List of the "Problematic" units?

[SkimaskMohawk]

2 hours ago, arnesh88 said:

Dreadnoughts have the Fearless rule, they cannot use the Evade Reaction as per the Errata.

Totally right, forgot about fearless and shroud. 

 

Regardless, we still know that you need a disproportionate amount of fire power to gun down more than one dreadnought in a turn. It exists in some lists, but definitely isn't common. 

 

Edit: I see dbh meant collective output of melee and shooting phases. He's not wrong; melee can really pump up the numbers. But he's also not really making a case for dreadnoughts being easily dealt with by most lists in a turn:

 

-10 plasma in 12" average 4.34

-10 melta in 6" average 3.83

-3 laser destroyers average 2.89

-10 las heavy support average 3.61

 

You've killed those dreads, using 1000 points, with two of those units about to be killed in return. Are most lists in a place to dump 20 guys within 6-12"? Do most lists spend 1000 points on dedicated anti tank/elite shooting? Some lists do, but most? Are dreads not a problem if they've skewed list building to inefficiently remove them in one turn? Its the same thing as custodes; you can absolutely gun down units of guardians, but can you kill enough of them before they hit combat? Are they efficient enough to load up on and reach critical mass?

 

Recommending dreads to counter dreads is....far from a solution to dreads showing up. 

Edited February 14, 2023 by SkimaskMohawk

[Petitioner's City]

49 minutes ago, Dont-Be-Haten said:

I mean you are always welcome to bring whatever you want. 

 

You know that's not the point though :) heck this thread is exactly that point - self restraint and seeking a consensual mutual restraint. 

 

If a "competitive" player doesn't express self restraint but plays to their instinct to always win, they quickly take the fun out of it for someone without that approach - so that other person either can't play, plays and has a bad time, or feels compelled to change.

 

What I feel should happen - in a sportspersonly way - is the competitive approach dials down in the face of that other person, and not force someone to have a bad time. This could be a back up list that's less "good", which is to some extent something this thread can help people with - "Don't bring the dreads, artificer sergeants, telepathy librarians or that lascannon squad, I won't either. Instead you bring your dusty arquitors and that baneblade instead,  I'll bring my outriders, attack bikes, and allied penal auxilia + malcadors, and honestly we'll both a much more rewarding, unique time instead". Like that's still going to be fun and rewarding for a competitive minded player, as well as the player who doesn't really care about being optimal and just wants a fun game :)

 

Indeed if all people always did that, take units without care for synergies or what's the best bang per points (or rather in spite of such synergies), it would be a really interesting situation, one that would be more equitable, surely? 

 

As I said above, SG have sadly not helped - they haven't given us an equitable game, alas - ideally everything should be balanced through appropriate costings, even starting with the legiones astartes special rule (why oh why different legions with very different LA (x) rules cost the same still astounds me, surely LA(x) should cost differently for different legions and indeed units - like +X points for Iron Hands, +Y for White Scars, etc).

 

If the game was costed more correctly, then everyone would be (closer to) happy - myself as someone just seeking a good time whatever I used, yourself as a someone seeking the expression of your crypto-military skill. Of course points are only a part of this balancing (better expression in the written rules is another, and ultimately a consensual agreement to identify how both players will enjoy the game is another, really important one).

 

[Dont-Be-Haten]

15 minutes ago, Petitioner's City said:

 

You know that's not the point though :) heck this thread is exactly that point - self restraint and seeking a consensual mutual restraint. 

 

If a "competitive" player doesn't express self restraint but plays to their instinct to always win, they quickly take the fun out of it for someone without that approach - so that other person either can't play, plays and has a bad time, or feels compelled to change.

 

What I feel should happen - in a sportspersonly way - is the competitive approach dials down in the face of that other person, and not force someone to have a bad time. This could be a back up list that's less "good", which is to some extent something this thread can help people with - "Don't bring the dreads, artificer sergeants, telepathy librarians or that lascannon squad, I won't either. Instead you bring your dusty arquitors and that baneblade instead,  I'll bring my outriders, attack bikes, and allied penal auxilia + malcadors, and honestly we'll both a much more rewarding, unique time instead". Like that's still going to be fun and rewarding for a competitive minded player, as well as the player who doesn't really care about being optimal and just wants a fun game :)

 

Indeed if all people always did that, take units without care for synergies or what's the best bang per points (or rather in spite of such synergies), it would be a really interesting situation, one that would be more equitable, surely? 

 

As I said above, SG have sadly not helped - they haven't given us an equitable game, alas - ideally everything should be balanced through appropriate costings, even starting with the legiones astartes special rule (why oh why different legions with very different LA (x) rules cost the same still astounds me, surely LA(x) should cost differently for different legions and indeed units - like +X points for Iron Hands, +Y for White Scars, etc).

 

If the game was costed more correctly, then everyone would be (closer to) happy - myself as someone just seeking a good time whatever I used, yourself as a someone seeking the expression of your crypto-military skill. Of course points are only a part of this balancing (better expression in the written rules is another, and ultimately a consensual agreement to identify how both players will enjoy the game is another, really important one).

 

I understand what you are saying. I believe that your local meta equates to the things you are going to frequently play against. 

 

My Dark fury squad can kill a Leviathan in a single round of combat, I bring 1 unit because they are really good and they hold to the theme of Raven Guard. I wouldn't bring more than one ten man squad, or two five man squads unless I was playing in a competitive environment. But then I'd also have Corax protecting them with his eternal warrior and 2+/4++/4+++ 

 

I just feel like in the 100 or so games I've played in 2.0 now what I consider fair may be skewed because of the number of games I've played and the units I'm accustomed to deal woth.

[Misterduch]

edit : nvm

Edited February 14, 2023 by Misterduch

[Gorgoff]

11 hours ago, Dont-Be-Haten said:

I mean you are always welcome to bring whatever you want. 

 

I mean I don't main a heavy support squad and my list can kill 2-3 dreads a turn if I want to focus on them. I'm not really even taking much outside the normal. But 1 plasma support squad, a melta support squad, a Lascannon heavy team, meltabombs, laser destroyer rapiers, a deredeo or 2, other dreadnoughts, primarchs, biomancy with instant death, this isn't even getting into melee centric units that can out dps a dreadnought or adding in things like Numerologists or Master of Signals to give BS5 to shooting.

That's exactly what drove me away from 40k.

GW pumps out a clearly OP unit like the Contemptor which almost every HH player I know react to buy constrain themselves to allow both sides to have a fullfilling experience. 

In 40k now they react like you describe here:

They just get out the even bigger gun and not only tell GW by this that their obvious scheme to push sells of the Dreadnoughts (and of course their conterparts in form of the TSS and HSS boxes) comes to fill fruition.

Which makes them go on and ruins the game in the long run for everybody. 

Because on thing is crystal clear: in an minmax environment some units are out of the question. So your lists tend to get similar because only a few units can compete with the ever increasing powerlevel. 

 

Please don't see that as an personal attack. This attitude ceeps crawling in the HH community from start of 2ed because a lot of 40k players get drawn in with for example the clunky toy like two characters in the new box. Ridiculously looking dudes but a major contributing factor for a lot of new gamer who are used to this kind of toddler sized models from 40k. In the end it ruins the game. 

No thank you. Different steaks for different people but we will (and did) ban people who turn up on our events with WAAC attitude and army lists. Again, I don't say you have a WAAC attitude. This comment was aimed on people we encountered in the past. 

[Petitioner's City]

@Gorgoff - I honestly feel this was a part of heresy since 2011 too, not a new thing. Medusas, biomancy Magnus/thousand sons, mechanicum, knights, etc., were popular at various points for exactly these same reasons - they were optimal, disgustingly "fun" to trounce people with or rewaridng when playing against someone operating in the same more competitive realm as you, etc.

 

One heresy chat I am in is mostly old first edition players, many of whom have played most of the last decade - some people in it are very focused on optimisation, on better or best options, etc., and unlikely to use something rubbish or suboptimal. Some players just utterly just love working out the most "filthy" options, even as a ment chat exercise, and following that meta chase - possibly without realising how utterly disengaging and negative it can be to someone not interested in or not able to do optimisation.

 

Still, it's great to see people chat, and learn from that - but it also often makes me down and think 'do I want to even play when the "game" is instead the "competition"?'.

Edited February 14, 2023 by Petitioner's City

[Dont-Be-Haten]

@Gorgoff I don't take it as a personal attack no worries. But just to play devil's advocate. What are your thoughts on an armoured spearhead detachment? Let's say world eaters because we like the paint scheme, the lore of their armored division, and just love tanks. A 2,000 point list can field over 11 tanks, with infantry still in the list, that's only 2 land raider proteus with despoilers and then 9 sicaran and predators with room for upgrades. This army is fundamentally worse to play against than 2-3 dreadnoughts. Yet people don't Seem to think this type of list is toxic, but it can be by no fault of its own. Especially if you run up against an infantry heavy list.

 

Do you not put anti vehichle weaponry in your list when you building your army? I think every list that I have see put up in the army list section of the tactica thread shows that most frater build that into their options. 

 

Having played against AV heavy lists that can field 4+ land raiders and 8-12 sicarans and predators I can assure you it is an up hill battle.

 

 

[Pacific81]

It's a shame that having dreads (which can be a very fluffy thing to do based on Legions, and they are lovely models, and they come in the AoD starter box!) comes across poorly because the rules aren't very balanced in that regard. And ultimately people don't want to be thought of as 'that guy' and might end up not using them as a result, which is a shame.

 

That's one of the downsides in my view of not using the old hit location or at least damage chart rule types. They let you have some durability against small arms fire, but weapons which are designed (in the background material) to have been specifically designed to take out armour can do so. The game then becomes a game of cat and mouse of the aforementioned dread, which is busy mashing infantry units, trying to stay away from the anti-tank weaponry that can hurt them. Practically any other ruleset I can think of, fantastical or historical, that has that element seems to manage that aspect.

[Noserenda]

Competative players and groups will always exist, and have always existed and thats fine as long as thats their groove. Sometimes building super optimised kill 3 dreadnoughts a turn lists is fun, sometimes building a fluffy list is fun, it can all coexist as long as you and your opponent are on the same page.

I think tank lists are a lot less egregious because they use different systems to dreadnoughts and that makes them a lot less egregious, i mean even a tactical squad can kick most tanks to death easily enough. If only they could have known that monstrous creatures are much nastier than vehicles eh? *snark*

[dickyelsdon]

1 hour ago, Dont-Be-Haten said:

@Gorgoff I don't take it as a personal attack no worries. But just to play devil's advocate. What are your thoughts on an armoured spearhead detachment? Let's say world eaters because we like the paint scheme, the lore of their armored division, and just love tanks. A 2,000 point list can field over 11 tanks, with infantry still in the list, that's only 2 land raider proteus with despoilers and then 9 sicaran and predators with room for upgrades. This army is fundamentally worse to play against than 2-3 dreadnoughts. Yet people don't Seem to think this type of list is toxic, but it can be by no fault of its own. Especially if you run up against an infantry heavy list.

 

Do you not put anti vehichle weaponry in your list when you building your army? I think every list that I have see put up in the army list section of the tactica thread shows that most frater build that into their options. 

 

Having played against AV heavy lists that can field 4+ land raiders and 8-12 sicarans and predators I can assure you it is an up hill battle.

 

 

 

There are always ways to 'counter the meta' once one emerges, bring hordes when everyone is worried about elites, bring armour when everyone is worried about hordes, etc. 

 

What a lot of the chat here has shown is most problems are units designed to specifically target certain aspects of lists, and this is worse if your list is balanced and their list isnt. 

 

Im new to heresy so dont have the experience most do, but it seems lot of the time there will be something you wont be able to deal with if you are facing a list that skews away from that central balanced approach.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Just now, Noserenda said:

I think tank lists are a lot less egregious because they use different systems to dreadnoughts and that makes them a lot less egregious, i mean even a tactical squad can kick most tanks to death easily enough. If only they could have known that monstrous creatures are much nastier than vehicles eh? *snark*

 

This is definitely a part.

 

A tank doesn't participate in the assault phase, other than being beat up on 2s.

 

A tank can have all their shooting disrupted for a turn from a pen, or be stuck in a useless spot, or have their gun blown off, or just instantly explode. 

 

A tank has fire arcs.

 

A tank has no armour or invulnerable save.

 

A tank squadron doesn't get to split up like a talon; they're a unit where attacks spill over. 

 

We know from my examples earlier that 10 HSS average 3.61 wounds to a contemptor. In comparison, they average 6.6 to av10, 6.4 to av11, 5.8 to av12, 4.95 to av13, 3.56 to av14, and 2 to av15/flare shielded 14. A dreadnoughts is as resilient to lascannons as a land raider. With one more wound, and no chance to to explode or be shaken. And beats people up in melee. This is kinda the same as dealing with Spartans in 1st, when taking too many was considered rude/highly competitive, as they warped the viability of units.

 

Like obviously full skew is not fun to play against, and rocking up with a full skew list in low levels of points is extremely problematic. I don't know how we went from "stay at about 1 dread per 1000 because people are able to manage them" to "well if people complain about 2-3 dreadnoughts in 3000, why don't they complain about full skew in 2000". They would, absolutely, complain about a full tank list at that point level. But they'd complain more about 9 dreads and compulsory units in 2000.

 

 

[Dont-Be-Haten]

1 hour ago, dickyelsdon said:

 

What a lot of the chat here has shown is most problems are units designed to specifically target certain aspects of lists, and this is worse if your list is balanced and their list isnt. 

 

 

 I forget sometimes that the majority of us are in our 30s or older and need justifications on taking units or not. I still hold onto the notion that you should play with your toy before you see the negatives in it. You can still tell a story and be narratively driven and bring good things. I still make multiple lists to bring to locals when I'm not playing against my regular opponents. If some new guy has the equivalent of 2 AoD boxes, then I'm going to bring my regular list. If they bring 1 and some supplements I'll something more manageable on the board. 

 

Edit: This may come across as negatively inferred, but it isn’t. It may be a bit sacrastic but we have a social contract, and while I understand the OP's desire to hear from others, i still encourage them to 1. Play above 1500 points for games that arent ZM. 2. Let the meta create itself in their area, and id they want to create any narrative or competitive events they should limit or control the event by taking the LVO's approach. Free for all whatever competitively and restrict based off the story. Although once again the notion of contemptors being busted...out of 70ish people at this year's LVO there was only 1 fury list, and it was only played for the day 3 competitive event that had 6 people and on that note no one at the event brought more than 3 dreads cumulatively, and if there were some, I didn't see them.

1 hour ago, Noserenda said:

I think tank lists are a lot less egregious because they use different systems to dreadnoughts and that makes them a lot less egregious, i mean even a tactical squad can kick most tanks to death easily enough. If only they could have known that monstrous creatures are much nastier than vehicles eh? *snark*

It really depends. You can set up your squadrons in a way that the most an infantry unit can destroy is a single tank, and if they don't, you can drive away or force units off objectives by ramming them. Small to mid strength ranged weapons are just about useless against AV 12+ and AV sporting volkite weaponry can react just like everything else and tear down units by rate of fire. Not to mention Sicarans and Scorpius tanks can pretty much obliterate infantry heavy list lists. Flamers, rotor cannons, bolters heavy bolters and volkite and assault cannons are all pretty much made useless against an Armored Spear Head, and you have to rely on Krak grenades and meltabombs which you can screen out or force unfair trades.

 

Edit: I think the important part to note is almost no one here has actually played against a Fury of the Ancients list, or more than 3, maybe 4 dreads in a single army. If anyone was really concerned about no fun game breaking armies, they need to play against Custodes. FotA and contemptors or really astartes in general can't hold a flame to the Emperor's finest. I've watched a 5 man squad tear through and run down the most elite units astartes can field while being just basic troops. Knights are close to that but their Armingers can be pinned out and run down. The big boys are still crushing though.

 

Edited February 14, 2023 by Dont-Be-Haten
Readjusted thoughts, added insight.

[Galron]

I agree. Tanks generally are not the problem against TAC lists. If the non-spearhead list is something fluffy like an all recon list then yes, they will have problems. Most lists can take down a couple spartans or land raiders. In theory they can die in one shot. That same squad that costs almost as much as a spartan and can nuke it in one round of shooting, unless they are lucky, will not take down a contemptor which costs a third of the points and will shred them if it gets the chance. I anticipate a nerfing of some sort on contemptors, things cant stand as they are except in friendly games where there is some self control. 

 

A simple change to the rules would be to allow AP1 and ap2 weapons to do 3 and d3 damage respectively to dreadnoughts. Its stupid to begin with that they are not armored vehicles in the first place but that train has left already.

 

I know my IW lists, who are arguably the best legion to kill them can reliably kill one a turn.  But the points required to do this are very not in proportion to what they cost. That means I am not shooting spartans or enemy land raiders and the rest of the army coming across the board who can much more easily blow up my soft heavy weapons dudes. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

The custodes guardian build is really good. But it tells you something that 525 points worth of 3 contemptors wins against 510 points of 11 guardians if they charge. 

 

There's a manageable amount of both custodes and dreads (and tanks), and a critical mass that requires heavy amounts of skew to handle. No list is unbeatable, but they can be very problematic based on the amount of specific units included. 

 

Also about the whole LVO thing. For the narrative event there were lots of lists that sported 3 dreads, to the point where John Teves (who brought his blood angels) made a joke about the narrative prevalence of melta dreads. There were also at least 6 lists with 4-5 dreads. This isn't to say they're bad people or anything, just that it's so easy to include a handful in any list; they're no brainers. 

[Dont-Be-Haten]

1 hour ago, Galron said:

I agree. Tanks generally are not the problem against TAC lists. If the non-spearhead list is something fluffy like an all recon list then yes, they will have problems. Most lists can take down a couple spartans or land raiders. In theory they can die in one shot. That same squad that costs almost as much as a spartan and can nuke it in one round of shooting, unless they are lucky, will not take down a contemptor which costs a third of the points and will shred them if it gets the chance. I anticipate a nerfing of some sort on contemptors, things cant stand as they are except in friendly games where there is some self control. 

I recently got to experience how powerful a telekinesis wizard is with flare shields. I can assure you that this combination is worse to deal with than you can imagine with a contemptor dread. AV 13+ with a 4++ and option for 5+++ is difficult to deal with, even with Sunder. Not many people are bringing S10+ weapons.

 

1 hour ago, Galron said:

I know my IW lists, who are arguably the best legion to kill them can reliably kill one a turn.  But the points required to do this are very not in proportion to what they cost. That means I am not shooting spartans or enemy land raiders and the rest of the army coming across the board who can much more easily blow up my soft heavy weapons dudes. 

You also have the trade off of a laser destroyer rapier that's 65 points blowing up a 250- 350 point  model with a single shot on turn 1 as Iron Warriors it's something like a 30% to do that...and it gets two shots per gun. So you trading extra fire power to a contemptor works out. 

[Valkyrion]

No one is saying that contemptors can't be killed, the argument (and why they are problematic) is that the effort required to kill them often considerably exceeds the points value of the dreadnought.

 

The only weapon in the Space Marine arsenal capable of Instant Deathing T7 is the Volcano cannon, which is a one shot weapon reduced to causing D3 wounds because of atomantic deflectors. The only Volcano Cannon is mounted on a 650 points super heavy platform. It's got twin linked, which is super helpful with a 5" blast one shot weapon....

In the immense unlikelihood of the volcano cannon and both lascannon arrays being able to target a single contemptor dreadnought then we have 4 BS4, S9, AP2 shots with twin linked taking off a single wound each time (max 4), and the aforementioned Volcano Cannon taking off between 1 and 3. Assuming everything hits, (3+), everything wounds (2+) and nothing is saved (5++), and maximum damage is rolled on the D3 we have one dead 175-200 point model.  

 

A Falchion could destroy 3 Spartans per turn, I think (pls correct me if I'm wrong, I don't have the books handy, but I think their weapons can all fire independently?) but is unlikely to destroy a single dreadnought (<200 points). 

[Galron]

1 hour ago, Dont-Be-Haten said:

You also have the trade off of a laser destroyer rapier that's 65 points blowing up a 250- 350 point  model with a single shot on turn 1 as Iron Warriors it's something like a 30% to do that...and it gets two shots per gun. So you trading extra fire power to a contemptor works out. 

It should never take 300+ points of models to kill a 200point model, especially when it can destroy that 300+ points with ease. Thats extremely poor game design. Most players use heavy support(iron havocs) for their anti-armor. Contemptors should be vehicles. They already have amazing stats and a 5++. There is absolutely no justification for them to be a multi-wound toughness model and not an AV12/12/10 model. 

[Valkyrion]

I'll be honest, my very local group (there's 3 of us, lol) have limited HSS to 5 regardless of weaponry and TSS to 5 if plasma or melta. It may seem a bit daft, but we aren't players playing competitively and one lad completely annihilated another lads Spartan that he'd done a load of free hand detailed painting on in the first turn. It was just gone. I know 'that's the rules' but he was pretty gutted so we self regulated, so whilst it could still happen its far less likely. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

51 minutes ago, Valkyrion said:

A Falchion could destroy 3 Spartans per turn, I think (pls correct me if I'm wrong, I don't have the books handy, but I think their weapons can all fire independently?) but is unlikely to destroy a single dreadnought (<200 points). 

 

The falchion has about a 9% chance to one-shot a contemptor with the volcano, but averages about 2 wounds from it and another rounded up 2 from the sponsons. 

 

Compare that to a 33% chance to explode the spartan from the main gun.

[Valkyrion]

4 minutes ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

The falchion has about a 9% chance to one-shot a contemptor with the volcano, but averages about 2 wounds from it and another rounded up 2 from the sponsons. 

 

Compare that to a 33% chance to explode the spartan from the main gun.

 

But it could destroy 3 spartans per turn? Or am I wrong there? I don't use many Super Heavies but I have it in my head that the left sponson can shoot a different target to the right sponson which is different to the main weapon.  But it's unlikely that all 3 weapons will be able to target a single 60mm (?) based model because of fire arcs. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

14 minutes ago, Valkyrion said:

 

But it could destroy 3 spartans per turn? Or am I wrong there? I don't use many Super Heavies but I have it in my head that the left sponson can shoot a different target to the right sponson which is different to the main weapon.  But it's unlikely that all 3 weapons will be able to target a single 60mm (?) based model because of fire arcs. 

 

You can if you either catch the Spartans in the side with the sponsons (not on their flares), or if you tag all three with the main cannon. 

[Noserenda]

1 hour ago, Galron said:

It should never take 300+ points of models to kill a 200point model, especially when it can destroy that 300+ points with ease. Thats extremely poor game design. Most players use heavy support(iron havocs) for their anti-armor. Contemptors should be vehicles. They already have amazing stats and a 5++. There is absolutely no justification for them to be a multi-wound toughness model and not an AV12/12/10 model. 

You are broadly right about the first part, paper rock scissors is still a thing in good army design, it breeds interesting choices. But when you are talking about AT weapons firing at an armour target, 100%.

The problem was Dreadnoughts on that AV profile were a bit crap, something the various design studios have been struggling with for years as things expanded from 2nd ed 40k when dreadnoughts were king of the battlefield. 

I think the real problem is having two entirely separate kinds of vehicle using entirely different systems and then not making sure the huge number of special rules and weapons affect them evenly, ideally use Toughness for everything (But use higher T values, and arguably dont let everything wound everything) but using AV for everything crunchy also works well enough.

[arnesh88]

So here's my thoughts on the subject based on your feedbacks/experiences (not including legion-specific units at this time) [Updated Feb 16]:

Notorious Units:

- Contemptor Dreadnoughts (safe at 1 per 750/1000 pts)

- 10 man lascannon heavy support squads

- Librarian w/ Telepathy

- Scorpius

 

Conditionally A Problem:

- Recon Squads or other units spamming Nemesis Bolters

- Box Dreads with Twin-Lascannons

- Maxed Squad Size Custodian Guard Spam

- Lots of Sky-hunters

 

 

The big takeaway, to me, is that including 1+ of these units is not necessarily a problem in any list, but when you spam any of them or have a significant portion of your list containing several of these units can lead to unfun games or be a sign of a player being more competitive-minded. However, this is also a good list to look at for players who are really struggling in their games to include (I'm talking a lot of lopsided losses or just consistently losing (even in casual groups, losing a lot is not fun)). Also, any list with the spamming of any unit is always a risk (mass land raiders, mass terminators, mass predators, etc.), so encourage a variety of units with some of them overlapping in roles, allowing for a more aesthetically-appealing army on the tabletop (my personal opinion) as well as allowing an opponent to at least be able to handle some of the elements for more back-and-forth gameplay.

This is just a guide for my group for both self-regulating purposes as well as to also let each other know to not be afraid to include such units in a list. We are just trying to find a balance of army themes and aesthetics while having fun in our games. I'll edit this list as needed based on more feedback.

Edited February 16, 2023 by arnesh88

[Dont-Be-Haten]

5 hours ago, Valkyrion said:

No one is saying that contemptors can't be killed, the argument (and why they are problematic) is that the effort required to kill them often considerably exceeds the points value of the dreadnought.

 

The only weapon in the Space Marine arsenal capable of Instant Deathing T7 is the Volcano cannon, which is a one shot weapon reduced to causing D3 wounds because of atomantic deflectors.

A 10 man plasma squad or melta gun squad is just slightly more expensive or around the same price as a dread based on how its kitted out and both units can kill a dread a turn. Instant death options include a biomancer with Biomancer's rage which is S10 rending 4+ and force for Instant death. Murderous strike is also out there. Also dreads aren't good in combat when against like units with WS5.

 

You should know 3-4 attacks hitting 50% or worse cripples contemptors.  This also puts them at risk against all chain fists, lighting claws, powerfist that rend and other options such as thunder hammers wounding at AP2. While this may be more expensive there are other units in this game that can make profitable trades 

[MegaVolt87]

The issue with such units is really the kneecapping of phosphex and arty. If I can't pie plate tough infantry, and dreads are no longer vehicles, you best believe I am taking las HSS, plasma/ meltaTSS, volkites and dreads of my own to compensate. Lack of melee upgrades also force people to Legion special melee units more as well. Also in a game about super human on superhuman ultra violence, people are surprised others are taking the most effective weapons against them which are said "problem" units? Mabye if arty was better, we had plastic Imperial army, demons, millita/ cults and mechanicum, infantry melee upgrades things would actually be different.