Wyvern VS. DE

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

I agree with you march, a wyvern is a good, cheap artillery option though, and it also build the immensly useful Hydra, which is really the big reason I want 2 of the kit. 

[Emicus]

Post redacted on grounds of being misleading and subjective. Please remove as spam.

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[Ulrik_Ironfist]

The Wyvern is just a tool for the toolbox. Just because you don't need a basin wrench, doesn't mean it doesn't have a place in the toolbox.

[march10k]

 If you run any terminators with special weapons, you'd like to place them "in the back" and not in a line. If there is moderate terrain on the table, having an unbroken line of terminators spaced 2 apart without taking terrain tests is going to be interesting.. Unless the line is going backwards and you’re asking for longer charges next turn if you lose a model.

 

Granted, 1 hit, 2 for bad placement, 3 for a great scatter. Times 3 if you want to equalise the points cost between a 5man GK terminator unit with standard upgrades. So at best that’s just 12 hits, but he will be re-rolling his hits working to get a scatter. Fine. 12 hits, that’s.. 10 wounds? Average ~2 failed saves. So over the cause of 3 turns you earn your points back, shooting at just terminators. If you scatter ,“oops”, it’s faster. The fastest way to take down Terminators as I’m sure you are aware is a bucket of dice, and Wyverns can provide that.

 

 

 

First of all, lines need not be straight.  You can be in a line without being equidistant from a threat, besides which if all five models were equidistant, that would not entitle the opponent to choose which model is hit.  So that's a spurious line of argumentation.  

 

Also, they don't really need to be in a line, they just need to be spaced such that it's impossible to hit more than two with each blast marker...you could put them in a cross, for example, although that makes it virtually impossible to generate a clean miss off of a scatter.  

 

I'm not sure I'd take footslogging terminators as assault units, but yeah, just like every other unit in the game, if you lose the closest model, your charge distance increases.  I'm not sure how that makes wyverns better at killing terminators, but there it is.

 

As for your calculations, I can't make much sense of them...Here are mine.  The normal squadron of two wyverns has eight blasts templates.  12 hits is a fair estimate against a reasonably well spread out squad of termies, I just don't understand your description of how you arrived at 12.  I'm not quite sure where you arrive at the conclusion that 3/4 of 12 is 10, though...it's precisely 9.  And precisely 9 wounds yields 1.5 failed 2+ saves.  I guess you needed to make it 10 wounds instead of 9 in order to tip the balance towards 2 failed saves instead of 1?  

 

Anyway, all of this mathhammer is irrelevant.  I've had a last standing termie survive three turns of las/plas, and I've also lost five termies to five ratlings over two turns.  My point was that properly spaced termies are pretty resilient against wyverns.  Ginning up some numbers to inflate the casualty rate to 2 doesn't convince me otherwise when I've removed upwards of 40 models with a single salvo from a pair of wyverns.  When anything less than terminators is dog meat in the face of massed stormshard mortars, losing 1-2 termies is a victory!

 

(anyway, my termies ride around in venerable crusaders with a 4++, the first fire they take is from overwatch, wyvern problems rarely apply to them)

 

It's not that I'm too good for wyverns, it's just that I tried them and found them embarrassingly overpowered, killing ~150 opposing guardsmen in four turns.  I didn't stop using them out of some elitist sense of letting my victims feel like they have a fighting chance, I did it because I didn't like the feeling of being "that guy."  A single squadron of wyverns is like triptides, the invisible jetseer council, fatecrusher, and so on.  I don't think even a points hike will balance them.  I think it needs a nerf.  Maybe the way of handling a "hit" on subsequent shots needs to change.  If a "hit" on a subsequent shot had to land on top of the original hit, or at least on top of one of the subsequent scatters, that would balance things.  Or maybe it needs rending instead of shred. Yes, I know that would kill more termies, not less, but it's not meant for killing 1-2 termies a turn, it's made for crowd control, and it's overpowered in its true role.  

[Emicus]

I apologise for both my erroneous statements and poor math skills. I would like to stress that I have not attempted to “game the numbers”, and that the conclusion of 12 templates came from 3 Wyverns, on account of that being ~ the points cost of a “standard” Grey Knights Terminator unit.

You are correct that a line does not have to be, in fact, a line, but a squiggle. However I believe the more you crunch up the line, the more likely you are to be able to be hit, and therefore countermands the aforementioned line. The “spacing is key” stands tall.

1.5 rounding up would be 2, as I personally follow grocers rounding in these matters as I’d rather plan for the worst than the best, but as this is debatable, 1 failed save is equably correct.

 

From my viewpoint as a Grey Knights player facing an Astra Militarum army I do not in fact have a whole bunch of other miniatures to shoot at. Killing 150 guardsmen in four turns is moot for me as I simply don’t have those models for my opponent to kill. Losing two terminators for me is actually quite a setback in an army possibly rocking as low as 17 models in an 1850 list. Sure there will be casualties but the Wyverns are as close to guaranteed loss as I reckon you can get. Plasmacutioners are scary too, don’t get me wrong, but they can at least scatter far and wide.

 

In addition I would like to say that while you are 100% correct that perfect equidistant placement of say, 5 terminator models where some are more valuable than others, would not allow the opponent to pick who is killed, that the oponents movement phase may change this. I dare to suppose that you might argue placing them in the middle would counter this and that this solution would be a possible one.

lastly I would like to redact my previous posts and hope a mod will assist me in removing them as spam, as I would not like to mislead past, present or future players in my erroneous thoughts or conclusions in regard to the Wyvern being an adequate weapon against terminators, an all terminator force or any unit that has a 2+ save.

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[WarriorFish]

Posts will only be removed if they break the B&C's rules.

[march10k]

Emicus,

 

I think 3 hits per wyvern is a bit low, and I'm the one defending the terminators!  Three wyverns would certainly kill at least two terminators by achieving around 18 hits!

 

As for lines, squiggles, and such, as long as each terminator is two inches (even slightly less) from any other terminator, it's as good as a perfectly straight line in terms of minimizing the threat from blast weapons.  

 

I understand your pain as a GKT player, I'm a deathwing player myself...were I not fully mechanized (and thus able to safely ignore wyverns), I would be deepstriking cyclones for side shots.  That said, demolishers are far scarier than wyverns and even executioners.  It's really hard to miss with that large blast!  Scariest of all, though is a punisher with three heavy bolters.  29 shots that wound on 3s makes for an average of ten wounds, slightly more than two wyverns will achieve, but far more reliable since it's coming from an AV14 platform and doesn't rely on eight scatter dice.

 

Anyway, the topic was how they perform against dark eldar...they're nasty!  They kill them just as easily as they kill guardsmen, but since eldar cost a lot more per model, and they tend to have far fewer infantry, it's more devastating.  It also comes with the "bonus" of being AV12, which is unaffected by the "lance" rule.  I'm not sure that that's truly an advantage, but it sure has a psychological effect when the enemy comes loaded for AV14 and you spam AV12 instead.

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

The advantage I see for the wyvern over your HB punisher is that the Wyvern doesn't need line of sight and has greater range. I'm not saying the punisher isn't valid, just that the wyvern has some advantages, just like the punisher has the advantage of not relying on scatter. Used in combination they could be devastating.

 

I get what you're saying, March, about being able to say that they wyvern is the cheesy scapegoat. I feel that the cheese really only comes into play is when you use the associated tactics. 

[march10k]

But why would you not use it to its full potential?  I wouldn't field a shadowsword and decide not to fire the main gun "just to keep things fair..."  If it's broken, the solution isn't to find a way to use it that negates whatever is unbalanced, the solution is to fix it.  It doesn't need less competitive players, it needs better rules.

[Guardsman1275]

agreed, I usually put only 1, or 2 max in my lists, because using them isn't very fun

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

But why would you not use it to its full potential?  I wouldn't field a shadowsword and decide not to fire the main gun "just to keep things fair..."  If it's broken, the solution isn't to find a way to use it that negates whatever is unbalanced, the solution is to fix it.  It doesn't need less competitive players, it needs better rules.

 

I'm not saying don't use your toys to their full potential, just saying that the list they go in ought to be balanced, to offset their power. I've stopped building lists with Elysians because of how hard those lists hit. I'm running mixed tactics, and if I were at my old store, then yes, I'd run as hard hitting a list as I can, but my new meta is far more casual, beer and pretzels sort of group.

[march10k]

I envy you...mine's a mix of WAAC tournament players and total noobs who have to proxy half their list...competent-but-casual players are a rarity around here!  ...except in my triumph and treachery circle!  I guess the whole "treachery" thing is so much fun, nobody cares who triumphs...

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

Yeah, It's nice to have a nice relaxed group of people, we get together, play some warhammer, drink some beer and eat some good food. 

[CoffeeGrunt]

Yeah, It's nice to have a nice relaxed group of people, we get together, play some warhammer, drink some beer and eat some good food. 

 

That's what it's about, man. :D

[Nyustukyi]

I play DE and I am looking into IG. In my Tank force I run 6 Wyverns as back up.

 

As a DE player I will say that target prioty is key and Wyverns earn a high ranking. However, if the DE plays right the Wyvern might kill a squad before their entire Squardon goes up.

[Captain Baranov]

This post is oddly timely, as I just picked up a hydra/wyvern kit for cheap the other day. I was on the fence over which to build, but I think I know which to build now ;)

[nismogrendel]

This post is oddly timely, as I just picked up a hydra/wyvern kit for cheap the other day. I was on the fence over which to build, but I think I know which to build now

Use the magnetization thread and build both! :)

[Captain Baranov]

 

This post is oddly timely, as I just picked up a hydra/wyvern kit for cheap the other day. I was on the fence over which to build, but I think I know which to build now ;)

 

 

Use the magnetization thread and build both! :)

I would, but the miniature is set up in such a way that magnets are highly inconvenient. The Wyvern barrels attach without any room for a magnet underneath. That said... The hydra barrels might just fit into the wyvern's as is. Hmm... Might need to look into that.

[SW1]

 

 

This post is oddly timely, as I just picked up a hydra/wyvern kit for cheap the other day. I was on the fence over which to build, but I think I know which to build now ;)

 

Use the magnetization thread and build both! :)

I would, but the miniature is set up in such a way that magnets are highly inconvenient. The Wyvern barrels attach without any room for a magnet underneath. That said... The hydra barrels might just fit into the wyvern's as is. Hmm... Might need to look into that.

Push fit is better than nothing!!! Keeps the options open for you. ;)

[Vel'Cona]

Just to throw in on the Wyvern vs. Hydra topic; if you really need AA, you're going to want a Flyer.  The Hydra is OK for AA duties, but honestly you'll need at least two for them to be effective and at that point you should start looking at the Vendetta (or allied Stormtalons).  I'm not saying it's useless and/or magnetization isn't worth the time, but my feeling is you can do just fine sticking with the Wyvern and looking elsewhere for AA.

[WarriorFish]

Push fit works fine for the Wyvern/Hydra with only a little compromise. It's what I did :)

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

Push fit works fine for the Wyvern/Hydra with only a little compromise. It's what I did

That's actually really good to know, so I don't have to figure it out on my own when I get mine.