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Skitarii Suffer a Crushing Defeat


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So I finally got to play my Skitarii today 1850 points, and it was not good.  I was tabled by turn 3

 

Here was the lists (roughly):

 

Skitarri

 

Formation - Battle Maniple

10x  Skitarii Vanguard

          2x  Plasma Calivers

          1x  Arc Rifle

          1x  Omnispex

     Vanguard Alpha (Warlord) with 1x Taser Goad, 1x Arc Pistol, and a Refractor Field

 

10x  Skitarii Rangers

          2x  Transuranic Arquebus

          1x  Arc Rifle

          1x  Omnispex

     Ranger Alpha with 1x Taser Goad, 1x Arc Pistol, and a Refractor Field

 

7x  Sicarian Ruststalkers with Transonic Razors, Chordclaws, and Mindscrambler Grenades

     Ruststalker Princeps with the Pater Radium, a Prehensile Data Spike, and a Refractor Field

 

5x  Sicarian Infiltrators with Taser Goads and Flechette Blasters

     Infiltrator Princeps with the Phase Taser, an Infoslave Skull, and a Conversion Field

 

1x  Ironstrider Ballistarii

 

3x  Onager Dunecrawlers

          2x  Neutron Laser and Cognis Heavy Stubber

          1x  Twin-Linked Heavy Phosphor Blaster

          3x  Cognis Heavy Stubbers

 

 

Formation - Ironstrider Cavaliers

1x  Sydoniam Dragoon

 

1x  Sydonian Dragoon

 

1x  Ironstrider Ballistarii

 

 

Heavy Support

1x  Onager Dunecrawler

          1x  Icarus Array

          1x  Cognis Heavy Stubber

          1x  Cognis Manipulator

          1x  Mindscanner Probe

 

 

Fortification

1x  Plasma Obliterator

 

 

My Opponet (from memory)

 

White Scars, Space Wolves, and a Knight

 

1x  Knight Errant

 

5x  (White Scars) Bikers with 2x Gravguns and a Combi-Grav

 

5x  (White Scars) Bikers with 2x Gravguns and a Combi-Grav

 

1x  (White Scars) Librarian at Mastery Level 2 on a Bike with a Force Sword

 

1x  (White Scars) Tech Marine on a Bike

 

2 squads of Thunderwolves with a couple Frost Swords, some Thunder Hammers, a couple Storm Shields and each squad had 5 Cyberwolves

 

 

We played Adepticon rules, Maelstrom of War, he deployed and went first.  His first turn all he did was remove 1 HP from the Plasma Obliterator.  My first turn I used the Doctrina +3 to BS and -2 to WS.  It was actually useless as the few misses I had I failed to hit on the re-rolls (needing 6s).  My Outflanking Ironstiders came in on the first turn and 1 Sydonian and the Ironstrider were on my left and the lone Sydonian were on my right.  My Plasma Obliterator was centrally located and had my Vanguards in it.  To it's left was my Rangers in cover, the 3 Duncrawlers and the lone Ironstrider.  To the right of the Obliterator was the lone Dunecrawler and both my Ruststalkers and Infiltrators (which were Infiltrating). 

 

The Obliterator almost destroyed one squad of Thunderwolves leaving just the Librarian his Warlord and some random character model.  The 3 Dunecralwers tried to damage the Knight but failed miserably.  Everything else hit but failed to do any real damage except for the Infiltrators which killed 3 Bikers (shooting) and he failed their morale check thus causing them to flee. 

 

He scored 1 I scored 4. 

 

His next turn was a crush fest, his Knight destroyed the Obliterator also killing half the Vanguards which also failed a Ld 10 moral check and ran off the board thus slaying my Warlord.  His Thunderwolf squad at full strength multi-charged the Infiltrators and the one Synodian Dragoon.  He destroyed them and turned to charge my Ruststalkers next.  His bike squad backed up away from the Rustalkers and fired into them causing a wound.  The way he shot the Knight he was able to assault my 3 Dunecrawlers, tying them up in CC.  and his severely wounded other Thunderwolf squad miraculously made a 10" charge (into cover I might add) to assault my Rangers in a ruin.  The 3 guys utterly destroyed the Rangers and then they moved to attack my lone Ironstrider his next turn.

 

He scored 3

 

My turn I moved the Ruststalkers to get into CC with the Knight to hopfully use their Haywire Grenades.  I also moved the lone Dunecralwer with a Cognis Manipulator (S10 AP1) also to assault the Knight.  The random Synodian moved to assault the 3 man Thrunderwolf squad, one Ironstrider shot at the backed up Bike squad the other shot at the 3 man Thunderwolf squad (the second Ironstrider managed to kill one random guy in the Thunderwolf squad in front of him).  The Ruststalkers removed 2 HPs from the Knight which was a pleasant surprise.  I then whiffed with the lone Dunecrawler and the other 3 Dunecrawles could not hurt the Knight due to them being S5.

 

I scored 1 (had an Objective)

 

His next turn completely mopped my army and I was tabled after 3 turns.

 

I learned that the Plasma Obliterator was NOT worth the points in this match!  A Knight would have been so much better (a Knight is now auto-include for my Skitarri).  I think the Cognis Manipulator might actually be worth the 25 points (I could have at least do something to the Knight and could have possible regen'd HPs).  I think if you take the Ironstrider Formation you are better off taking the Jezzial gun instead of the Lance.  I'm may think about cutting off the Lances off my Dragoons and switching to the Jezzials (though the Lances are just too cool looking).  This is a fragile army that is focused on shooting.  A finely tuned WS/SW T-Wolf army is the anathema to them.

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Too many toys, not enough boys and some wrong choices during deployment. That seems to be the basic problem. In my opinion, the Sicarians are not worth their points. Too fragile and do not yield good enough return. If anything, just the Infiltrators are worth it due to their decent shooting against T5.

I would also avoid the Ironstrider Formation. Just take two units of Dragoons, preferable more than one solo guy. They are deadly in melee but need redundancy. Letting the Striders Outflank was a mistake. White Scars and TWC will move towards your infantry. Your Ironstriders could have potentially made a T1 charge if the enemy got first turn.

You could also use another Vanguard unit. One Caliver Vanguard unit deletes one unsupported TWC unit per turn.

 

As for deployment, White Scar bikes without Khan have a 42" threat range T1 (deployment + movement + range), giving you 6" breathing room. The key here is to mitigate alpha strike without having to leave the board and take him out ASAP. Vanguards scout and each eat a TWC unit. Dragoons pursue and possibly charge bikes (or definitely charge bikers if he scouted).

 

Your mistake was bringing the wrong toys to the party. Beating TWC in the melee game is very hard and only a charging taser Dragoon can do it. That was the issue. Possibly some mistakes on the board, but I can not judge that.

 

No worries though, better luck next time ;)

I'd first add one quite different piece of advice, I suggest don't use the word beat that way. I know it's become a cultural trend to use it that way but that trend is very painful to many survivors of real beat (and i know several who are gamers including 40k players) and can be quite a likely trauma-trigger. I'm sure you didn't mean to upset anyone so you might want to find another word to use instead. :)

Back to game strategy my only experience against bikes in the recent edition was against Ravenwing Knights who chewed through my Taghmata Omnissiah nastily but which my Knight Paladin was quite effective against. So i agree with your change of army to take your knight.

Thunderwolves are quite nasty, they also have made a mess of many of my Taghmata units, they slaughtered my Thallax with ease. They didn't like my knight much but i don't know if that was a very typical result, if it weren't for my Arch-magos repairing my Knight the outcome would have been different. Clearly i'll need to consider very different set-ups for Skitarii compared to Taghmata!

The SW/WS Wolf Star, the more optimized version of the above, used to be my non-forge world tournament list until my swap to AdMech. I know the workings of that list by heart :D

And yeah, a Knight would have helped a lot since these lists generally suffer from lack of ranged AT, and melee AT will have to suffer heavy losses due to I4 SD.

You are right using that word is insensitive and I apologize.  Anyway even though I was utterly crushed I still had a blast as I was playing a close friend.  He is obviously a bit of a Tourney player as his list was a finely tuned SW/WS Wolfstar list, he had everything equipped to beat people down I just forgot exactly what they were.  My friend said he doesn't bring this list to make friends LOL.

 

We both sat down after to look at my mistakes (there were a number of them) and with all of your excellent comments I think I can take his Wolfstar list again!

 

If nothing else Skitarri are refreshing army to play!

2 other notes, one in regards to toys. It seems like you have a lot of mixed weapons in squads. Give them each a job to do that they are good at. You may even want to consider taking a few squads of 5 with just specials, like Arc Rifles.

 

Focus fire. It seems like if you had done more of that you would have wiped some squads out. I'm not sure how spread out your units were, I know I try to keep my stuff in support range of each other.

Whilst reflecting on this game I also completely forgot to use the Taser rule when my Infiltrators were in CC, they still would have perished but they would have taken a few enemy models with them.

 

This game was a great learning experience, I hope others can learn from it too!

This is my new and improved Skitarii list, it's important to note that I have 30+ points left over this is for 2 reasons:  First there isn't a point value known for a Knight Crusader and second I want to leave some points to give the Knight Crusader a Twin-Link Icarus Autocannon as a carapace mount.

 

Here is my new list:

 

Formation - Battle Maniple

10x  Skitarii Vanguard

          2x  Plasma Calivers

          1x  Transuranic Arquebus

          1x  Omniscope

     Vanguard Alpha with a Taser Goad and a Refractor Field

 

10x  Skitarii Rangers

          2x  Arc Rifles

          1x  Transuranic Arquebus

          1x  Omniscope

     Ranger Alpha with a Taser Goad and a Refractor Field

 

5x  Sicarian Ruststalkers with Transonic Razors, Chordclaws, and Mindscrambler Grenades

     Ruststalker Princeps with the Pater Radium, a Prehensile Dataspike, and a Refractor Field

 

5x  Sicarian Infiltrators with Flechette Blasters and Taser Goads

     Infiltrator Princeps (Warlord) with the Phase Taser and a Conversion Field

 

2x  Ironstrider Ballistarius

 

3x  Onager Dunecrawlers

          2x  Neutron Lasers with Cognis Heavy Stubbers

          1x  Twin-Linked Heavy Phosphor Blaster

          3x  Cognis Heavy Stubbers

          3x  Cognis Manipulators

 

Fast Attack

2x  Sydonian Dragoons

 

Ally - Imperial Knights

1x  Imperial Knight Crusader (375 points?)

          1x  Twin-Linked Icarus Autocannon

 

Should be 1850/1850 and a model count of 38.

 

 

Rational:

Both the Vanguards and the Rangers have special weapons that compliment their main weapons better than my previous list.  I also have a Arquebus in each squad to hopefully still be able to fire turn 1 even if the enemy is deployed out of range of their main guns.  I know the Taser Goads my seem like a bit of a waste of points but I like the aesthetic.  I lean more fluffy than competitive.

 

Both the Infiltrators and Rustalkers will be deployed near either the Rangers or the Vanguard as a counter-charge measure, which should provided support and hopefully help the Vanguards and Rangers survive CC.  I chose my Warlord to be the Infiltrator Princeps as I feel that he may be the most survivable, though I may gamble and switch it to the Vanguard Alpha for the re-rolls to help avoid "It Gets Hot" problems.  Now I know I may be slammed for taking Ruststakers as they are not quite as good as Infiltrators, but they are here to satisfy the Formation requirements.

 

The Ironstriders with Autocannons were great in my first game!  This time I brought them together in a single squadron for an increase in redundancy and survivability.  They will be deployed opposite the Knight with the Dunecrawlers to aid their shooting and to hopefully spread out my enemy.

 

The Dunecrawlers are here to hopefully draw some fire away from the Knight as well as cause as much destruction as they can themselves.  For 5 points a pieace the Cognis Heavy Stubbers are auto-include on all my Dunecrawlers.  I have found (again from my first battle) that the Cognis Manipulators can be invaluable in increasing the Dunecrawlers survivability and can help them if an enemy Knight decides to charge them.  In my game the enemy did just that and the Dunecrawlers were not to shabby at tar-pitting him though they would have been better served with Manipulators.  Their base S5 was unable to do anything to the Knight so they had to sit there and take the beating (which they did better than I expected).  It Will Not Die is also really nice to have too!

 

The Synodian Dragoons role is simply to defend the Knight and help him from being tar-pitted in a long assault.  Since the Knight Crusader has no melee weapon (he can still stomp), the Dragoons are his CC counter-measure that can charge in with their S8/S7 Taser Lances and help the Knight out trouble.  The Dragoons also have a 5+ obscured cover save that helps them roam with the Knight.  And they are nearly as fast as he is too!

 

Lastly, the Knight Crusader (for those that don't know about the Knight Crusader:  Avenger Gatling Cannon + Rapid-Fire Battle Cannon = lots 'o dakka) and I don't think I need to justify his uses.  Do I?  I want to give him the Icarus Autocannon as to help with anti-air duties since I will be relying on either volume of shots or Cognis to take down enemy Flyers (I don't always see a lot of Flyers and my last game my Icarus Array Dunecrawler was a waste of points since there were no Flyers).

 

So what do you guys think of this for my sencod go with Skitarri?  I think it incorporates a lot of your opinions and some of the lessons I learned in my game 1.

This is my new and improved Skitarii list, it's important to note that I have 30+ points left over this is for 2 reasons: First there isn't a point value known for a Knight Crusader and second I want to leave some points to give the Knight Crusader a Twin-Link Icarus Autocannon as a carapace mount.

Here is my new list:

Formation - Battle Maniple

10x Skitarii Vanguard

2x Plasma Calivers

1x Transuranic Arquebus

1x Omniscope

Vanguard Alpha with a Taser Goad and a Refractor Field

10x Skitarii Rangers

2x Arc Rifles

1x Transuranic Arquebus

1x Omniscope

Ranger Alpha with a Taser Goad and a Refractor Field

5x Sicarian Ruststalkers with Transonic Razors, Chordclaws, and Mindscrambler Grenades

Ruststalker Princeps with the Pater Radium, a Prehensile Dataspike, and a Refractor Field

5x Sicarian Infiltrators with Flechette Blasters and Taser Goads

Infiltrator Princeps (Warlord) with the Phase Taser and a Conversion Field

2x Ironstrider Ballistarius

3x Onager Dunecrawlers

2x Neutron Lasers with Cognis Heavy Stubbers

1x Twin-Linked Heavy Phosphor Blaster

3x Cognis Heavy Stubbers

3x Cognis Manipulators

Fast Attack

2x Sydonian Dragoons

Ally - Imperial Knights

1x Imperial Knight Crusader (375 points?)

1x Twin-Linked Icarus Autocannon

Should be 1850/1850 and a model count of 38.

Rational:

Both the Vanguards and the Rangers have special weapons that compliment their main weapons better than my previous list. I also have a Arquebus in each squad to hopefully still be able to fire turn 1 even if the enemy is deployed out of range of their main guns. I know the Taser Goads my seem like a bit of a waste of points but I like the aesthetic. I lean more fluffy than competitive.

it looks better but im not sure about the red part...thats nearly another body in the infil's or rusty's all for the sake of maybe one shot?.. i'd keep the ranger one but i'd be hesitant on the vanguard one.. confused.gif

good luck for future games and thanks for the ++Hard Data++

Mithril

I agree that it's just one shot, but it's a S4 + 2d6 (Armourbane) shot.  I looked at it as the ability to take away a HP when the enemy is out of range of the Carbines.  I feel like 3 Cavilers is just asking for It Gets Hot death(s).  Depending on the point value of the Knight Crusader I will look here to free up any points I can.

 

What do you recommend taking as the 3 special weapon, if I don't take the Arquebus?

Also, both vanguards and rangers are pretty useful without special weapons as well. Cheap and effective is never to be sneezed at.

Not sold on naked Rangers, but there definitely is something to be said about naked Vanguars given their ability to wound anything and pile loads of wounds on something.

Galvanic rifles (30" range, AP4, rapid fire, precision shots) are good weapons and a Ranger unit should be capable of parking in cover near an objective, firing away and murdering anything lesser than MEQ. They're also competent at sniping heavy weapons (particularly with the Transuranic Arquebus). They don't so well against MEQ, but with 30" and rapid fire and factoring in Doctrina Imperatives...they can hold up to some extent. Don't expect to be slaying Terminators left, right and center, though.

Unfortunately, most foot slogging stuff has MEQish or better survivability or other protective buff. I hardly doubt that Rangers will have a lot of targets that Vanguard would not have.

Do not get me wrong, I am not hating on Rangers. I love the idea of MSU Rangers with two specials. But as far as basic guns go, Vanguard got me. The thing with specision is that you still need to roll 6 for it to matter and then the opponent will probably get some kind of save.

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