Post-release roundtable: what worked? what didnt

[hammer grimblood]

A few more games this weekend. I have no idea how to deal with Astra Militarum/Tempestus scions right now. 50pr/1k points on a 4x4 table my opponent takes 50 strong units of conscripts and deep striking plasma command squads, he can just daisy chain to the obj and use the same strat to hide the commissars.

 

At that size of game i feel like my hands are tied a bit unless i want to tailer a list specifically against it.  Anyone had any luck against this stuff?

For 1000 pts a full size table would be better. How did he deep strike his command squads? 

 

Snipers would be useful to target his Commissars. However if my opponent is suddenly fielding 50 strong conscript squads and doing the Ork conga line I'd totally tailor a list to wreck that. Sit back with Snipers, an Assassin, Razorbacks with TLAC, Land Raider Crusaders.

[PeteySödes]

Used a valkyrie for the deep strikes. Yea i had a 5 man scout (vanilla for the deployment) with snipers for characters and 2 TLAC razors actually. My issue may have been the small board then and we were pretty terrain heavy. He was able to hide the commissars pretty much the whole game untill i positioned my TWolf Iron priest where his conga line bowed and was able to helfrost the crap out of him. Thats still though he was able to hold 3 objectives with the one unit and contest the ones i had with the 1 wound left Valk that can still move 20".

 

My group generally like Cityfights, i never thought more terrain would be a hinderance to me though. It was pretty demoralizing actually, had the game gone one more turn I almost certainly would have won. Instead what i would consider pretty beardy play got the best of me.

Edited June 26, 2017 by FearPeteySodes

[Hear da Lamentation]

If you have a vehicle surrounded I didn't think they could disembark?

[postxhumanity]

If you have a vehicle surrounded I didn't think they could disembark?

 

Transports don't have access points anymore, units can disembark anywhere that is within 3" of the transport and more than 1" away from enemy models. So if you completely surround a transport then, no, any units it's carrying will be unable to disembark. However, unlike it past editions, having a model in front of an access point doesn't prevent units from disembarking, because access points no longer exist.

[Hear da Lamentation]

Ok thanks. So with the pile in rules you stand a decent chance of negating a disembark, no?

[Rune Priest Jbickb]

Not with 10 blood claws on a devilish you don't. Not enough bodies.

 

Orks yes, conscripts yes, space wolves not in any arrangement I can see without the models in front of me.

[postxhumanity]

Ok thanks. So with the pile in rules you stand a decent chance of negating a disembark, no?

 

Not with 10 blood claws on a devilish you don't. Not enough bodies.

 

Orks yes, conscripts yes, space wolves not in any arrangement I can see without the models in front of me.

 

jbickb has the right of it. We can have units of 15 Bloodclaws, but we aren't a hoard army. You shouldn't plan of being able to surround transports.

[Gherrick]

Actually, we could probably use 2 5-model bike units to surround a vehicle enough prevent a disembark.

[Hellrender]

or you try and pin them between terrain and yourself..

[Nrthstar]

So I just played a tourney over the weekend, and I'm coming back with good data.  First, I gotta say, this edition works.  Sure we had three daemon players till, but with MASSIVELY different lists.  One Nurgle with Typhos, one straight Tzeentch due to the spam they can pull on cheap troops, and one Tzeentch with Magnus and two knights.  The rest, two Dark Eldar, 1 Craftworld eldar, 1 Tau, 1 Nids, 1 Death Guard, 2 Space Wolves, 1 Salamanders, 1 Ultramarines and one Astra Militarum.  It was so nice looking around and seeing people play what they love.

 

I'll format this post different than the good/bad/thoughts

 

My List

Logan on foot (wow, just wow, that reroll all misses.  And then man stepped up and socked Girlyman in the face in game 2, to kill him)

Bjorn (wow wow wow.  I haven't played a game yet without him, he has not died in a game yet.  Make him your warlord.  Give him the additional 6+ to ignore a wound.  Watch your opponent cry) with Hellfrost.  Yes, not double las.

Arjac

 

2x Blood claws x8 with PF/CP and the pack leader with power sword in Rhinos

1x Grey Hunters x5 with CP (back objective holders.  And Bait.)

2x Wulfen x5 with 2x TH/SS, 2x Axe (which I now just remembered, I forgot their extra attack on the charge) and leader with claws

WGTDA 3x TH/SS, 1x Double Claw, 1x PF/Asscan, 1x PS/SB

 

This edition is gonna be rough still using straight up assault.  I can look at the first two games and pick out what I could have done better, but at least with game 2, I don't think I could have won.

 

Game 1:  AM with Scions, 4 Valks, and three artillery tanks on his back line.  The Relic with Search and Destroy deployment.  This was a fun game.  Time Lapse video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvhGHRk_RJg .   This gives you and idea of the table.  I screwed up right away by not asking if we were going to count those castle looking walls as cover.  Then I screwed up by not ignoring the damned relic and charging up, taking out what I could hit, his three tanks, then coming back for the relic.  Instead I sat a squad of Wulfen on it.  I know, Dumb.  But I wanted to give him bait to come to me, which he did, and my plan almost worked.

 

Ironically, my opponent is a friend, and we actually played our last practice game against each other right before this tournament, same deployment too.  I knew he'd have flyers I couldn't charge, but I didn't care, I knew he'd have to come down at some point.  Game ended with my coming up 3" short of the relic with Logan and Arjac, he had 5 guys left to sit on it.

 

The Good:  Bjorn shot down a flyer by himself in two rounds of shooting. Bjorn also lived the whole time, and wrecked character and unit, after unit.  He lived through the game with 1 wound left, but that's all he needed.  Wulfen can survive a lot, but can't last forever.  3 Shields on TDA is a great number.  Just enough to survive, not enough to be wasteful, and not enough to bog us down.  You need not just survivability with TDA, but damage output.

 

The Bad:  Hellhounds.  When we're assaulting, only assault with what you know you need to kill the bastard.  It blows up on a 4+.  He even used a CP to make sure it blowed up.  Logan, Ajrac, wulfen, blood claws, rhinos, all took mortal wounds from it.  Flyer bases are no longer ignored for movement, so he deployed well, and I had to skirt around them.  

 

 

Thoughts:  I could have played differently, ran across the board, waited till round 2 to Deep strike, killed his tanks, then turned around and grabbed the relic.  My buddy would have countered well, but I think i could have won.

[Nrthstar]

Game 2:  This one was painful.  Just brutally, eye opening painful.  But I walked away with a ton of knowledge.  My opponent had Ultramarines in a Razor line armed with Twin Asscan and Twin Lascan.  All filled with just bolter marines, and Girlyman and a Psycher just hanging out to buff.

 

Good:  Logan smacked Girlyman to death.  And to keep things fun, he wasn't allowed his roll back to life for this tourney.  So he stayed dead.  Bjorn lived, and killed.  Not much else good happened.

 

Bad:  This is going to be a meta list, I know it.  Just wrap girlyman with Razors and blast away.  It's a brain dead simple list.  A bad player can make this list work, a great player can make this list mind numbingly deadly.  This guy could have won the day if his wife hadn't called him out before round 3, although he would have had trouble against 2 knights and magnus or the massive dark eldar in raiders list.  But this thread is about what we can do, not other lists.  So the real bad.  If Girlyman has a Psycher next to him.  Don't send anything that relies on Storm shields at them unless you blow that psycher up first.  Null Zone went up after I deep striked my terminators, Logan and Ajrac in front of Big G.  Losing those invulns meant all his gun line, with rerolls to hit and wound, meant I lost a lot of points in seconds.

 

Thoughts:  Kill his psycher, and then just run in with your terminators, they'll finish up Girlyman quick.  Sure he doesn't miss, and he probably won't fail to wound, and he'll likely get back up, but you can just smack him down again.  But with this kind of thing floating around the meta, pure assault without enough guns to back it up, is gonna suck.

[Nrthstar]

Game 3:  Vs mid range shooting Salamanders.  Godwin Land Raider, Contemptor dread, TDA with TH/SS, Cataphracti Captain, Hellblasters, and tac squads.  Oh and a Predator.  I forget the mission name, the one where both sides just have 1 objective.

 

The Good:  My assault list felt custom made for this.  This is also the first round I realized I should just be advancing my rhinos straight up.  I went full aggressive, Rhino's up, Wulfen right behind.  Bjorn wrapped in between for character cover.  Deep striked all the TDA in front of the predator with buffs going everywhere for almost everyone.  He was smart and waited for me to get far away from my GH sitting on my objective so he could deep strike in his TDA, but, and this was a first for me, I got my Blood Claws back into their rhino, and drove those puppies right back going 15", with Bjorn running back too.  Turned out, the Blood claws were just their to cheer on Bjorn anyways.  He one shot the Captain in melee, then turned and faced down the wall of TH/SS that I thought would be his end.  Instead he went to town on those boys.  THat -1 to hit on TH without a buff to reroll is bad news.  He did deal out a ton of wounds, and then damage, but Bjorn's 5+ and 6+ for Warlord paid off again.  He lived with 2 wounds, and wrapped things up.

 

The Bad:  This game there wasn't any.  By this point I figured out what I really needed to do, and since he didn't have a bunch of Asscans and Lascans, I got in close and Murdermaked.

 

Thoughts:  Hellblasters.  I am going to play mine in the future.  Overcharged and buffed, these boys can lay waste to a squad of TDA, Wulfen, etc.

[Hellrender]

what is the price of 5 hellblasters with somebody to babysit them, vs say 6 long fangs with 5 plasma cannons and a plasma gun, which don't need a babysitter?

 

I've been on the fence on hellblasters presonally.

[Rune Priest Jbickb]

The long fangs are 5 points more

[Dantay VI]

My LR Achilles & Fire Raptor really well and the rhino survived well against mass gauss fire from necron warriors.

[Bulwyf]

Bjorn is simply unreal in this edition. I honestly cannot think of  a reason to not take him no matter what kind of list I come up with.

[Brother Hellion]

Bjorn is simply unreal in this edition. I honestly cannot think of  a reason to not take him no matter what kind of list I come up with.

 

Have you tried Krom dragongaze yet? Or the other heroes of old Fenris?

[Hear da Lamentation]

Bjorn. I'm liking the sound of it. But does he get the 5+ ignore wound AND the 6+ for warlord? Sounds too good to be true

 

HDL

[Dantay VI]

Krom is pretty solid.

[Valerian]

Bjorn. I'm liking the sound of it. But does he get the 5+ ignore wound AND the 6+ for warlord? Sounds too good to be true

 

HDL

 

No reason why he shouldn't - they're two different abilities, and neither are saves, per se.

[Nrthstar]

I'm sure a day will come where Bjorn is too expensive for my concept. But for now he's an auto include

[Brother Hellion]

Seems like whenever Bjorn is mentioned, its like no one can find faults with the big dred. After looking over his profile in the index i'm like "Now that is one scary half dead guy in cyber sarcophagus." 

[Nrthstar]

Hellblasters have greater mobility, so they'll be running alongside Bjorn anyways, and damage that you can count on is valuable. Sure a Las or missile has a d6, but 6 games in, I've already rolled my fair share of ones. They are purposeful in killing tda or wulfen, or popping off the last half of a vehicle.

[Kasper_Hawser]

Had 5 games so far, the real winners in the end was the Twin Assault Cannon on the humble Razorback and Bjorn himself. Not only he is a character dreadnought, he is also Toughness 8, which makes majority of the basic weapons wound on 6s, rather than 5s. More importantly, plasma wound on 5s and meltas wound on 4s instead of 4 and 3.

 

Had 3 painful games before I stopped using lots of Grey Hunters and Blood claws in Rhinos and put them in MSUs with Razorbacks instead where they did much more damage and still able to charge anything close enough, preferably after being whittled down by the Assault cannons and Heavy bolters. Did a good job in objective games and allowed me to put one more Wulfen and TDA in my wulfen and surprise TDA teleporting force.

 

In my last game, I put a Wolf guard battle leader with jump pack and used him to zip around where needed giving the reroll 1s to wound. Not exactly fluffy but definitely a game winner to have a fast HQ zipping around to buff where needed.

[Karhedron]

what is the price of 5 hellblasters with somebody to babysit them, vs say 6 long fangs with 5 plasma cannons and a plasma gun, which don't need a babysitter?

Hellblasters come in at 190 points for 5. LFs with PCs cost 36 points each so work out slightly cheaper for 5. LFs need to add the cost of a pack leader but he can be dirt cheap and they get the reroll of 1s when they focus fire. They also have a longer range and far exceed the Hellblaster's firepower unless the target is within 15".

 

Hellblasters have shorter range but can move and fire at full effect and have double the number of wounds. They really want a character nearby who can supply rerolls for those 1s and they cannot fit in a transport.

 

Overall I feel they are quite fairly balanced in terms of cost-benefit ratio. Long Fangs are an easy support unit. Hellblasters work best on foot near a character on foot who can supply the rerolls while advancing with the intention wreck face.

 

Like Bjorn for example.

Edited June 28, 2017 by Karhedronuk