend! Hope you pummel the Xenos.

 

Just an oddball question, have you ever seen Manneken Pis in a Guard or Space Marine costume?

[hendrik]

can't say I have!

[WarriorFish]

Lessons learnt for next time, hopefully you'll give them the punishment they deserve!