Warhammer 40k, Maulerfiend 8th Edition Tactics

[steamius]

Finally I managed to get my thoughts together and film a proper Tactical video on one of my favorite units of the game!

 

Hey guys! After playing chaos for quite a while, I feel confident in making a „Tactical Video” on a unit that I use quite a lot. And that unit is the one, the only, Mualerfiend! 

 Now, Maulefiends are very rare to find in army lists, because there are ususaly other units that can replace them.  So, if they are replacable, why should you use the? And I would say

1- They are great looking models

2- Your opponent might not faced them before, so you have that surprise factor in your favour.

3- Why not be different from the rest?

So before we go deep in to tactical territory, let’s look at the Maulerfiends stats. 

  Maulerfiend take your “Heavy Support” spot, and costs 172 Points/9 PL.  It’s a daemon Engine with a damage sheet. It has 12W, 4 A at 12-7 wounds, he is S 6 at the same profile and movement 10. Then he has T 7 and WS  4+ with a save of 3+. 

 Since he is a daemon Engine he has 5+ Invul save, and he regenerates one wound back at the start of each of your turns. 

 He is armed with Maulerfiend fist, which is x2 S, and users A. And also with a Magma Cutter, which is a pistol with a range of 6, S8, AP -4 AND D3.

 As an option, you can replace the Magma Cutter with Lasher tendrils.  They are a melee weapon, with the users S, AP-2, D2. And with a special rule that each time you fight you can make 6 additional attacks with this weapon.

 

 If you decide to take the Lasher Tendrils, it will bring you up to 152p. And I would always recommend taking the tendrils. 

 The magma Cutter is free, but it’s only one shot, and has one damage higher than the Tendrils. Not to say that tendrils give you 6 additional attacks.

 One more benefit is that you don’t have to choose what weapons are you going to strike with, you are able to strike with both the Tendrils and Fists.

 

 Now that we got that out of the way, let’s talk actual tactics here!

Maulerfiends are very strong in combat.  They are good at taking down tanks, and Infantry. But what ever you do, don’t charge them in to a massive hoard of Orcs, or Tyranids. Try and thin them down with some shooting first, and then charge. BecauseT7 is not that great, and you will start getting wounds in very fast, and when you start going down the damage bracket, you will notice how worse your Beast is getting.

 In addition to this, I found out that a single Mualerfiend is very under whelming… And he should always be supported by another close combat unit in order t be useful. Because lets be honest here, WS+4 on a Maulerfiend is a total joke….

 And which units suit that role better then a second Maulerfiend! Put those dogs together, and never separate them, no matter how much you want it. Let them always be together. In combat, your opponent will have to concentrate in attacking one of them, while the second one will stay at full wounds, and dish out more damage.  So you can basically say that one of the Fiends is a body guard to the second one.

 Now I already touched the fact that they are WS4+…. I mean common… Really? 4+ on a Daemon Engine that gets more and more fuel every time in drinks blood in the fluff? And you tell me that you cant give him 3+? He will be missing a lot! And I mean A LOT!

 But thankfully, we have an option to help him reroll all those misses. We have a stratagem that is called “Daemonforge”. The stratagem costs 1CP, and should be used on a DAEMON VECHICLE. You can use it either in the shooting phase, or in a fight phase, and reroll all failed to hit rolls, and to wound rolls. So your % of hitting and wounding goes up by a lot.

 I would say that if you are taking a Maulerfiend in your army. Then this Stratagem is a must!

 Another massive drawback of, any Daemon Engine at that matter, is the fact that they don’t benefit from any Legion Traits…. Yes you heard me….

 While the good, goodies space bros have Vehicles that do benefit from their Chapter Tactics… We are left sitting in the dark corner, and wondering what is GW thinking… 

So if you are taking Renegade Legion traits, that allow you to charge after advancing, you can forget about that…

 Now I found a very good solution to the “Getting in your opponents face as fast as possible” problem, and that is WARPTIME.  Maulefiends have a very good movement of 10. To buff that movement even further, put a Sorcerer with a Jump Pack behind your Maulerfiend, and cast WARPTIME on him. And see in full glory as he moves 20 Inches towards your opponent’s line, and then look in your opponent’s eyes and see the shock! Muwahaaha!!! Now that can only be done on one of the fiends. But the second one can advance behind him and get in to combat at the second turn. 

 I personally like to take a daemon Prince instead of the Sorcerer. So that on me second turn, I have two potential charge treats instead of only one.

 A good benefit of taking the “Three Beast Combo”, as I call it, is if you are facing an army that needs to come to you, or at least moves a little bit towards you, you are in good shape. Your opponent is decreasing the distance between you and him, and potentially you will be able t charge with both Maulerfiends without the WarpTime. While the Prince can cast it on himself and fly off to harass someone else. Also a very good benefit of placing the Prince near your Fiends is the fact that he will give them the ability to reroll ones, while the Sorcerer doesn’t have the rule. But at the same time, the Sorcerer is much cheaper in points. 

 Also as an option you can put a Dark Apostle near them, so that they will be able to reroll Failed hit rolls. But the problem with that is that he will not be able to keep up with them. So I would not spend my points on that guy…

 I would say that a pair of Maulerfiends is a very strong unit, which main goal is distraction. Your opponent cant ignore them. If he does, they will get in to combat and deal lots of damage. If they survive long enough to the late game, they can take Line Breaker and secure objectives. And if your opponent doesn’t have much shooting left at that point, your Fiends will be getting one wound back every turn.

 In conclusion I would like to say that Mualerfiends are a solid unit. I would love GW to make them benefit from the Legion Traits. Maybe not bring their WP up to 3+, but make them benefit from the Traits. As it would make more narrative sense, and make the unit more usable and versatile.

[Trevak Dal]

Two maulerfiends, two spawn and a daemon prince with wings and talons are a good spear top/run right up the middle of the table move (obviously have everything deployed-we aren't sending 400 points against 1500, you just need scary stuff going in)

[steamius]

Two maulerfiends, two spawn and a daemon prince with wings and talons are a good spear top/run right up the middle of the table move (obviously have everything deployed-we aren't sending 400 points against 1500, you just need scary stuff going in)

 Why only two spawn? 

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

Quick Fact Check:  Space Marines vehicles DO NOT benefit from chapter tactics.  Only dreads do which also applies to chaos hellbrutes.   

 

Probably the single dumbest "oversight" in the entire edition.  I put that in that quotes because I still cant bring myself to believe it was intentional.  All other codicies get benefit for vehicles... just not anything with "astartes" as a keyword.

 

 

You models look awsome btw.  Do you run your chaos marine detachments as World Eaters and combo that up with Khorne Daemons?

[Trevak Dal]

 

 

Two maulerfiends, two spawn and a daemon prince with wings and talons are a good spear top/run right up the middle of the table move (obviously have everything deployed-we aren't sending 400 points against 1500, you just need scary stuff going in)

Why only two spawn?

Well back in 7th when I had "The Juggerlords of the Apocalypse" (four juggerlords) I had greenstuff spawn that was as creative as blob of greenstuff, spawn and csm/sm bits mashed into blob of greenstuff on a 40mm base. I had like...15 or so. My Tau (in 7th) could accept any challenge, no matter the Phil Kelly inspired over powered models (wraithknights) because I had answers I could bring to problems like that. Chaos...I didn't have anything like that, so my solution was (in 6th) nullification where I'd send in enough spawn to hold up the wraithknight (more wounds than they could kill in a turn), and keep feeding as needed. Same thing with the Avengers loadouts in 7th. Basically yeah, they have no saves but you have to take every wound and they never run and then have as many wounds as lords and are t5.

 

In 8th, they aren't as fast, and while some things are cheaper, other things (maulerfiends) are decidedly Not cheaper, plus people can just Tau it up and dick dodge that strategy, which was similar when I was brainstorming my world eaters-a "dispersed horde" with juggerlords, spawn maulerfiends, helbrutes, helturkeys, and everything else in 5 man Khorne berserker units.

 

The idea (in 7th) was to abuse the game mechanics specifically against my friend's foot eldar army, everything was fearless, a lot of 12"+ terrain ignoring movers and a whole lot of small units that just adored the 30+ blade storming shots from guardians or dire avengers.

 

"All those rerolls, all those shots, you killed...exactly 5 guys. How do you feel about that man?"

 

But 8th turns that on its ear (though 5 man squads are essentially fearless still) maulerfiends spawn and the juggerlords are slower. I don't think juggerlords (or spawn...) Can attack in upper levels of ruins.

[Kierdale]

If you could keep some Fiends of Slaanesh alive charging up with that prince and Maulers... :tu:

[steamius]

Quick Fact Check:  Space Marines vehicles DO NOT benefit from chapter tactics.  Only dreads do which also applies to chaos hellbrutes.   

 

Probably the single dumbest "oversight" in the entire edition.  I put that in that quotes because I still cant bring myself to believe it was intentional.  All other codicies get benefit for vehicles... just not anything with "astartes" as a keyword.

 

 

You models look awsome btw.  Do you run your chaos marine detachments as World Eaters and combo that up with Khorne Daemons?

 I thought all vehicles benefited XD Sorry, my bad on that part (

 And I run Red Corsairs, so dont want to include any daemons in the army. The daemon prince was included back in 7th edition, where if you dident have one, you loose XD

 

 

 

 

Two maulerfiends, two spawn and a daemon prince with wings and talons are a good spear top/run right up the middle of the table move (obviously have everything deployed-we aren't sending 400 points against 1500, you just need scary stuff going in)

Why only two spawn?

Well back in 7th when I had "The Juggerlords of the Apocalypse" (four juggerlords) I had greenstuff spawn that was as creative as blob of greenstuff, spawn and csm/sm bits mashed into blob of greenstuff on a 40mm base. I had like...15 or so. My Tau (in 7th) could accept any challenge, no matter the Phil Kelly inspired over powered models (wraithknights) because I had answers I could bring to problems like that. Chaos...I didn't have anything like that, so my solution was (in 6th) nullification where I'd send in enough spawn to hold up the wraithknight (more wounds than they could kill in a turn), and keep feeding as needed. Same thing with the Avengers loadouts in 7th. Basically yeah, they have no saves but you have to take every wound and they never run and then have as many wounds as lords and are t5.

 

In 8th, they aren't as fast, and while some things are cheaper, other things (maulerfiends) are decidedly Not cheaper, plus people can just Tau it up and dick dodge that strategy, which was similar when I was brainstorming my world eaters-a "dispersed horde" with juggerlords, spawn maulerfiends, helbrutes, helturkeys, and everything else in 5 man Khorne berserker units.

 

The idea (in 7th) was to abuse the game mechanics specifically against my friend's foot eldar army, everything was fearless, a lot of 12"+ terrain ignoring movers and a whole lot of small units that just adored the 30+ blade storming shots from guardians or dire avengers.

 

"All those rerolls, all those shots, you killed...exactly 5 guys. How do you feel about that man?"

 

But 8th turns that on its ear (though 5 man squads are essentially fearless still) maulerfiends spawn and the juggerlords are slower. I don't think juggerlords (or spawn...) Can attack in upper levels of ruins.

 

 Now I understand ^^D I was running two spawns when 8th just started. Was really surprised how good they can be ^^D Have two battle reports where they actually helped me win the game.

 Also have a Juggernaut Lord sitting and waiting to be painted. But honestly, I dont know what role should he be playing right now.