Prot's ITC Challenge: P5: New ITC Test Game: Astra- NO MORT

[Panzer]

You are really late with your testing and deciding when you still have that much to paint lol

[Prot]

lol I know it's terrible.

 

I've tested a lot of games over the last month, but changes become more and more and more difficult just due to time constraints.

 

What I can do is a Mort based list with his body guard, or an Admech/Custodes list very quickly. So at the end of the day, that might force my hand!

[BlackTriton]

Nice battle report, happy ti finally see a win for deathGuard :)

One thing I wonder, you mentionned how low on wounds all your stuff was. How come your oponent did not finish the job?

"If you shoot it, shoot it dead" is the single best advice, spreading fire like that is a bad idea. Why did he do it?

[SkimaskMohawk]

Uh mort hasn't had a points increase ever afik.

 

I've always said that the grenade combo is too short ranged and obvious against people who know what it does. But I've noticed that a lot of people don't know, theyre too busy shooting the drones or PBCs or any other big threat to realize the sheer damage that can come from a reasonably sized squad and the blightspawn. But still, once they know they'll usually make sure you don't get in range.

[Prot]

Nice battle report, happy ti finally see a win for deathGuard

One thing I wonder, you mentionned how low on wounds all your stuff was. How come your oponent did not finish the job?

"If you shoot it, shoot it dead" is the single best advice, spreading fire like that is a bad idea. Why did he do it?

 

That's a good question.

 

When I rethink how things went down, I think his priorities changed depending on what I did and his needs for the Primary and Secondary scoring.

 

So Bloat drone one was threatening his lines, in T2, I run off with it and tie up 2 Hellhounds. Now I move Bloat Drone 2 into take its place, so it takes most the damage.

Once a Daemon Prince got to 2 wounds, I hid it until I could heal it, but would keep it surrounded so he couldn't shoot at it (character rule) but I would still use its aura.

When he got close to killing the Rhino, I went full reverse after dumping the contents, rushed a PBC in front of it to partially block it, and have the Rhino scoring the mid objective.

The middle objective was largely covered by Nurglings. Once he would take a squad down to a base, I would rotate out the partially dead unit behind a wall, and move in a fresh squad to score it.

 

So it was mostly me being cagey. Trying to deny him any points I could. His overall lack of mobility prevented him from chasing down some of these units.

 

I still think it's a very complex army to juggle. Not sure I'm comfortable with that aspect of it over the course of a weekend.

 

 

Uh mort hasn't had a points increase ever afik.

 

I've always said that the grenade combo is too short ranged and obvious against people who know what it does. But I've noticed that a lot of people don't know, theyre too busy shooting the drones or PBCs or any other big threat to realize the sheer damage that can come from a reasonably sized squad and the blightspawn. But still, once they know they'll usually make sure you don't get in range.

 

Uh okay.

 

I'm thinking of Magnus. (I played Thousand Sons a long time and was disappointed by his point increase. I mistook that, and possibly the Guilliman increase to the big 400). I will remove that sentence from my batrep. Thanks.

 

The thing about the squad of PM's and Blightspawn is I actually asked my opponent about that after the game. I said surely you would target that squad earlier if you were fully aware of it?

 

He said no, because I had so much in his lines early he felt like he was fighting to get breathing space in his zone and the way I lazily advanced the Rhino after the initial collision (this was intentional on my part), he said there was no way he felt he had the luxury of poking away at a Rhino with DP's/PBC's/Drones, etc already in his lines by T2.

 

I don't know if that's the right answer, but it was his answer. ;)

 

I will say historically in 8th I do find in a 'monster' type army, people really, really loathe shooting at Rhino's period.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Yea I agree, they feel like they need to blast the big things before they come in, flame a bunch of stuff and tie up the rest. Since that's exactly what happens.

 

It's just to me, I'd rather get an easy 2vp (usually take old school) for killing that rhino compared to say doing 6 wounds to a drone. Just speculation since no one I bother playing uses deathguard, and I dont have any crazy long range lists.

[McElMcNinja]

So how many marines threw, how many grenades did you get off, did you use VotLW, how many mortal wounds?

 

I've noticed players not use to it, don't know what's about to happen, players that do know it, make it a priority. Now I've looked over all the DG lists that are posted for my next tournament and not 1 list has the Plague Bus. This makes me wonder how many people have seen it used. This may work to my advantage.

 

Also, I posted this another thread, but are the Daemon Prince of Nurgle (Codex) and the Daemon Prince of Chaos (index) considered the same or different data cards as far as the rule of 3 is concerned?

[BlackTriton]

I believe they are different datasheets. They have different rule and options.

In many competitive discussion / Podcast the Plague Marine bomb was discussed, and considered very good.

However, it is usually not favored over Daemon synergy.

Its a good tool, but an expensive one. Any pure DeathGuard should have it in his list.

If you want to compete at the highest level, you are playing daemon engine so we don't see it often. so a lot of people do not know just how much damage it does.

 

In my anecdotal evidence, its a hard decision to target the rhino. Blowing the rhino is not that hard, but it dosent stop the combo, you still need to kill the plague marines. even if you manage that, the biologus and the Blight spawn are still there, and any other Plague marine unit can still pull it out ( I always have a back-up PM unit). 

The firepower to kill these units are needed to deal with the Plague Drones / Bloat drone / DP and honestly, I rather they target the plague marine. 

As I have said, its good not only because of its potential damage, but because of the decision it forces them to take. the more decision they make, the more chance for a mistake. 

[McElMcNinja]

Do you think they are lowering the lists to 1750 for time or to try and keep Lords of War from showing up?

[Panzer]

lol I know it's terrible.

 

I've tested a lot of games over the last month, but changes become more and more and more difficult just due to time constraints.

 

What I can do is a Mort based list with his body guard, or an Admech/Custodes list very quickly. So at the end of the day, that might force my hand!

I think at this point I'd just go with AdMech/Custodes. It doesn't see like you can find a DG list you have fun playing on a tournament and the whole situation reminds me a lot of back when you got fed up with TSons and decided to switch armies lol

[SkimaskMohawk]

The Daemon princes are different datasheets entirely. I believe you can squeeze 12 into a standard list between DG, 1ksons, csm and daemons

[Checkmate77]

So is this 1750 thing the staple for all upcoming tournaments?????  I surely hope not as I finally...FINALLY have my list set (2k) for the NOVA OPEN in August. 

 

Is anyone else attending that one?

[Prot]

So is this 1750 thing the staple for all upcoming tournaments?????  I surely hope not as I finally...FINALLY have my list set (2k) for the NOVA OPEN in August. 

 

Is anyone else attending that one?

Well 1750 is what our local ITC is running in my area of Canada but since FLG is against it, I really think it’s up to organizers. GW is GW, so I don’t think it would directly affect Nova.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Yea I'm going to an itc tournament in Sudbury that's 2000 and capital city bloodbath is still 2000 in August.

 

There seems to be a lot of debate of the points drop. Back in the day of 5th 1500-1850 was the standard. 2k only became the standard in 6th to double up on the foc. That being said, it seeks like the main problem was from a guy deliberately abusing the clock so idk

[Prot]

Yea I'm going to an itc tournament in Sudbury that's 2000 and capital city bloodbath is still 2000 in August.

 

There seems to be a lot of debate of the points drop. Back in the day of 5th 1500-1850 was the standard. 2k only became the standard in 6th to double up on the foc. That being said, it seeks like the main problem was from a guy deliberately abusing the clock so idk

 

That was a huge issue in 7th with Ultra's ObSec massive formation. There was one guy in particular that took a lot of heat for stalling.

 

I think lowering the limit to 1750 makes the big fun units even harder to play... Like Mortarion I'm finding is extremely difficult to plug into 1750. So what gets pulled from lists like that? Mortarion, or the 60 cultists and 40 poxwalkers? Which takes more time to move, and use?

[Panzer]

Well 100 25mm base models obviously take a lot more time to move and use. At lower points you have the chance to face less anti-tank which would let Mortarion live a little bit longer ... then again he does need quite a lot of support.

I think I'd say good bye to Mortarion at 1750p and only consider him again (with less points supporting him) at 1500p or below and gamble for the lack of anti-tank That being said, I'm no DG player and it's only me theorizing with internet knowledge. ^^

[Prot]

Well we're all full of internet knowledge around here! :)

 

I know Mort is a challenge, but so is painting my to do list. I'll have one more test game lined up shortly. lol

[McElMcNinja]

If you are trying to win, Death Guard most likely won't help you. Best I've seen is 3rd from a so called Death Guard list, but it was mostly daemons. I know I won't win with mine, I just like it a lot and want to play against new people.

 

If you are going for fun, I encourage you to take Morty. I paid a pretty penny for him and took the time to paint him, plus he does kick butt when he gets the chance.

[Panzer]

I think I agree with McElMcNinja. However there's also the "angle of trying to put up a proper fight" even if it's not about winning the whole tournament ... which doesn't seem to happen too much when you take Morty.

[Prot]

I think I agree with McElMcNinja. However there's also the "angle of trying to put up a proper fight" even if it's not about winning the whole tournament ... which doesn't seem to happen too much when you take Morty.

 

I can only speak for myself here, but losing hard and fast, really sucks and gets old.

 

I am testing my list against the stronger ITC style opponents, and playing with the moderate terrain I expect to see.

 

The funny thing is this all reminds me how ITC bores me pretty fast. The games are presented with missions 'choices' but really they are all about killin' stuff, and killin' it fast. Aside from "hold an objective" and "hold more objectives" (the former of which is super easy to attain) the rest is kill, kill, kill.

 

For as much as "Maelstrom" takes a hit from the competitive community I honestly found we tweaked it slightly and find it far more interesting in the long run. I just enjoy the twists and surprises a lot more.(I should preface this by saying we have minor adjustments (or house rules) to Maelstrom that speed it up, prevent hand locking, and it speeds things up nicely)

 

I'm good with ITC once in a while, but I think if this were every day 40K for me, I'd probably be done with it, or play a lot less. That's enough of my personal soap box.... like I said I can only speak for myself.

 

Anyway the tournament is this weekend. I think since I last posted a mini batrep here or on my blog I played about 6 more games. I won't talk about the 'less competitive games' because I get no satisfaction out of annihilating an opponent and I learn very little, and have little to share from those games.

 

Instead I tended to use my continuing Dark/Eldar/Astra Militarum experiences as bench marks because they rip this army apart no problem. I did find Custodes a 'challenge' and I don't want to discount mixed Custode lists, but I -can- beat those if I play it right.

 

In all of the Mortarion games, he is dead T1 or T2. His damage output in those games has been zero, or so negligible, I can't include it in any metric that amounts to 'competitive' gaming.

 

The Non-Mortarion list is more competitive. Hands down. It's easier to manufacture CP's, and multiple threats, and those threats can often be more resilient than Mort (when you consider buffs that be used, and Toughness etc.)

With the other armies I used (I won't talk about here) I struggled almost as much against IG etc.This isn't really that comforting though. :)

 

So the reality is I can't really win much with either, just be more competitive without Mortarion.Perhaps I see getting a win or two after my first loss without Mort.

 

However as McNinja says, that's an expensive model, and I put a LOT into it.

 

I still have 3 variants:

1. Mort + DG + Nurgle: Good board control for 1750 with Mort. Good synergy with Daemon Engines. Falls apart quickly. Looks nice on the table (For one turn!)

1B Mort + DG: Less board control, But stronger DG threats. No real synergy with Mort or Daemon Engines, but definitely higher damage when Mort's dead.

2. DG + Nurgle. This is a Turn 2, or Turn 3 army. I think the term 'resilience in numbers' best describes it. Then it reaches its destination, and the units all combine for higher strength Flamers that auto hit, re roll wounds, and do extra damage on 6's. It does a lot of mediocre damage, to multiple targets at once, but without Mort I'm relying on Putrifier and the DP to be the hard punch of the army.

 

It's a tough call really.

 

If anyone is interested in a combined break down of the last games, I posted it in the blog HERE.

 

Any last minute thoughts? I will be painting like mad tonight/tomorrow. lol

[Checkmate77]

Good Luck this weekend Prot!  Give them Hell!!!!!!

[McElMcNinja]

So are you losing hard and fast against every opponent with Morty or just certain lists? Does your non Morty list beat the lists you can't when you take Morty?

[Prot]

Well Morty list doesn’t lose against everyone, but ...how do I put this... some of the ITC opponents I have tested against are not as experienced as I am, and although their lists may have been very good, they made some critical errors. So I can’t take those games too seriously.

 

Or maybe I just would get super lucky in a bad matchup. That happened too.

 

The non Morty variant had one decisive victory against a strong Astra parking lot. ( which the Morty list has lost numerous times to). The non Morty list is not necessarily winning but it is definitely competing better just based on the fact that a lot of the ITC based games are against lists and players that are extremely well prepared to rip a super heavy apart in a turn.

[Aothaine]

Good luck Prot! ^_^ 

[Prot]

I've just been informed I can't take an Index DP because "Codex will override Index".

 

I don't know if it's worth explaining the reasoning the reasoning behind it or if they would agree with it. 

 

So that's a really big hit.