Castellan help

[SanguiniusJr]

Hey all,

 

Asking for some tactical feedback here. I have played only several matches against castellan's so I'm familiar with what they are capable of.

 

Would you care to offer me feedback with how you all deal with them in your respective metas?

 

Particular units or tactics that are helpful?

 

I have a mix of shooty and assault, but I'm truly hesitant to bring non invuln vehicles.

[The Unseen]

A smash captain generally.

Take the warlord trait that gives +1 damage, the relic jump pack, and a thunderhammer.

If going first:

Use the strat to give him the black rage keyword, then use Forlorn Fury for a 12+d6 move before the game begins, then move on your turn, charge it.

It can't overwatch you because of the relic, then pop red rampage, for d3 more attacks, giving you between 6 and 8 swings.

If going 2nd, either put the captain in reserve for a turn 2 descent of angels play, or leave him on the table for upon wings of fire and then descent of angels on turn 1.

 

You *should* cripple it with just 1 round of attacks, but if it's stomps kill the captain, use only in death for the captain to fight again (don't forget red rampage lasts for the whole fight phase) or if your captain lives through the return swings, use the 3cp fight again strat.

The knight is very very unlikely to survive the captain swinging twice, as your hitting on 3s rerolling 1s, wounding on 3s thanks to red thirst+hammer, and it only has a 6+ armor save vs you in melee, because it's invuln only works against shooting unless it took a specific relic, that it won't have because everyone always takes Cawls Wrath. And your doing 4 damage a pop, so 7 failed saves and the knight is toast, less obviously if you manage to soften it up with some shooting first.

 

A Librarian dreadnought can do similar things using wings for the extra move, then quickening+red rampage for 2d3 extra attacks with his glaive, and he'll hit on 2s, wound on 2s, and ignore armor entirely with his ap-4, and can also fight again for 2cp if killed, or 3 if not.

 

A unit that won't kill the knight, but might make it kill manageable amounts of your stuff, is a relic sicaran venator.

Has a 3 shot super lascannon, if it causes damage and the vehicle lives, it'll suffer a -1 to hit penalty the next turn, which can make a big difference to its offensive output.

 

Other than that, your looking as massed lascannons and a fervent prayer to the Emperor that it doesn't roll a lot of 4+ invuln saves successfully.

 

But DO NOT leave the knight alive on low wounds trusting to the damage chart to cripple it.

They can pay 1 cp for it to act like it's undamaged for a turn.

 

Blood Angels, and marines in general, have little capable of killing a knight with shooting.

[BrotherAetherick]

A Librarian dreadnought can do similar things using wings for the extra move, then quickening+red rampage for 2d3 extra attacks with his glaive, and he'll hit on 2s, wound on 2s, and ignore armor entirely with his ap-4, and can also fight again for 2cp if killed, or 3 if not.

 

 

All good points except one issue with the libby dread strat. You can't fight twice (without dying) for 3cp as Honour the chapter is only INFANTRY or BIKER.

[Tokugawa]

When a castellan is ready to fire, having 1 wounds left makes no difference with having 28 wounds left. When it fire, it would return to full status on damage chart, and delete your best tank immediately.

 

Burning 10 cp a turn on smash captain and go for a 1-for-1 trade is the most viable route. But if the opponent put the knight in far corner, and put a whole IG brigade between it and you, the situation wouldbe worse...

[Hintzy]

Take an infantry only list, easy to do for us, and just ignore it. Hide msu out of sight, easier said than done of course, and play the mission.

[Karhedron]

Take an infantry only list, easy to do for us, and just ignore it. Hide msu out of sight, easier said than done of course, and play the mission.

That is certainly a valid proposal. The price hike has put the Castellan around 700 points and without large targets to shoot at, it will struggle to pay for itself, even if you don't actually destroy it. Having said that, high value infantry like Primaris and Sanguinary Guard are expensive enough to make viable targets for Cawl's Wrath and even the Volcano Lance.

 

Burning 10 cp a turn on smash captain and go for a 1-for-1 trade is the most viable route. But if the opponent put the knight in far corner, and put a whole IG brigade between it and you, the situation wouldbe worse...

In fairness, I don't think that Captain Smash needs 10 CPs to take down a Knight. You need 2CPs for Forlorn Fury or DoA depending on whether you are going first or not (worst case, add in 2 for UWOF). The you need 1CP for Red Rampage and either 2 or 3 to fight again, depending on whether he survives the Knight's tap-dance routine. That will be 5-6 CPs or 7-8 if you need to UWOF. I would regard this as probably being a fair trade in most circumstances but YMMV.

 

If your opponent does put his Castellan in a corner and castle up, that is a lot of immobile firepower that can be avoided and is not scoring objectives.