Kastelan Maniple Discussion

[mmimzie]

The problem with trying to screen Sicarians is that this will waste their 9" move from Dunestriders, not to mention the 2d6 (pick highest) + 3" Run move.  If you want to cover them in this way, you'd be better off with Dragoons.

I agree with velcona. that's a very good idea screening the sicarians with dunestriders. Just have them at the dunestriders feet and they'll have all the leg day cover in the world. 

 

Slowing down the unit kind of undoes the effect off the screen because you give all the more turns to shoot at the sicarians.

 

The kastelans though will still be a great fire magnet as thier shooting will be very scarey and they are no snooze in melee.

[munocat]

I ended up making melee and flamer, the other twin linked gun with a flamer.

[Frater Cornelius]

You can not add IC to monstrous creatures as per BRB. RAW the same should go for MC units like Kastelans.

[Vel'Cona]

Remember that rumored Kastelan formation though, Immersturm!  If the rumor wasn't a lie, this formation consists of 2 units of Kastelans with a Tech-Priest Dominus replacing a single Datasmith (and therefore, joining the unit)!  Let's hope it wasn't just a pipe dream!

[Frater Cornelius]

Aye, I remember that one. I was more referring to the usual situation in a regular detachment :P

[mmimzie]

One important thing that formation does. It lets the robots fire as if they were independent.  Otherwise you'd have a serious over kill situation.

[Scurvydog]

No matter how i twist and turn it, it still seems the elimination maniple formation is by a long shot the most powerful cult has to offer. Many targets will often be in some kind of cover and BS4 instead of 3 is really good, shooting at MEQ behind just 5+ cover a kastellan from an elimination formation will get around double the kills compared to the same kastellan outside the formation. 

 

Outside of a full cult army this formation just seems by far the best to ally in.

[mmimzie]

The real cool thing is that elimination maniple let's you screen your destroyers with out giving the enemy a cover save. You take a few MSUs of electro priest to cover your destroyers and they now have all the better cover save.

 

And now with the all but confirmed canticle rumors. Your arm will more or less be immune to enemy first turn of shooting unless they ignore a lot of your cover.

[Vel'Cona]

Wait, where did you see this mmimzie?  The Cult Mechanicus Rumors thread only listed a few Morale-based buffs from what I saw.

[mmimzie]

Vel'cona bro you are out of this world funny. I can tell the order in which you check the forums :P

[Frater Cornelius]

The LE photo has the cards on the table as well. It is super small but you can read at least one. That melee buff is the most visible. Another card looks like the cover bonus. No idea if there is a movement buff though because two are 100% obscured. One has the word 'electro' in its title though. Possibly something that the Priests to not suck?

[mmimzie]

Well melee and cover bonus are in the rumor from before 

 

 

 

here are 6 canticles and each one can only be used once per game. Benefits include cover bonus's, bonus's to strength, re-rolling failed attacks from either close combat or shooting, fearless, or creating extra hits in close combat. 8 units gives the strongest bonus 4-7 a medium bonus, and 1-3 a standard bonus.

 

Also i think a really good cover save once or twice makes the electro priest fine atleast the shooty ones. They really jsut need one turn of protection until they get to start shooting stuff.

 

So far the one that benefits the least is kastelans

[Frater Cornelius]

Not really. Your Canticles are strongest T1, hence you want to support which ever part of the game gives you the most impact T1. This would be shooting. This really supports alpha strike. Either that or cover bonus if you face massed pod alpha strike.

Essentially, the entire system works against Priests, seeing as you want to get most of your utility out of it as soon as possible.

If anything, Priests could be buffer to make your Kataphron alpha strike better.

[mmimzie]

Eh i dont know the kataphrons already alpha strike even if without buffed shooting. 6 haywire shots per breacher unit,18 grav shots per destroyer unit, and 6 MEQ wounds(if i'm rememebr correctly) from the kastelans. That's already pretty good. if you could take take massive cover saves accross your whole army its better.

 

So lets say the weakest possible senerio for the cover save is that at full strength it gives plus 3 to your cover save. if your in terain you pretty much have a 2+ cover save on the whole army. Sure strong shooting good, but your shootings already strong. Why not protect that shooting for a turn, and still get strong shooting later.

 

with army wide massive saves your only gonna loose like 1/6 your army at worst, even better with FNP and stuff on the kastelans. Then at the end of the turn. you convert the kastelan to mage shooter mode, and pot the shooting canticles, and wipe out the rest of the enemy army turn 2. Then on turn 2 the priest also get to shoot.

[Targetlock]

alpha strike?

[Scurvydog]

Yea I think better shooting in T1 will be more situational, at least the people I play with know how to position their units T1 to not be easy to shoot down. many destroyer weapon options are 30 or below at 24 in range, so they might not be in range for the best possible targets T1, possibly if the other player goes first though. Another thing as mentioned is the pew pew protocol of kastellans with double shooting, which they can't activiate before T2 at the earliest. I can see Kastellans from an elimination maniple in T2 with shooting protocols AND shooting canticles just removing whatever squad with a 3+ save or worse. 

 

The role of the priests does seem to provide more canticle power, but I am still not sold on cult being all that good by itself even with max canticle power levels. The doctrines from the skitters seem more reliable on the good all around troops and crawlers. I am still tempted to buy into an elimination maniple when not bringing a knight for the skitters, just to watch eldar jetbikes crash and burn.

[Vel'Cona]

Vel'cona bro you are out of this world funny. I can tell the order in which you check the forums

Haha I'm an old guy, I have to read and knee-jerk react in the order that I find stuff. I find the current rumors very hard to follow for the Canticles. I'm probably just going to wait for the codex before I weigh in on these.

[Hellrender]

alpha strike?

Alpha strike basicly means that you rely on a devastating first turn where you take out key elements of the enemy army.

 

As an example, drop pod armies and old dark eldar relied a lot on it.

[mmimzie]

 

alpha strike?

Alpha strike basicly means that you rely on a devastating first turn where you take out key elements of the enemy army.

 

As an example, drop pod armies and old dark eldar relied a lot on it.

 

basicly you want to win the game turn 1 by crppling stuff like crazy. I'm for a defensive guy so i'm bias, but basicly its a glass cannon apraoch where your army can't deal with a prelonged fight, so you do so much damage to particular units so that your enemy can really hurt you back.

 

drop pods tend to split your army up and can make you vulnerable to cahrges or, in the case of dropped dreads, side or rear attacks. Skitarii as rather squishy and can find thier number dropped quickly in assault and long shoot outs. SO they want to pop your best anti infantry stuff quick.

[Targetlock]

alpha strike?

Alpha strike basicly means that you rely on a devastating first turn where you take out key elements of the enemy army.

As an example, drop pod armies and old dark eldar relied a lot on it.

basicly you want to win the game turn 1 by crppling stuff like crazy. I'm for a defensive guy so i'm bias, but basicly its a glass cannon apraoch where your army can't deal with a prelonged fight, so you do so much damage to particular units so that your enemy can really hurt you back.

drop pods tend to split your army up and can make you vulnerable to cahrges or, in the case of dropped dreads, side or rear attacks. Skitarii as rather squishy and can find thier number dropped quickly in assault and long shoot outs. SO they want to pop your best anti infantry stuff quick.

thanks for explaining it, my daemonkin army is funnily enough one of those style armies. my adeptus mech/skitarri force will defensively focussed, lots of ranged death

[Yodhrin]

So Relics and Formations detail has been posted on Warseer. The Cybernetica Formation allows you to split fire with one robot for each Datasmith and Magos in the unit(so the minimum unit would fire 1 bot plus the 'smiths & Magos at one target, and could then target the other 3 bots independently), and on top of that makes Protocols take effect immediately. There's also a Relic that gives the bearer and their entire unit IWND - combined with the Magos' inherent ability to restore wounds to his unit every turn, the formation should be damn near unkillable if you juggle the positioning of the bots to keep the healthiest ones up-front.

 

The "no-brainer" formation also isn't as mental as was first rumoured; you only get the +1BS/Ignores Cover for the Destroyers, and only against an enemy unit that the Kastelans in the formation have successfully applied Luminagen to. I think the Cybernetica formation is going to be the standout.

[Frater Cornelius]

A poster on Warseer have the Cult Mechanicus codex.

From here downward, the canticles, relics and formations.

 

Here it is. Those Relics in combination with the Cohort Formation gives this serious Death Star potential. 800pts of murder supported by Skitarii would in fact be superior to the Elimination Maniple, seeing as that incarnation has serious overkill problems.

[Vel'Cona]

Yeah, the Cohort is boss. Immediately applying Kastelan Protocols means you can swap the unit's role at will, and being able to split fire per Datasmith/Dominus is awesome, too. Effectively, the 3 Robots can shoot at different targets while the last Robot and the Characters can shoot at the initial target, if this rule works the way it's written. Interestingly, this is the only way you can join a Dominus to a Kastelan Maniple, as well, which means he can heal Wounds on the Robots, too. Even crazier, I see that there is a Relic that gives the bearer and his unit It Will Not Die. Wow!

For the curious, yes I'm going to order a second Maniple, now!

[mmimzie]

Yeah, the Cohort is boss. Immediately applying Kastelan Protocols means you can swap the unit's role at will, and being able to split fire per Datasmith/Dominus is awesome, too. Effectively, the 3 Robots can shoot at different targets while the last Robot and the Characters can shoot at the initial target, if this rule works the way it's written. Interestingly, this is the only way you can join a Dominus to a Kastelan Maniple, as well, which means he can heal Wounds on the Robots, too. Even crazier, I see that there is a Relic that gives the bearer and his unit It Will Not Die. Wow!

For the curious, yes I'm going to order a second Maniple, now!

yeah i know i just did x.x

[N1SB]

My feelings were exactly described with this post, but there's new information:

 

No matter how i twist and turn it, it still seems the elimination maniple formation is by a long shot the most powerful cult has to offer. Many targets will often be in some kind of cover and BS4 instead of 3 is really good, shooting at MEQ behind just 5+ cover a kastellan from an elimination formation will get around double the kills compared to the same kastellan outside the formation. 

 

Outside of a full cult army this formation just seems by far the best to ally in.

 

However, I was reading on Warseer (from an above link) and it suggested the BS +1 and Ignore Cover only applies on a unit ALREADY hit by a Robot Luminagen.  In other words, you have to 1st Wound 1 Unit, and then the rest of Formation gets bonuses for THAT unit.  This finding changes the dynamic somewhat, and we're still working from rumours here, but if that was the condition, what's your thoughts on the subject now?