Quick Batrep/Review - Defense Cohort

[Prot]

So I had a quick game using the new Defense Cohort.

The reality is this is a super, duper restrictive detachment which makes sense because we know the nightmare jank that was caused in the past with "Decurions" and the like of.... let's not re-live that time in 40k.

Perhaps it's a bit too restrictive for my playstyle. Actually a lot of my Admech lists do end up a bit unconventional looking as I like mobility and that's something you really don't get with the Defense Cohort.

Essentially you find yourself making a list of robots, and priests. That's about it... maybe some Servitors, just to raise banners, or deploy scramblers.

Basically my list ended up being Mars, and using the mentioned units to comprise a list that could use the defensive protocols that basically state the Kastelans, Kataphrons, and Breechers get -1 to their damage taken on ranged damage if they are wholly within your deployment zone, or -every- model in the unit is within 3" of an objective.

There was a pregame strat I used as well that basically adds a bonus to a piece of area terrain 'in your deployment zone'. To me this meant a large ruin which ran partially into your deployment zone could be used for this purpose. I ended up picking an admech piece of terrain to do this, and it was.. .actually not that great for 2 Cp but I can see it getting better use in the right table set up.

So onto the game......

My opponent was Deathguard and did not run Mortarion, but had a host of the regular nasties: Lawnmower drones, Blightlord termies, Deathshroud Termies, lots of Poxwalkers/Plaguemarines, lots of board control. He keeps his 2 Plagueburst crawlers in the rear for rear board control.

This list he uses is excellent at board control, and here I was using a fairly static army list. Cawl lead my list so I could get rerolls which are very much needed with the horrid BS 4 typically used by the majority of the Cohort. Not too mention with dense cover being -1 on top of that made for some brutally difficult shooting phases.

The basics of the list were: 2 x 6 Breacher squads, 2 x 3 Destroyers. 1 x 4 Shooty Kastelans (wish the fists were better). 10 x Corpuscarii, 10 x Fulgrurite (in reserves), 2 x 3 Servitors with fists, a Cawl, Manipulus, Daedelosus and a Techpriest, plus the Datasmith for the protocol on the bots.

Here's what my basic deployment looked like:

Pretty standard... wait in my deployment, and hope for the best!

I'll run through the game quickly... it was a tight one!

- DG pick Engage, Spread Sickness, and While We Stand (his Blightlords and 2 x PBC's)

- AM pick Raise Banners, Thin Ranks (All those Poxwalkers) and I stuggled mightily to pick a third but settled on Assassinate for lack of a better choice (he did have 3-4 characters)

- The game was Overrun, and uses the 'dawn of war' deployment, and 6 objectives which suited me fine (3 each I can handle). Death Guard win the roll to go first! I hide a lot in Obscurring terrain and use 2 CP for the new Defense Cohort objective to turn a piece of Dense terrain in my zone into giving +1 to save as well. The Kastelans enjoyed that for about 1 whole turn.

- Very little died turn 1, but I did get bobarded by PBC's, the -1 damage to my main units was huge in fact. DG are failing to cast powers much to my delight (I hate Miasma with AM using so much BS4). Most of his time is spent advancing to gain the board. DG end the turn without getting high enough advanced to get their Drones over halfway across the board so he does NOT score Engage but does score 3 on Spread Sickness.

- Admech response is quite horrid. I am shooting through 'area' dense terrain in mid table, I don't have my Skorpius tanks for indirect which REALLY hurts my admech. I'm shooting Breechers with Arc cannons, but they do so little it isn't funny. BS 4 to 5 through terrain sucks even with Cawl. This is why I don't use Breechers.... 2 shots each. I did give my Manipulus a bonus warlord trait to give FNP to the surrounding Breachers/Destroyers. I kill one squad of 20 Poxwalkers so he can't heal them up... it took nearly my whole army (with visibility) to do it. I really tried to kill a Drone but failed to do so with that -1 damage DG inherently have my Arc rifles where a bit lethargic here.

- DG are in the lead but it is a small lead. They start off scoring 3 objective primaries, but not more than me. This would be key if I wanted to stay in the game. He starts getting more aggressive and now that his Poxwalkers are dead.... his Lord of Contagion AND the Plague Surgeon have lost their screen and he has to get a body guard down quick....

- DG bring in Blightlords on my left, Darkshrouds to guard the center field characters in terrain, and he's marching it all up to my Kastelans with Cawl in center.

- He manages a few charges, I "Set to defend' in my zone as per the new rules.. it does not help me when I overwatch (on 5's with no rerolls), and he got Miasma off so his drones just start chewing into me.... it's brutal, but I barely survive.

- Fast forward a bit and on the left side he is collapsing my flank... a bunch of Poxwalkers infitrated in and they brought a Foulblightspawn flamer dude with them, and the deep striking Blightlords... plus a bloat drone!

- I lose a few units but hte -1 damage helps, I am charged everywhere but one critical charge fails.... the Deathshroud Termies protecting the Lord of Contagion failed! This helps my Kastalans and Cawl a ton. Even with a CP reroll he fails the 9" charge.

- I respond with what I can, my -1 to hit in CC with Breachers is horrible even with my +1 to hit from Defensible stance power... just having no rerolls in CC is hurting me bigtime. The odd time I get through an arc claw, the -1 damage just makes it take forever. I'm also T4, and he's T5 in CC because of his aura's.

- I try for 3 CP in my turn to use the new Strat to fire everything from a 5 man Breacher unit with "Big Guns Never Tire", ignoring the -1 to hit. I kill a whole Plaguemarine even with Cawl's rerolls... I just can't kill anything once it's in to me.

- One good thing in my turn is the Kastelans now first twice, once removing the 3 DeathShroud Guard (Wrath of Mars) then the Lord of Contagion with the second firing of the Kastelans. It was over kill but I needed the 3 Assasinate points.

- Towards the end of the game I am losing. I start to retreat from CC because the Arc Claws are garbage in this match up and hitting on 4's and 5's is grueling. I let my priests get in the action... I kill his Blightlords after he kills my Fulgurites in shooting (which surprised me!)

- This gives him full points for Engage, and by turn 4 I finally have him shot out of my zone entirely. I can finally leave my zone, and try to score points... I had to go into emergency Aegis protocol from the Strat to do this and push back... I killed whatever Poxwalkers he couldn't hide for Thin Their Ranks. I killed the Blightlords to -5 from his "While We Stand" points, but he pulled his PBC"s out of LoS so I would never be able to get them....

Turn 5 is super tight, and he left a few characters a little to high up on the board imo. This gave me the ability to shoot two of them netting me 6 points on Assassinate which made the game super close.

- It would be my scoring last in T5, shooting poxwalkers off of his objective which would give me 3+ objectives, and for the first time all game; "Hold More". This put the final score at 66-62 for the Admech and the win.

+ Post Game +

Crazy game and I went through a range of emotions with the Defense Cohort. A lot of it felt useless the second I moved.. .it's very hard to remain in position to receive the much needed -1 damage.

I still do not understand people who bring a pile of Breachers to a tournament. I just think it has too many bad match ups. Yes you're going to get some good match ups and good tables to hose someone, but there's so much that the unit is deficient in and is so easy to tie up with tough units.

That said the Kastelans were 'good'. Not great, but I typically don't play them anymore either. Having Grav and Plasma against Death Guard on my 2 Destroyer squads was borderline useless.... but it was the sheer volume of fire that would get me this game.

The new detachment is fun, and plays to the background of the units, and the reason the Mechanicus do these 'emergency protocol rewrites, but it's a very static army (or you lose a lot of the benefits) and won't suit a lot of match ups.

I will continue to try it. There was a time during this game I screwed up and thought the -1 damage worked in CC as well but it does not which was almost a non-factor in our game but still... I think it saved a Breacher or two vs the Bloat drones.

At any rate it did push back better than I thought. It also felt difficult to -not- get the Mars secondary Canticle, but I learned to work without it. Hopefully I can get a second game in with this before I try the Metalica rules out!

[brother_b]

Interesting. Thank you for the write up. I quite like breachers because as I posted in another thread they’re the only thing I have that I can park on an objective and hold or move to an objective and hold.

 

They’ve got a giant footprint and are great at sealing off parts of the board. I don’t expect much from them in the way of damage output, when they kill it’s a bonus.

 

I also understand the frustration in combat I learned the hard way I was unable to clear a unit for 2-3 turns in CC. I should have just backed out and had other units shoot the attackers but for some reason I thought they should have been able to finish the deal.

 

My games have been so sporadic I look forward to hearing (reading) more about your exploits.

 

Omnissiah protects!

Edited April 2, 2021 by brother_b

[Prot]

Thanks for the comment Brother B....

 

I normally don't use Breachers in 9th as mentioned, however I don't think that's because they don't have value. I just really don't like those lists that have a zillion of these guys sitting at mid table trying to bully the table. 

 

I personally play far more aggressive with my Admech. So that's why I personally don't use them that much. My back rows are typically heavily rooted with tanks/vehicles and a layer of protetive 'fluff' (cheap troops). If I lose all that, I'm in trouble.

 

The Defense Cohort is admittedly a very different experience for me. But I still feel like the 'volume' and 'quality' of their offense is pretty lethargic.

 

When you mention my frustration in close combat... yea you hit the nail of the head. It feels like you're wading through sand with these guys. I knew the DG were going to stick around a bit, as I play against them regularly but the combination of hitting on 4's and lethargic damage... not so great, but perhaps I'm being too hard on them.

 

One thing that I keyed in on was combining the 'sandbag-ish' nature of the Breachers combined with the combo of following up with the Fulgurite Priests.

 

I put my Priests in reserve... one of my 2 larger Breacher squads got hit with Poxwalkers and a Drone. I knew from the mess happening to my other squad of Breachers that this Breacher squad was going to be essentially be stuck in all game with these Poxwalkers and out 'obsec'd' purely by numbers and thus loose the objective...

 

After the first round of combat, I came in off my edge from reserves and the Disco sticks spanked down the remaining Poxwalkers. This seemed to be a good combo I'll use again. I just was a little taken back when they squad got the 3++ invuln for wiping out the Poxwalkers, then were unceremoniously wiped by bolters from the Blightlords. :)

 

But your comment on retreating... I can relate to that. When about turn 4 came and I realized the 6 man Breacher squad could not clear 4 Plaguemarines over 3 turns, that's when it sunk in.... I gotta retreat and shoot these guys.

 

In my defense at the time I was experimenting with the new Strat that allowed the Breachers to use Big Guns Never tire, and with no penalty! As good as it sounds on paper, save yourself the CP, retreat, and just let something else finish them off!

 

Thanks again for reading it... I have another game coming soon.

[brother_b]

I have a pile of boxes of the new models waiting for construction, I want to see what our new codex will bring. I’ve only got 3 breachers and I plan on adding three or six more for one blob. I’ve got three grav destroyers that I run with the breachers. Besides that it’s a mix of robots and T3 infantry with a couple of onagers. I need to make some stick priests I’ve got five on the assembly line.

 

I also  have some of the shield and spear guys which seem like another possibility for holding objectives.

 

I usually play Stygies and am thinking about a transport full of stick priests for my pre game move followed by the cavalry. That would be three units pushing forward the first turn.

 

Like you I want to play aggressively with a strong base of fire. 
 

For my crusade army I’ve chosen a manipulus with flamer weapon, anzions war gear choice, and prime hermeticon. During one game he and the breachers did quite well against necron warriors and lycheguard. That outing proved how bad breachers can be without support, and how good they can do with the rerolls.

 

My hermeticon manipulus with stick priests sounds pretty good actually. If we get added transport capacity like the dark eldar did on with their transports, a stick and manipulus transport may be interesting.

 

Our group is going to probably start up again soon so I will have more opportunity to play.

[DanPesci]

Cheers for the batrep prot! this pretty much confirms what Id thought about the defense cohort - kinda cool but way too restrictive and a very static playstyle (which I dont particularly like/find fun).

 

With the breachers, definitely agree with you that there are better things to do than run 20+ of them, their damage output can be very swingy depending what you are facing (and certainly hurt losing the old +1 BS strat from the servitor maniple). I find 2 units of 5-6 is fine, and more able to manage bubble wise. I then have a few vanguard units to provide additional board control/anti horde. I do play stygies through so the -1 to hit and pregame move makes them excellent objective grabbers (mars arguably destroyers are better but fill a different role)

 

I also never leave home without a primer hermeticon character for reroll hits if needed, as it makes a big difference to their combat output (she'll usually start in a transport with some priests).

Edited April 5, 2021 by DanPesci

[Prot]

Thanks!

 

Seeing the changes to our units from leaked images makes me wonder if this Defense Cohort could see an immediate improvement.

 

Brother B - I'm actually thinking of using my army as Metalica for a while just because of how aggressive the rules let you get. I intend on getting House Raven in there too.

 

Dan - good call out on the Prime Hermeticon on this particular army build. I typically just don't have the extra trait.... I'm usually using Cawl as the warlord, with the Manipulus using something from Engine War.... but I might just try this considering how badly everything went in close combat! (I was using a trait for a 5+ FnP on the troops)

[brother_b]

Yes prime hermeticon is a crazy trait, full rerolls is rare in most armies and it’s just a second thought type of trait for an army that’s primarily known as a shooting army. My opponent was dumbfounded when I told him the trait grants full rerolls. He thought it was quite amazing and provided my breachers at the time with a nice buff that allowed me to clear things out.

 

I just need reps and the new codex to fully realize where I want to go with my army.

 

The thought of first turn transports carrying insane electro priests forward into the enemy is amazing. I also look forward to the time when my transport gets blasted, I cause it to explode, and then exit my priests in an orderly fashion with my 0 CP strat. Sure they’ll get gunned down but the effort will hopefully be enough of a distraction to free up other elements of the army for a turn.

[DanPesci]

 

 

Dan - good call out on the Prime Hermeticon on this particular army build. I typically just don't have the extra trait.... I'm usually using Cawl as the warlord, with the Manipulus using something from Engine War.... but I might just try this considering how badly everything went in close combat! (I was using a trait for a 5+ FnP on the troops)

 

Yeah main difference is I dont run cawl, so that frees up points for additional priests/engineseers with traits. Typically id have the 5+ Fnp trait on my warlord, footslogging with the breachers, and have prime hermeticon on another dominus in her transport with priests, but she can always jump out and help hold the breacher line if needed, or ive also had her team up with infiltrators/vanguard - which arent exactly deadly but still a nice boost to give them if they do end up in combat

 

 

 

I just need reps and the new codex to fully realize where I want to go with my army.

 

For sure, certainly be interesting to see if any of the traits change in the new dex. The defense cohort could suddenly become much more viable (although still limiting) depending on how the rules/weapons for servitors and kastellans change, and the metallica rules already look pretty interesting to play around with.

Edited April 5, 2021 by DanPesci

[Prot]

Brother B: yea I love that Dunestrider strat.... I always get a sideways glance when I announce I'm playing a zero CP strat to prevent deaths to my units on board. It's a great, and fluff for AM.

 

Dan: I just have this hope that there will actually be some minor tweaks to Breachers or their weapons that also might make the Defense Cohort a little more tempting.

 

 

Well it looks like I have a game lined up after work today.... I'm considering the Defense Cohort though to be honest it isn't that enticing for me to continue with it right now where as Metalica with a medium sized house Raven Knight list (I'm thinking Preceptor, Helverins, and Warglaives) sounds like more fun.

 

Especially with that Metalica Lung Relic! (trying to figure out how to get lots of mileage out of it.)

[Malakithe]

Brother B: yea I love that Dunestrider strat.... I always get a sideways glance when I announce I'm playing a zero CP strat to prevent deaths to my units on board. It's a great, and fluff for AM.

 

Dan: I just have this hope that there will actually be some minor tweaks to Breachers or their weapons that also might make the Defense Cohort a little more tempting.

 

 

Well it looks like I have a game lined up after work today.... I'm considering the Defense Cohort though to be honest it isn't that enticing for me to continue with it right now where as Metalica with a medium sized house Raven Knight list (I'm thinking Preceptor, Helverins, and Warglaives) sounds like more fun.

 

Especially with that Metalica Lung Relic! (trying to figure out how to get lots of mileage out of it.)

What is this Metalica list you speak of? I was thinking of spamming Armigers with Metalica support