Highlighting the Spectrus Kill Team

[Qui-Gon]

So I recently took a Specturs Kill Team in a 2k game. 5 Infiltrators, 5 Eliminators, Helix Gauntlet. Supported by a Phobos Librarian.

Found a nice piece of cover to camp in with good LOS. Spells were Soul Sight for ignore cover and re-roll all shooting attacks.

 

The snipers are in my opinion worth their weight in gold against infantry and characters, and when you've marksman carbines as well, the extra auto wounds can pile up against higher T targets.

 

Also, don't discount the use of Defensible to give yourself 5+ Overwatch. With soul sight triggering in the overwatch as well, you'd be surprised how many hits and auto wounds you can get before the snipers fire and are hitting on 5s re-rolling.

 

My only complaint is they've no melee counter punch to get out of a fight, but that's why the Librarian is there to support with a smite and a force sword at need.

 

All in all, I think I'll take the unit and librarian again.

 

I've been waiting so long for phobos and I am glad that it'll be as good as I thought it would be.

And people say that phobos units outside the Invictor are crap xD

[Debauchery101]

I've ran 2 teams while using a Phobos cpt and librarian.

This is the base template I've used. I've swapped the reiver or incursor for another eliminator/reiver but 3 snipers is pretty good

5 infils w/comms

1 incursor w/haywire

1 reiver

3 eliminators

 

I split the snipers off with the comms and another Infiltrator if I know I won't see much deep striking into my side of the board. If so ill throw in the haywire guy to tax any charges while they camp objectives in the rear.

 

With these 2 combat squaded and the cpt I have a really huge potential for deployment blocking

 

I've played more aggressive with the librarian and the infil/reiver teams. If you are likely to face most of the opponents troops head on then the incursor haywire and these guys taking advantage of cover make them a PITA unit as well as a threat with the 12 in reserves screen, reiver to turn off obsec, shock grenades and smoke.

One of the other cool things with phobos now is the guerilla war strat. Ive screened out hard ij deployment then got first turn and yeeted them off the board while I moved other units up. Now they gotta think about. If you drop them in the their and threaten any actions or objectives with that reiver you can almost force their hand to divert attention towards them.

 

Anyone who trashes Phobos is not someone who thinks more than 1 step ahead, probably plays rule cool armies and/or plays imperial fists because they don't know how to fortify and infiltrate at the same time

 

And before grey area of the haywire mine is brought up...wasn't taken in anything official. It really is kind of a points sink. If someone really wants to kill 5 phobos marines its not that hard even if eating a few mortals

Edited October 27, 2020 by Debauchery101

[Irbis]

My only complaint is they've no melee counter punch to get out of a fight

Which is really 95% of what phobos units need to be OK and the fact GW still didn't fix this speaks volumes of rule writer incompetence. Even Scouts can take power weapons, despite bits of them never existing to begin with, but giving phobos option to take bits every SM player has tons of (and increase model sales to boot) with 30 seconds of copy paste is apparently too hard of a job

[Qui-Gon]

 

My only complaint is they've no melee counter punch to get out of a fight

Which is really 95% of what phobos units need to be OK and the fact GW still didn't fix this speaks volumes of rule writer incompetence. Even Scouts can take power weapons, despite bits of them never existing to begin with, but giving phobos option to take bits every SM player has tons of (and increase model sales to boot) with 30 seconds of copy paste is apparently too hard of a job

 

 

Dude, there is plenty of sour grapes to be had elsewhere. Dropping them in a thread which is meant to highlight something we have and put a positive spin on it, then compounding it with obvious vitriole helps no one and just continues to perpetuate the negativity.

 

Take it elsewhere, it is not wanted here.

[GrinNfool]

Ya I think the spectrus has quite a bit of potential honestly.  Between combat squads, and access to phobos libs can do some cool stuff.  I don't know about using them necssarily in a forward position, or at least not TOO far forward, but I think they will be good.  Being able to hide elims in them, having a single infil in a team meaing no12" DS, possibly being able to put the ignore first failed save upgrade on an infiltrator, and the obscuration stuff working on them they got some potential.  Shrouding, soulsight, for example can make them a pain for your opponent.  Honestly the phobos lib is quite nice for DW in general, but thats another thread.

[leth]

Yeah, I plan to include a mandatory 2 infiltrator units in my army for board control, but I will need to wait and see what they do in regards to full kill team rules and stratagems before I finalize anything else. 

[Qui-Gon]

Ya I think the spectrus has quite a bit of potential honestly.  Between combat squads, and access to phobos libs can do some cool stuff.  I don't know about using them necssarily in a forward position, or at least not TOO far forward, but I think they will be good.  Being able to hide elims in them, having a single infil in a team meaing no12" DS, possibly being able to put the ignore first failed save upgrade on an infiltrator, and the obscuration stuff working on them they got some potential.  Shrouding, soulsight, for example can make them a pain for your opponent.  Honestly the phobos lib is quite nice for DW in general, but thats another thread.

 

 

Exactly my thinking on function, though I wouldn't relegate the Phobos librarian to another thread because his main purpose is in my view to support the Spectrus squad. I'd prefer him over a captain any day to be honest with them.

 

Yeah, I plan to include a mandatory 2 infiltrator units in my army for board control, but I will need to wait and see what they do in regards to full kill team rules and stratagems before I finalize anything else. 

 

Same. I've built 1 full team of 10 (5/5) and I've another 5/5 ready to be built but waiting on the full supplement.

[Mobius0288]

Ya I think the spectrus has quite a bit of potential honestly.  Between combat squads, and access to phobos libs can do some cool stuff.  I don't know about using them necssarily in a forward position, or at least not TOO far forward, but I think they will be good. 

 

See I was thinking the opposite... throwing 1-2 units forward, maybe an HQ, maybe an Invictus Warsuit to hold one side of the battlefield. Or maybe a center objective. On your turn 1, send any outriders, drop pods and impulsors to spots you need them the most and do some hurt.

 

So not really strong enough from your guys' game experience to hold their own? I imagine your secondaries need to line up with how you play, and there aren't any good secondaries that benefit you slowing the opponent vs outright killing units?

 

I don't have infiltrators myself but I want them. It sounds like the eliminators might be a better unit to capitalize on rather than a forward spec op type unit.

 

 

 

Exactly my thinking on function, though I wouldn't relegate the Phobos librarian to another thread because his main purpose is in my view to support the Spectrus squad. I'd prefer him over a captain any day to be honest with them.

 

Agreed - absolutely goes with the topic. Which phobos powers worked best? Funny how that was the opposite last edition... libbys felt like a tax you had to take against heavy psycher armies.

[Debauchery101]

The PL literally only helps phobos. I wish some of the powers would cross to others but oh well.

Being able to move a unit 18 inches who already infiltrated is very powerful as well as making units un targetable who are screened by marines with smoke screen potential

 

I have gotten used to using a Phobos captain. Hes got a nice rifle. With the ability to give eliminators, reivers and incursors his aura wherever via the comms marine is nice in these kill teams

 

There's been a few times I've had the chance to spam the frag rounds from eliminators. with rerolls str 5 on turn 1 shreds a lot of pox walkers, guardsmen, cultists, necron warriors and orks.

The necron warrior 20 man blob can take some serious attention to wipe them. With the right setup they can almost match plague marine resilience. So yeah 9 to 12 str 5 ap-1 shots with reroll 1s does help

Edited October 28, 2020 by Debauchery101