Red Brotherhood

[Rogue]

On 6/20/2023 at 1:56 PM, sitnam said:

Good to see a below performance unit get a boost. I'm curious how the comparison between aberrants, genestealers, and metamorphs plays out his edition

 

And they're up - aberrants were already there, and I've added genestealers and metamorphs : https://redbrotherhood.wixsite.com/cult

 

The short version is that aberrants are strongest into terminators (and will make a mess of marines), metamorphs are best into marines (with a side-option into guardsmen), and genestealers kill guardsmen like there's no tomorrow (and can handle marines in a pinch). It's looking like we might be in for another well-balanced codex/index :)

 

The biggest difference between the units is defensive - aberrants are significantly harder to kill than either of the other options, even taking into account that you can have twice as many genestealer or metamorph bodies for about the same points. From that point of view, we might even make the argument that aberrants are currently our best all-rounder - they're not far behind metamorphs into marines, are near-perfectly set up to batter terminators (AP-2, 3-damage weapons are pretty efficient into the first company), and whilst they're comparatively not so good into guardsmen, each aberrant is still killing 1.7 per turn.

 

I'm finally getting a game in on Monday, so it'll be interesting to see how some of this theory-hammer plays out in practice.

 

[Ulfast]

Wow, you are on fire! Two articles right away. And very intersting collusion you make. I totallt agree. I´m happy to see metamorphs actually being intersting again to use. But I also wish genestelaers would do more. THey should be our terrorunits!

[sitnam]

Good to see the analysis again. I think the metamorph icon regenerating guys does at least partially make up the defensive disadvantages. Internal balance between the three seems good. It seems like the preferred choice might be dependent to the meta

[Rogue]

Icons are going to be useful, I agree. My only worry with the metamorphs (and acolytes, who have the same defensive profile) is that they're so fragile that they might not survive long enough to use it.

 

And yes, I'm really liking the design of the units so far. Aberrants are destructive into heavy infantry, and very hard to kill in return; genestealers blend guardsmen, and have mobility and their invulnerable save; metamorphs really hurt marines, bring flamers and fight on death. They all have a role to play, which is positive.

[bc99]

I Pool forward to learning about our acolytes and where they’ll fall.

[Rogue]

Acoltyes are up. It's a longer piece, because more options to play with, so it's lost a bit of focus - hopefully it still makes sense.

 

As ever, very open to comments, better ideas, error-spotting and the like :)

[sitnam]

On 7/17/2023 at 4:25 PM, Rogue said:

Acoltyes are up. It's a longer piece, because more options to play with, so it's lost a bit of focus - hopefully it still makes sense.

 

As ever, very open to comments, better ideas, error-spotting and the like :)

As always, good article. The main thing I would of liked to see is some numbers against higher toughness targets, eg light tanks and monsters. I assume, given their strength, Mining weapon acolytes would be the melee infantry of choice for such targets

 

I guess another question would be whether they'd be worth it as opposed to the shooting options for anti-tank

[Rogue]

Good news: I finally played a game of 10th.

 

Bad news: it was a pretty frustrating experience. Not the game itself - the rules work okay and all that, but the particular match-up and mission made it a tough night.

 

My opponent had Necrons, with just four units in his 1000 points. A reanimator, 6 destroyers with a lord, 10 lychguard with a lord, 20 warriors with a character cryptek and two cryptothralls. Five turns later, only the lychguard were dead.

 

Overall, I think I played okay - the necrons never set foot in my deployment zone or the adjacent board quarter, and I controlled those two objectives for the whole game without coming under real threat. I was able to contest the central objective with aberrants and acolytes, and even steal his home objective with neophytes late in the game when the destroyers pushed forwards. I just couldn't kill anything. Which was a real downer in the mission, Purge the Foe, where half the primary points come from killing at least one unit in the battle round, and more units than your opponent. I won the secondary game, but was hammered on primaries.

 

The biggest bugbear was his resurrection abilities, and the ability to give all his units a 4+ invulnerable save (via different enhancements and character rules). In particular, his warriors unit, and I'm hoping that someone can see a way to tackle this, because I definitely couldn't yesterday.

 

Here's the deal. He had twenty warriors, who spent most of the game holding an objective. This means that d3+3 come back in his command phase. He also had a reanimator nearby (but hidden), which revives another d3 at the same time. For 1CP, he can trigger a stratagem to get a further d3+1 (plus d3 for the reanimator) in my turn after I attack. So for just 1CP per round, he can regain 4d3+4 warriors. Every battle round. At least 8, maybe 16, average 12.

 

But wait, it gets worse. His cryptek character gives them a 4++ save, so our various ways of enhancing AP are useless. 

 

But wait, it gets worse. Because the unit is led by a cryptek, it can also include two cryptothralls. They have a 3+ save, gain a 4+ invulnerable from the cryptek, and have FNP 4+ on top. So they save half of everything, and then shrug off half of what gets through anyway. Which means they tank all the incoming fire, and then just get up again afterwards (because as part of the unit, they gain reanimation protocols, and nothing stops them being the first things revived each time).

 

In turn two, I hit that unit with a ridgerunner mortar, a reductus, 10 neophytes, and 20 neophytes with primus rerolls, sustained hits, ignores cover, +1 to wound, +1 to hit, the full works. After he used his stratagem, just one warrior was still dead, and he got up in the command phase. 

 

[Math bit: hybrid firearms, with coordinated trap in play, and the Primus, and AP-1 (to push the cryptothrall to his 4++ save) hit on 3s rerolling, wound on 4s, then face a 4++ save and 4+ FNP. We need to land 4 wounds to beat the FNP (on a 2-wound model), which means we need to land 8 wounds to get four past the save. So we need 16 hits to get 8 wounds (using a 2CP stratagem, remember), which means 21 shots (using another 1CP stratagem and a character). To kill one model. That costs 20 points. And is getting up again anyway.]

 

And hitting them with heavier weaponry doesn't help much, as they still get the invulnerable and the FNP.

 

Now, the obvious answer is "Avoid them, and go after something else". Which is valid, but the only other target was the destroyers, who were hanging back around their home objective, putting them out of range of most of my guns. And who could also potentially recover 4d3+1 wounds per round, more than enough to negate my limited long-range shooting.

 

So if anyone has any bright ideas, I'd love to hear them.

 

 

 

[brother_b]

Thanks for the report. Our game got put on hold but will give me time to bring a 1500 point list next week.

 

What you just described is ridiculous and does not feel fun. 4+ invulns and FNP should not be able to couple with reanimating like that.

 

I agree only thing to do is avoid them. The real kicker was your primary was just bad for the match up. With your description it sounds like any normal game where he would have had to take objectives and move would have been a win for you.

 

I’m likely going to face guard, if not custodes. I’ll tell you how it goes next week.

[Rogue]

On 7/18/2023 at 11:41 PM, sitnam said:

As always, good article. The main thing I would of liked to see is some numbers against higher toughness targets, eg light tanks and monsters. I assume, given their strength, Mining weapon acolytes would be the melee infantry of choice for such targets

 

I guess another question would be whether they'd be worth it as opposed to the shooting options for anti-tank

 

Thanks. And here you are: https://redbrotherhood.wixsite.com/cult/post/acolytes-vs-armour

 

I've added a second piece looking at mining tools and demo charges against tanks - a rhino, redemptor, russ and raider.

 

Plus a quick look at maxing out a demo charge alpha strike. They can really be quite nasty.

 

[sitnam]

I honestly thought the mining weapons would be a bit better into heavy stuff, but I don’t have the new S/T chart memorized that well either.

[Rogue]

It's a combination of relatively few attacks, AP-2 and S10, which is no longer impressive into heavy armour. Into something like a Russ (and without other support), four acolytes with mining tools score 6 hits, of which only two wound, and one of those is saved. In other words, only 1-in-6 of your successful hits will end up causing damage. And you only have 8 attacks to start with.

 

Even the S12 demo charges, which usually wound on 3s, fall short because of that low BS and AP (half of everything just bounces off a 2+ save), even with all their attacks. We need to throw resources at them to mitigate that and make them properly dangerous.

[Ulfast]

Good articles as always! Nice read.

 

Necrons is though. Feels similiar to custodes that they never dies. So hard to facd. My best tactic is to try to tke one unit at the time. Perhaps a sniper to help with character killing?

[Rogue]

Yeah, maybe. But at the rate they regenerate wounds, I'm not sure a sniper will kill them fast enough. I'll keep working on it.

 

In the meantime, I got in a second game - this time, Ultramarines. It was the Sites of Power mission, with a Dawn of War deployment.

 

He brought a Judiciar with 10 assault intercessors (who all fight first), five incursors/infiltrators (the ones with the 12" no-deploy bubble), five more incurtrators, six flamer aggressors in a repulsor and the dune buggy.

 

I had the same list as last time: 10 neophytes, 10 neophytes, a ridgerunner, a reductus, and five aberrants with an abominant on the table; plus 20 neophytes with Primus and Nexos, and two lots of five acolytes all in deep strike.

 

The Cults deploy with neophytes and the reductus on the left, and neophytes, the aberrants and the ridgerunner in the centre (holding the home objective). He put almost everything on his right (facing my flanking neophytes), with just one unit of incursors in the centre and the dune buggy on his left. I went first.

 

Turn one: 0-0

I left the neophytes in place (because advancing on the left would be very terminal). The aberrants set out for the objective on the right of no-mans land (putting themselves behind obscuring cover), but couldn't reach the objective. 

The marines pushed forward on my left, and brought the buggy across to the home objective, but had no targets. The incursors (and their lieutenant) on the flank took the left-side objective (which they'll continue to hold all game), It was a quick first turn, with no scoring at all.

What I should have done now was pick up the reductus via the stratagem - she clearly wasn't going to hold the objective on the left (and was going to die fairly quickly when the marines moved round her cover), but could have been very useful elsewhere (as characters on objectives score VPs in this mission). Should have; didn't.  

 

Turn two: 6-9

The aberrants, realising that they couldn't push through the right objective into anything useful, swung back towards the centre, but again fell short. The big unit of neophytes dropped in and wiped out the incursors on the home objective, leaving just the buggy holding the fort. One unit of acolytes also dropped in, taking the right-side objective. I wanted to use tunnel crawlers to drop the other onto the marine home objective (I have Capture Enemy Outpost), but with the buggy right on top of it, I can't get within 3".

The marines pushed up again on the flank, with the repulsor getting into my deployment zone - it fluffed its attacks though, failing to wound the reductus and only killing five neophytes (and losing some shooting the the shadows stratagem). The assault intercessors moved towards the centre - not yet close enough to charge, but potentially threatening the centre and marine home objectives. I remember to get the reductus out of there this time.

By the end of turn two, I've still not charged anything. The aberrants are a lurking menace in the centre, but it's been very low damage all round so far - just one unit of marines, some minor damage from the reductus, and a few neophytes. One with the Shadows is incredibly useful early in the game, before the marine can close in - especially as I can pop it again (for free) on the big neophyte unit with the nexos. Because the marines have castled up a bit on the flank, I've been able to drop in pretty freely, taking control of a lot of the board - buggy aside, he's entirely in the flank third of the battlefield at the moment. 

I controlled my home objective, and Defended my Stronghold for 6 points. He held two objectives (home and left), and had a character on one of them, for 9. At lot is going to hinge on the central objective, we think.

 

Turn three: 12-21

The neophytes regain three, taking them back up to eight (in effect, 18 bolter shots killed two of them). Both of the smaller neophyte units hold firm. the bigger unit moves towards the marine home objective - they completely fail to damage the buggy, but kill three of the intercessors. The aberrants move to secure the centre (with the Abominant, for bonus points), and the last acolytes drop in to screen them from the intercessors. The reductus comes back in from strategic reserves, near to but not in range of the right-side objective. Still no charges.

The marines strike. Firepower takes out the left-most unit of neophytes (who've done a job, slowing the marine advance on that flank), and the screening acolytes. One aberrant falls to the buggy. The assault intercessors go in to the aberrants, but crucially the judiciar is too far back and can't get into engagement range. They fight first anyway, but only kill one more aberrant. The remaining three and the Abominant fight back, killing all seven intercessors and consolidating back onto the objective whilst glaring at the judiciar.

That felt like a critical combat. The marines felt less punchy than they have been, and the aberrants are considerably tougher - bluntly, the intercessors bounced, and suffered the wrath of the aberrants for their temerity. The judiciar is still there, but the centre is still in my hands. 

I controlled two objectives, gaining 6 points. The marines still held two, empowering one of them, and also Cleansed that objective for a total of 12 points and a growing lead. At this point, I feel like I have a tactical advantage and more board control, but am still falling behind on scoring (not helped by hanging on to Capture Enemy Outpost, which I keep thinking I'll score in the next turn...)  

 

Turn four: 37-32

In his deployment zone, the big unit of neophytes moves up again, fails to shoot the buggy to death again, then charges in, surrounding and killing it in combat (mostly thanks to the Primus). The marines' home objective (and 8 VPs) is mine. In the centre, one unit of acolytes has moved up but fails to charge the judiciar (I still hold the right objective, as the reductus has now moved onto it). The aberrants do charge the judiciar - he kills one of them, but the rest smash him to pieces in short order.

The marines are now reduced to a unit of incursors holding the left objective (and out of range of anything else going on), and the aggressors in the repulsor. The aggressors disembark and head for the centre - between them and the repulsors big guns, the last two aberrants are killed (although not before one of them makes six out of seven FNP saves from a lascannon shot), leaving only the Abominant (the aberrants go into ambush, though). The repulsor also wipes out the neophytes holding my home objective, killing nine with guns, and tank shocking the icon to claim the objective.

At the start of the turn, I controlled three objectives and empowered one. I also took the enemy outpost, and completed Area Denial by killing the judiciar, for a total of 25 points. Big turn. The marines only held (and empowered) one, and completed Overwhelming Force, scoring 11 points. Just five points in it going into the last turn, and it could be very close.

 

Turn five: 62-52

Vitally, I control three objectives and empower two of them, scoring me 15 points. I also draw Behind Enemy Lines and Cleanse, which are trivial to pick up at this point (I already have neophytes on the marine home objective and the reductus on the right objective who can cleanse, and can advance some returning neophytes into the marine deployment zone for BEL). That's another 25 points, putting me 30 ahead and out of reach. 

Regardless, I move up the Abominant, acolytes and ridgerunner to charge the aggressors - they overwatch the acolytes to a crisp. The Abominant kills one, and is killed in return. He gets back up anyway.

The marines move their aggressors onto the centre objective, then fire everything into the Abominant, killing him again. We call it day.

The marines score well at the end too, holding three objectives (one empowered), and drawing Capture Enemy Outpost, which they achieved last turn. They score 20.

 

So, a first victory in 10th for the Red Brotherhood, and it felt very odd. I killed two infantry units and a buggy, leaving two and a tank still in play at the end; I only made two serious charges (turn five was for fun), and one of those was with neophytes. This doesn't feel like a combat army - it's way more about maneuvering, application of force in the right place at the right time, and the lurking threat of the aberrants, even when they're not fighting.

 

What did I learn?

• Neophyte firepower is really good on the turn they drop in (with +1BS, +1 to wound, sustained hits and extra AP), but you can't use Perfect Ambush unless you come in from reserves, so those bonuses drop off quickly. I could have put them back into reserve, because their range was enough to come in close to the edge and still be useful; but if I'd done that, I couldn't have moved up on the buggy and the objective.
• Aberrants are really tough, and can really dish it out too. Last game, they ground down the Lychguard; this time, a full block of assault marines.
• Icons are valuable - knowing that neophytes were coming back forced the marines into committing firepower that would have been useful elsewhere.
• There's not so much rush to score early points. In 9th, I often found that I needed to score big early on, then try to cling on as my army was whittled away to nothing. In both my games of 10th, I've still had plenty of units available late in the game, and in this game I scored 50 of my 62 points in turns 4 and 5. It's easier to stay alive (big boards make hiding easier at 1000 points), and with a lot of battleline units in the game, my forces really don't diminish over time.

Talking of Cult Ambush, by the end of the game the only units off the table for me were the Abominant and five acolytes (because I was too casual with their blip at the end, and it got removed by the aggressors). That's it - 160 points dead, 840 still in play. With the aberrants making their roll, Ambush gained me an extra 400 points across the game, plus the deleted acolytes and the self-reviving abominant (which would make that total 560, or more than half my army over again). That's a huge advantage. Balancing that (a little), I struggled to really get the returning units back in the fight - units that died in the marine turn three aren't doing anything until my turn five, and by then it's a bit too late to move up from where their blips have been. As it happened, the cards fell neatly for me at the end, and having units back from the fighting worked in my favour - if I'd needed to kill things, it might have been different.

 

In the end, it's good to get a win under the belt, and I'm already feeling like I'm getting a handle on the way the Cult plays now (which is a lot quicker than I managed in 9th edition).    

 

[Rogue]

And game three: 1250 against Blood Angels (gladius detachment), in a Take and Hold mission / Crucible of Battle deployment (diagonal across the short edges, VPs for holding objectives).

 

The Blood Angels had two tanks (Lancer and Reaper), a tech-marine, librarian dreadnought, 10 infiltrators with a phobos librarian, 5 intercessors, 5 more intercessors, 3 inceptors with plasma, 3 inceptors with bolters. Both units of inceptors started in reserve. The marines put both tanks and both intercessors behind ruins on my left (controlling their home objective), with the dread and infiltrators on the right - the infiltrators deploy forward slightly, taking the far-right objective.

 

The Red Brotherhood started with 10 neophytes, 10 neophytes, 10 metamorphs with a locus, 5 aberrants with a Abominant (inscrutable cunning) and a ridgerunner on the board, and 20 neophytes with primus/nexos and three lots of 5 acolytes in reserve.

 

I deploy neophytes on my left and right (holding the home objective on the right, and ready to advance on the left), with the ridgerunner supporting on the left because there was more cover over there. The aberrants infiltrated in behind the central ruins, between the near-left and central objectives, and the metamorphs scout up to join them in cover, close to the centre but not controlling it.

 

Turn one: 0-6

The Blood Angels go first, but can't draw line of sight to the Cult units. The infiltrators have already secured no-man's land, and to investigate signals, the lancer pulls back into the far left corner and the librarian dreadnought slings a unit of intercessors into my right-hand corner. 

The aberrants shuffle slightly to control the near-left objective; otherwise, they and the metamorphs stay still - I don't control the centre objective, because in order to do so I'd have to move into the ruins, exposing myself to all the marine firepower. In the backfield, both neophytes and the ridgerunner move to target the newly-arrived intercessors, but only manage to kill one. I fail to score no prisoners, and with the tempting target being on the far right under a pile of infiltrators, I let that one go too.

I'm behind, but that's okay - I've not taken any casualties, and I hold the centre ground (if not the objective itself). However, I'm worried that the Blood Angels already have a foot-hold in my deployment zone, and still have the inceptors to come in...

 

Turn two: 13-29

My backfield is suddenly a dangerous place to be. The intercessors are already ideally positioned to deploy teleport homers, and can also move up to control my home objective at the same time, caprturing the enemy outpost. To support them, the bolter inceptors drop in and wipe out my right-side neophytes. On the left, the plasma inceptors turn up in the corner, and reduce the ridgerunner to two wounds (although one dies to hazardous). The rest of the marines hold their line, aware that the Cult have a lot in reserve. 

Realising that the marines aren't going to press the centre, the aberrants advance towards the marine home objective on the far left. My reserves all drop in - acolytes appeear on the near-left objective just vacated by the aberrants, on the centre objective, and close to the marine home objective, where they deploy teleport homer and engage on all fronts. In my deployment zone, the big block of neophytes come in, overkill the bolter inceptors (they're dead after the mining lasers have fired), then charge into the intercessors and kill them too (the Primus taking down three on his own, thanks to sustained hits). On the left, the neophytes fire on and then charge the plasma inceptors, but little damage is done on either side.

A strong turn for the marines, picking up 13 points on secondaries, scoring two objectives and gaining control of another. And a reasonable counter-punch from the Cult, scoring points of my own and removing two Blood Angel units. At the end of marine turn two, I only had units in one table quarter, held one objective and was 29 points down; by the end of my turn two, there were only two marines on my side of the board, I controlled three objectives and was (tentatively) threatening the marine home objective. Reserves are great. However, the marines still had both tanks, their biggest infantry unit, and three characters in play, plus plasma inceptors and a big lead. I'm not feeling confident at this point.

 

Turn three: 33-39

On the marine left, the lancer and intercessors back away from the home objective, and gun down the nearby acolytes. The reaper moved up the right flank, gaining line-of-sight to the metamorphs and shredding them all. [I could have used One with the Shadows here to protect the metamorphs, but if I had, the reaper could have switched targets to the acolytes holding the central objective, and I really wanted them to stay alive. So the metamorphs were sacrificed (and went into Cult Ambush, so they'll be back.] The infiltrators move forward behind the reaper, but retain control of the objective. At the end of the turn, the big neophyte unit and the recently returned 10-neophyte unit Return to the Shadows.

The aberrants advance on the left again, closing on the marine home objective. The neophytes and inceptors in the backfield continue to flap at each other. The Shadows neophytes reappear, with 10 on my home objective, and 20 on the marine home objective. They promptly put the mining lasers into the dread, assassinating it, and everything else into the tech-marine, killing him too.

We both drew Area Denial this turn - almost impossible for the marines, as I had three units around the centre (the metamorphs, acolytes, and returning neophytes). And as the marines hadn't gone for it themselves, I didn't need to do anything to score it myself - very helpful. Assassinating the dread and the tech-marine was a tactical choice - I felt that the intercessors and tank could do more to damage me, but the characters were worth points, and with the neophytes on an objective, I'd only need one of the twenty to survive and I'd get 4-6 back. 

 

Turn four: 51-54

The inceptors made a desperate breakout, but made a mess of their shooting and assault, failing to wound the ridgerunner. On the right, the reaper killed the acolytes on the centre objective (the reappearing metamorphs were safely behind the ruin and couldn't be targeted, but were too far away to hold the objective themselves), and charged the neophytes on my home objective, tank-shocking several of them but failing to seize the objective. The critical fight was over the marines' home objective. The intercessors and lancer killed all 20 neophytes with firepower, before the intercessors charged and killed the Primus; the lancer charged the Nexos, but he survived. Still, retaking the objective meant that battle lines had been extended, and overwhelming force had been applied.

The aberrants charged into the intercessors, wiping them out, and consolidating into the lancer. With the Nexos falling back to safety, the Cult were definitely behind enemy lines, with fairly overwhelming force. Back in the deployment zone, some reappearing acolytes charged into the inceptors, cutting them down. The neophytes who been tying them up moved up the left flank towards the near-left objective, and the metamorphs failed a 9" charge into the infiltrators.

By this point, the Blood Angels were down to two tanks and the infiltrators (with phobos librarian), and were running out of options. The Cult were still across the board in numbers, covering four objectives, and with both elite combat units still in play. On the other hand, the marines still led with just a turn to go.

 

Turn five: 78-67

The lancer gunned down the Nexos, but was shrugged off by the aberrants, who dented it in combat. The reaper finished off the neophytes it was engaged with (for no prisoners), and the infiltrators moved back to engage on all fronts (and remove a blip sneaking up behind them).

The aberrants hammered the lancer into scrap, bringing it down and capturing the enemy outpost. The 20-neophyte unit had reappeared near the reaper, but failed to deal any significant damage. But it didn't matter. With three objectives under Cult control, and both secondaries secured (for 12 points), the Red Brotherhood had done enough to overtak the Blood Angels and take command of the battlefield.

 

Another win, but one achieved differently to last time. Here, by the end, I'd taken out most of the marine units, with only two left on the table. Once again, almost all of my stuff was still around at the end, although I did lose one blip, and the neophytes who went down in turn five didn't have time to come back. Interestingly, I didn't get any combat units into combat until turn four (when the aberrants hit the intercessors and some acolytes went into the plasma inceptors); but I did have neophytes in combat in turn two - the Primus makes them reasonable handy into basic marines, and neophytes regenerate enough bodies to hang around and tie up non-combat opponents. 

 

What did we get out of this one?

• The Cult really has switched to being a slow-burn, late-game army - it's very different to the "alpha-strike and try to cling on" approach from previous editions. It's okay to be patient and wait for the right moment.
• One with the Darkness and Return to the Shadows give us incredible potential to evade and reposition almost at will, making us very hard to pin down or screen out. And Return combined with a Neophyte/Primus unit who can then drop back in and pick up buffs again makes that unit an ongoing threat.
• Using infiltrate and scout to threaten the centre early is valuable (especially with Darkness to keep them safe).
• Board control matters - because I controlled a lot of the board, I had lots of space to drop in blips in relative safety, whilst still knowing that they could push up, replace units in front of them, and let the front-line do what they wanted.
• It's okay to sacrifice blips. In turn four, I placed a blip behind the infiltrators. If they pushed forward to tackle the metamorphs in the centre, I'd reveal the blip, move up and claim the infiltrators' objective; if they moved back to remove the blip and guard the objective, then the metamorphs were safe and the centre was held. In the end, I lost the blip (taking out five acolytes) but preserved ten metamorphs.

And that's about it - another fun game, and nice to be on a (very small) winning streak.

[Ulfast]

Good report about a game that sound fun.

[Rogue]

Thanks. You know it's been a good game when you've spent most of the game behind but still having fun with it.

 

Partly a good opponent, and partly because the current iteration of the Cult means that I have lots of units to play with, even at the end of the game - I feel like I have options and agency, whereas the back end of games in 8/9th could become an exercise in "What can I even do with this one surviving unit?", which isn't fun.

[Rogue]

Well. Game four last night, and it got interesting. 

 

Having just finished up the relevant neophytes, I was able to put down two big blocks of shooting goodness for this one - one unit of 20 with four mining lasers and grenade launchers, and one unit with four seismic cannons and flamers. Both had an attached Primus, and the seismic cannon unit had a Nexos too. And now I see why the tournament players are loading up on so many.

 

It was a game against Ultramarines - he brought a couple of units of infiltrators, some incursors, six aggressors, six bladeguard with a chaplain, five hellblasters with a lieutenant in an impulsor. I had the two big units of neophytes, three small units of acolytes, five jackals, two ridgerunners, five aberrants with a biophagus. 

 

Turn one was pretty quiet - he went first, moved up on my left (avoiding the infiltrating aberrants on the right), no shooting. I stayed hidden. In his turn two, he continued to advance, still no targets (I only had the jackals and ridgerunners in my deployment zone, and was keeping them behind obscuring ruins, and the aberrants were in cover on the right flank, away from the marine guns).

 

Then my turn two happened. Both units of neophytes dropped in - the mining lasers arrived in my left backfield, and promptly detonated his impulsor; the seismic cannons came in on the right and wiped out all six aggressors. Because of the flamers, I dropped in over 12" away, so the seismics and firearms weren't in rapid range, and the flamers weren't in range at all, and it just didn't matter. With sustained hits and full rerolls, I landed 17 hits from 16 shots - AP modifiers and d3 damage did the rest, killing five and wounding the last one (the firearms him off). 

 

In turn three, without most of their buffs, they took out four bladeguard, then shadow-jumped back into my deployment zone for turn four, where they killed five incursors (with just the seismics again), then flame the last two bladeguard and leave the chaplain on a single wound. Finally, in marine turn five, they overwatched the hellblasters (as they tried to reposition to fire on my home objective), and cut down three of the remaining four. We didn't play my turn five, but they'd have likely finished off the chaplain, the last hellblaster and the accompanying lieutentant.

 

20 neophytes, a Primus and a Nexos comes in at 280 points. Over the course of the game, they killed 6 aggressors, 6 bladeguard, 5 incursors, 3 hellblasters (and potentially one more hellblaster, a chaplain and a lieutentant). That's 760 points, or almost three times what the neophytes are worth. And they were still at full strength by the end of the game.  

 

Tactically, they're an incredible asset, and were decisive in taking the game away from the marines. Socially, they weren't a lot of fun for my opponent - turn two, when I dropped in and removed his aggressors and impulsor really changed the tone of the game, and from that point forward he felt like he was playing to minimise the loss, rather than having any hope of winning - I think he had more play left than he thought he did, but I can also understand why it felt like such a turning point. Couple that with "If I kill them, they just come back anyway", and they're not a fun unit to face.

 

Anyone else tried them out?

[Ulfast]

Wow, never used that unit in such format and they sound lethal. Would be intersting to try.

[brother_b]

Those are the two neophyte blobs I had. Unfortunately in my game I had to use my seismic cannons against armor and they were horrid.

 

For my mining laser group, I had the exact same outcome, I deleted a Leman Russ.

 

I fear there will be incoming retribution in the form of a nerf hammer as GSC are doing really well now.

[Rogue]

Nothing ground-breaking, but I've posted about Neophytes over on the blog: https://redbrotherhood.wixsite.com/cult/post/neophytes

 

Interestingly, brother_b, the numbers suggest that buffed up seismic cannons should still make a mess of even heavy armour (although much less so if you've run out of CPs and/or the Primus is dead).

[Emperor Ming]

It takes 68 bolter shots to kill 20 neophytes? (maths hammer wise)

 

 

"and they shalt have the most mediocre of weapons, that may struggle to kill basic humans"

 

The Emperor  

[brother_b]

4 hours ago, Rogue said:

Nothing ground-breaking, but I've posted about Neophytes over on the blog: https://redbrotherhood.wixsite.com/cult/post/neophytes

 

Interestingly, brother_b, the numbers suggest that buffed up seismic cannons should still make a mess of even heavy armour (although much less so if you've run out of CPs and/or the Primus is dead).

Subsequent turns shooting. They just didn’t do

much against 2+ armor, and to be fair I used the strat on the mining laser blob. I dropped seismics the same turn to contest another objective so didn’t have the chance.

[Ulfast]

You really show how our low neophytes are actually really strong! Sesmic cannon for the win. My unit mostly use mining laser so I need to go back home and dig into the box to find all the sesmic cannons :)

[Rogue]

As a spin-off from talking about neophytes, I've posted about the difference in utility between frag and krak grenades: https://redbrotherhood.wixsite.com/cult/post/frag-vs-krak-10th-edition

 

Most of the time, krak is the way to go, but there's a few cases where frag is still useful (guardsmen being the obvious one, and even then, krak can match frag until blast kicks in).