BA Tournament Musings

[The Unseen]

So I participated in the Gateway Open a a few weekends ago, went 3-2, and wanted to put my thoughts down. Won vs Black Legion, BA mirror against 21 SG and the 5 assault cent list, and max wuflen space wolves, lost vs GK  and Sisters.

My list was

Spoiler

Dante, Warlord but no trait

Sanguinary Priest, Visage of Death and 6" bubble of obsec (-2 cp)

Mephiston

Chapter Champion, Triumph Blade, imperiums sword (-2 cp)

7 SG

7 SG

5 SB/Chainfist Termies

5 DC with packs and Thammers

5 DC with chainswords and Inferno Pistols

5 Assault Intercessors, PF sarge

5 infiltrators, helix gauntlet

5 incursors

6 assault marines, Power Sword PP sarge, 2 plasma pistols

Whirlwind

 

My takeaways 

1. Mephiston is bad

2. 4 pregame CP is too many, even with Dante giving me 1 back

3. Having a good secondary plan is even more critical now than it was in Nachmund

Firstly, in my 3 winning games, Mephiston did fine. Not amazing, but fine. Never took a psychic secondary because everyone either had too few characters or had psychic defense of their own. In one of my losses, Mephiston himself did fine against GK, he got denied some as expected, but his presence meant I couldn't take Abhor and I had no good choice for the 3rd secondary. So I took blade, and had to choose between a GK librarian decked out to be indestructible, Draigo, or a Nemesis Grandmaster... not good.

The game was close till my turn 3 both draigo and the grandmaster decided to pass something like 15 straight 3++, and the following psychic phase I saw not 1, not 2, but 3 supers go off. (1 vortex, 1 purifying flame, and 1 smite. Just those 3 powers did more than a dozen mortals, have I mentioned how much i hate GK?)

Against sisters, he died horribly to Celestine, failed all 3 5+ armor saves she caused, thenproceeded to fail all 6 5+++ shrugs. That alone didn't cost me the game, but it definitely didn't help. That's not really a Mephiston thing, but still.

He just isnt worth 140 pts, his mobility is inconsistent, his offense is very meh with d3 damage, and using him for psychic secondaries is just asking to get denied and also feels bad because he's so expensive.

Second point is much simpler, my list doesn't need much cp to function, 1 for DC move, usually 1 or 2 for suppression fire, and an interrupt or angels sacrifice, but I really felt like I needed 1 more cp turn 2, several times I was forced to choose between sacrifice and interrupt when both would've been insane.

So the champion, despite being an absolute monster for 70 pts, is getting kicked, partially for the cp and partially because I'm dropping the termies, they're just too slow and can't be used to project out from GW open style terrain layouts, so he won't have a bodyguard squad he can keep up with. 

If locally -1 damage stuff is prevalent I'd keep him, he does an absolutely absurd amount of damage vs stuff like character knights, dreadnoughts, etc with 8 Str8 AP-3 D3 attacks

The obsec granting Priest is just too important to not bring, and Visage has one me at least 1 game, being able to strip obsec from enemies can make primary swings backbreaking.

Finally, having a good choice for all 3 secondaries is absolutely critical now.

Blade has been buffed to the point that I often bring it, because even at 10 pts it's solid, assuming my opponent has a character that can't just hide in the back corner all game. I usually have Dante declare, he's got the mobility and damage to take out most characters, and with his free fight on death he's hard to counter.

My list is built to be able to score RND and I will continue to rely on it, its never scored me less than 8, though in several games the last quarter was denied me

I'm not going to bring a single psyker anymore, maybe Mephiston AND an inquisitor could make it work, but I'd rather be able to take Abhor the Witch vs the psyker heavy armies that remain a bad matchup for BA.

Don't sleep on the wound count of non-character monster or vehicle, I can't remember it's name right now. A lot of marine armies especially will score 11 or 12 pts if you table them, and even in a game that goes against you is probably more reliable than Blade, and it's good vs necrons because scarab swarms and skorpekhs have so many wounds.

I'm planning on taking this to an RTT next week, well see how it goes.

Spoiler

Dante

SP, Visage, obsec aura

Sanguinary Ancient, +2" move aura

7 SG. X2

6 VV, Relic blade, 5 LCs, 4 Inferno pistols

5 DC chainsword Inferno

5 DC 5 Thammers

6 assault marines, 3 pp, claw

5 assault intercessors, PF

5 Incursors X2

Las Fusil Eliminators X2 (debating between carbine or fusil for the sarges)

Whirlwind

This strengthens RND for me, and replaces the terminators, who spent most games sitting on an objective being shot to death with eliminators, who add some much needed ranged kick and are similarly durable and also help screen the backfield if needed since I've dropped the infiltrators for more incursors.

[Jolemai]

Interesting thoughts, thanks for that - having used similar lists before, I see some parallels there.

A take home point for me here is to give some thought to how much CP my list(s) require to work; this is something I don't currently do. Doing so should help with the min-maxing/micromanaging part of the game which at times we can rely on (at least I do anyway).

Let us know how your next tournament goes 

[Majkhel]

I'm inclined to agree with your assessment of Mephiston - tends to influence the list and performance expectations too much while being too swingy at the same time.

[The Unseen]

On 8/30/2022 at 10:05 AM, Jolemai said:

Let us know how your next tournament goes 

I will.

Currently painting up the Infiltrators I'll need. Chopped up some scout sniper rifles for suppressors, scopes, and stocks to add to some MKVI tacticals, and cheesecloth+glue camo cloaks, and I finally broke down and am building the lightning claw vets. I have a much smaller quasi-local RTT with 30ish people to attend on the 10th.

[Morticon]

Great feedback, matey.  And not bad on a solid job with 3-2!!

 

Are you building Supressors? Theyre another unit that I played a few games with a while back and really, really did well with them.  They were miles better than the Whirlwind, and provided an interesting backfield support role - similar to the role of the Eliminators I'm using now.  

 

How did you find the Infiltrators? Also, thoughts on the DC with IPs?

 

[The Unseen]

I have not, mostly because the suppressors are only in that one phobos marine boxset and can't be bought separately, and I don't need the larger box. I imagine they do more damage than the whirlwind, but I bring it for exactly 2 reasons. A backfield objective holder that is good at screening out deep strikes and doesn't need Los to do its thing, which is slap things with Suppression fire. So if I was gonna run suppressors, I'd swap a unit of Eliminators and the Whirlwind for them and a Judiciar. The deny overwatch is nice when it matters, but you can't replace ranged fight last IMO. It opens up so many plays against other melee brawler style armies.

Infiltrators when the deep strike denial stuff matters are huge, and well worth the small price increase and loss of AP in melee compared to the Incursors, but if they aren't screening deep strikes they're just worse Incursors, so it's really a meta call. I regretted it at Gateway, only deep strike units was 2 dreadclaws in the chaos game, where it was admittedly nice they could screen a whole flank from a charge from Abbadon and Rubricae flamer squad in said pod, but in the other 4 games it didn't matter. If Daemons start becoming popular, I think I'll want them permanently.

And so far I like the Inferno Pistols on the DC, hence why the newer list has more in the VV squad. It doesn't increase their price much, and vastly increases their potential threat. Nobody likes having a melta jump pack next to their characters or big vehicle and vape them, but they're still cheap enough I can use them as the front line to guard SG from getting charged and I don't feel that bad about it. And if the opponent screens a tempting target from the Thammer squad from melee with a chaff screen, the Inferno Pistol squad can potentially jump up to the chaff line, shoot behind them into the important target, then charge the screen and consolidate into a move block, feels solid, and again, cheaper than the hammer squad by a fair margin. And fully buffed, they can murder plenty of stuff if it isn't a 2+ AoC unit. Just the 5 with the 2 buffs on them is hitting on 2s, wounding on 3's or 4's vs tough infantry and tanks, and AP-2, with 30 attacks.

Edited September 6, 2022 by The Unseen

[Karhedron]

4 hours ago, The Unseen said:

Infiltrators when the deep strike denial stuff matters are huge, and well worth the small price increase and loss of AP in melee compared to the Incursors, but if they aren't screening deep strikes they're just worse Incursors, so it's really a meta call.

I find the Helix Gauntlet on the Infiltrators is quite handy. It makes the unit just that bit harder to whittle down, particularly as they are often not priority targets. I find my Infiltrators usually do well, even if their DS denial does not come into play.

[Majkhel]

Those 10 points are sometimes not easy to find though. And Savvy Opponent will either way shoot them with chaff first so the Gauntlet's utility is minimized. On the other hand, it's really satisfying when you can negate a 3D attack with it from time to time.

[Helias_Tancred]

Overall you're right on Mephiston. He's too expensive for what he can/does bring. 

 

 

I rarely use him, and I don't even play competitively. I get more use/value from other HQ choices.

[Karhedron]

20 hours ago, Majkhel said:

Those 10 points are sometimes not easy to find though. And Savvy Opponent will either way shoot them with chaff first so the Gauntlet's utility is minimized. 

While this is true, I normally keep them in cover which with AoC means a 2+ save against Ap-0/1 attacks. I sometimes pop smoke on them which means on average you will need to fire 48 bolter rounds at them to actually burn through the gauntlet and land the first wound on them. That is a lot of chaff shooting to expend on one squad and it has only wounded 1 Infiltrator, not removed him yet.

[Majkhel]

Fair points, Karherdon! Still not sure if it's worth 2 Inferno Pistols. But it probably falls down to preference. Not once I've had the Gauntlet absorb a nasty attack allowing the Infiltrators to stay on an objective for a turn longer.

[The Unseen]

So, went 2-1, won vs the BA mirror, where the whirlwind and frankly a lot more experience led to a crushing victory, 92 to 50, and against non-meta sisters (Argent Shroud suit and melta spam) a 93 to 41 I think. Against the sisters I couldn't stop the secondaries, but he only got 8 pts on Primary

But then game 3 I ran into a friend of mine running the new daemons, and let me tell you guys, I don't think the matchups winnable

Belakor and a tooled up LoC (aka big bird) are functionally unkillable, I ran the math, flamers hurt a lot, and beasts of nurgle are just straight up insane. Bloodletters round the package out.

(For those curious, it takes 2 full squads of SG AND Dante to kill Bel, and that's just barely, you don't have a single wound to spare on average, no hit rerolls, -1 To Hit, AND -1 to wound, before any psychic powers or strats. Big Bird only has a 5+ save in combat, but he's still -1 to hit, -1 to wound, -1 Damage, ignores 1 failed save a PHASE)

And while big bird is mortalling your entire army and Bel is killing most of a SG squad by himself each combat phase, bloodletters really hurt now, and plaguebearers are ridiculously tough, meaning you get bodied on primary at the same time. And any reserves get to drop in for an easy 6" charge around Bel as well, so if you ignore him he'll let the daemons drop anywhere and near guarantee a charge

It's gross

Suffice to say I lost that game hard

Edit: this isn't to say I think Daemons are busted OP, they might be, I just think that the army is just really really good vs BA because they have easy answers for everything we can do, since everything we can do is basically 1 thing, hit something real hard in melee. But we can't actually kill the big stuff reliably, and we can't trade into the troops effectively because even their basic troops absolutely Murder SG on the return trade

Basically, found an army that our melee squads just can't handle, and so the whole gameplan falls apart.

Edited September 11, 2022 by The Unseen

[Rhavien]

10 hours ago, The Unseen said:

So, went 2-1, won vs the BA mirror, where the whirlwind and frankly a lot more experience led to a crushing victory, 92 to 50, and against non-meta sisters (Argent Shroud suit and melta spam) a 93 to 41 I think. Against the sisters I couldn't stop the secondaries, but he only got 8 pts on Primary

But then game 3 I ran into a friend of mine running the new daemons, and let me tell you guys, I don't think the matchups winnable

Belakor and a tooled up LoC (aka big bird) are functionally unkillable, I ran the math, flamers hurt a lot, and beasts of nurgle are just straight up insane. Bloodletters round the package out.

(For those curious, it takes 2 full squads of SG AND Dante to kill Bel, and that's just barely, you don't have a single wound to spare on average, no hit rerolls, -1 To Hit, AND -1 to wound, before any psychic powers or strats. Big Bird only has a 5+ save in combat, but he's still -1 to hit, -1 to wound, -1 Damage, ignores 1 failed save a PHASE)

And while big bird is mortalling your entire army and Bel is killing most of a SG squad by himself each combat phase, bloodletters really hurt now, and plaguebearers are ridiculously tough, meaning you get bodied on primary at the same time. And any reserves get to drop in for an easy 6" charge around Bel as well, so if you ignore him he'll let the daemons drop anywhere and near guarantee a charge

It's gross

Suffice to say I lost that game hard

Edit: this isn't to say I think Daemons are busted OP, they might be, I just think that the army is just really really good vs BA because they have easy answers for everything we can do, since everything we can do is basically 1 thing, hit something real hard in melee. But we can't actually kill the big stuff reliably, and we can't trade into the troops effectively because even their basic troops absolutely Murder SG on the return trade

Basically, found an army that our melee squads just can't handle, and so the whole gameplan falls apart.

Whoops. New demons sound gross. Though I 'm not that surprised as our codex is very old by now and only held together by some bandaids.