Konor Mission 4 and dealing with WITCHES

[Ebon Hand]

I've always been a firm believer in the best psyker defense being to kill the heckin' psyker. Sometimes that's easier said than done.

 

With that in mind, I've resolved to try out deploying a Vindicare assassin in addition to the Emperor's Champion and try to have a race to see who can kill the Witch first. However, I'm unsure of what else to bring. Here is the mission:https://warhammer40000.com/mission-4-into-the-hellmouth/

 

Should I pile into transports for a traditional objective assault? Should I use the teleportarium strategem to arrive and strike hard? I'm having an unusually hard time wrapping my brain around this one.

 

Anyone with any ideas?

[SydonianDragoon404]

I'm actually thinking LRCs, Storm Ravens, Razorbacks, and bringing as many Crusader squads as possible loaded for maximum lethality to try and max out on objective capping ability and mobility to get up the board. Foot sloggers will spend 5 turns trying to march up the board.

 

When it comes to dealing with the Witch, I would say wounds are king. Vindicare has good chances, and if you put the Emp's champion in something fast and get him the board that will do nicely as well.

 

One thing I have discovered is that if your opponent is bringing 3 or more psykers, don't bother with units that pay point premiums for high toughness or invuln saves. Smite, and other powers that cause mortal wounds care not for how tough you are or that you carry a storm shield, only number of wounds matters.

 

Don't forget that your Storm Ravens can transport Dreadnoughts! Including the Leviathan! Any kind of dreadnought support can make for a great fire support platform for your infantry on the drop.

[JAG Templar]

I often play a Guard list that has 12 Primaris Psykers wrapped in a layer of other characters and then wrapped in a layer of about 100 guardsmen. It's brutally effective if it can get close enough to unleash smite spam.

 

I have to counter it with my own cheese. 3-4 squads of scout snipers with LTs or Capts buffing. It also has the bonus of filling a battalion slot for 3 more CP.

 

Shamefully, I sometimes run this detachment as 'Ravenguard' for obvious reasons.

Edited August 18, 2017 by JAG Templar

[Ebon Hand]

Unfortunately scout snipers and flyers are things to which I don't have access. I have transports, but are they really necessary if I can just teleport strike them in with the mission strategem? Although I could see the transports for protection reasons.

[Marshal_Roujakis]

1 Vinicare won't be enough to ruin a game depending on multiple psykers... you'll need 2 or more for obvious reasons, and yes, you can do that now too... I usually bring a tandem of Vindicare and Culexus for obvious reasons... and regardless of how many chaff they bubble wrap their characters with, it can't match to 2 Assassins that you either need to get close to kill or another Assassin that you need 6's to hit... and Culexus is terrifying regardless if they have a psyker or not... Vindicare isn't as good at taking out characters as you'd expect though, they are good at killing lower class characters like Apothecary or Ancients, but against anything with the stats of an EC, they'd need 2-3 turns depending on how hot your dice is...

 

EC will kill characters, but it may be hard to get him close if your opponent knows what you're up to...

 

If you want a real horde/character sure fire killer, then an Eversor would be a great melee addition to the EC, again if you get him close... he's literally a blender of death against anything he touches...

[Marshal Arthur]

I had a conversation with a friend and we agreed the best way we could see the Templars using an assassin would be if they literally threw him into the enemy with a couple swords in hand. With that in mind if I ever get an assassin it'll be an eversor to fight alongside some Reivers.

[Ebon Hand]

Reposting my analysis here for others to learn from my experiences:

 

"I played my 2000 pt Konor Mission 4 game vs those wretched Xenos the Tau. All that psyker concern for nothing haha.

 

Instead, I faced a battalion of 72 fire warriors with a Riptide, stealth suits, Pathfinders and a pair of Crisis Suit Commanders and a Supreme Command Detachment with a Fireblade, Longstrike, and an Ethereal.

 

Very long story short, it came out to a draw. The Vindicare disappointed me this battle, though I don't think it was his fault. The Tau player was crafty and made sure to shield his army from concealment locations which would let him get at the command structure.

 

It was a good hard game, managed to bring it to a draw.

 

My Emperor's Champion fought his Commander with quad cyclones and Grimaldus fought his Warlord in a Coldstar with my Castellan and Vindicare. The Emperor's Champion and the Cyclone Commander killed each other. Grimaldus and friends failed to kill his Warlord (really bad rolls).

 

I've found that with Black Templars the Vindicare will usually be advancing with your force if you are assaulting. He still hits on a 3+ on the move, and he causes the enemy commanders to hide, forcing you to kind of hunt them.

 

Then you get close and start to use the pistol to soften up characters or his blind grenades which really give you an advantage in close combat (it doesn't work on overwatch), especially vs power fist or thunderhammer users.

 

A lone Vindicare sniping from afar is going to get pounced by a lictor or something similar, especially if you are playing aggressive cqc Templars which leave him unsupported more often. He won't be able to kill a character in one shot without some luck. Embedding him with scout snipers is the way to go if you want to sit back, otherwise he should be taking advantage of that fast move value and those blind grenades."