New Codex Reflections

[Dr. Clock]

Well - first game with new Codex last night and I was well pleased with it. Faced new DG, and opponent made some deployment mistakes so that I was able to terraform everything and then just keep pushing him back so I had like 50 points by turn 3 and he had 15.

 

Berzerker Warband list (We play 2100pt games with a mandatory extra non-Epic character):

 

Khârn

MoE (Glaive)

2x10 Berzerkers

2x Rhino

2x Spawn

2x Jahkals

2x Forgefiend

2x Maulerfiend

2x 8Bound

1x Goremongers

1x Helbrute (ML / autocannons)

 

Unit analysis:

 

Spawn - The very finest trading piece. One pair got wrecked by a cannon drone, but the other one suppressed a Rhino turn 1, and then killed it in turn 2. Blunting his expansion for 85 points was key. I was ready to trade Zerks over there, but I didn't need to in the end because the Spawn kept him at arm's length.

 

Maulerfiends - The speed on these was clutch for staging and hiding in round 1. While one kinda bounced on a daemon Prince, in opponent's turn Mortarion flubbed his attacks charging into one and it slapped him for 24 damage, putting him down to 2W remaining after FnPs. Solid.

 

Forgefiends - Opponent sort of accidentally gave these are a harder target than I'd have preferred - Nurgle Daemon Prince. For all that, stripping any wounds off of big stuff is a big help when Maulers are around, and anything without an invulnerable save is gonna catch heck. Should have likely considered occasionally not shooting the closest thing, but it's still lots of fun to have SOMETHING to do during shooting phase.

 

Helbrute - Ok. I was threat overloading enough that he never caught a bullet and just stripped some Rhino wounds and then sat pretty on left flank. I may try a triple Brute list at some point, or a different loadout, but next list I'll do something else with the points.

 

Zerks - real good in Warband anyway. I missed the opponent's Fights First on the first thing I charged with them, and adding a solid Overwatch to that, I only had 4 guys attacking 7 Plague marines... S6 Lethal and Eviscerators got it done though, so that Khârn could punt the smelly character into the sun. Next turn I CP re-rolled the last guy's save so that I could Surge Khârn on to his rear Plagueburst. They're still a bit fragile, but they HIT, even at small numbers.

 

8Bound - Good, but hard to protect. First three just died to Plagueburst and drone fire, other 3 mulched some Spawn and hauler before disappearing to a second hauler's melta. They certainly seemed like a candidate for punching up, but their problem is positioning and resilience. Feeling like Invocatus leading 3 for a DS play might be better than the 2x3 rolling solo.

 

Jakhals - Yes, always. They did nothing but score points, which is something we desparately need so that we don't need to stop for actions.

 

Rhino - Same, pretty much, as well as a good way to protect Zerks obviously. MoE and friends never even left the bus lol.

 

What have others found so far? My opinion of the book definitely went up based on this, and I'm excited to run them again, but will likely do so swapping Helbrute and 1 Spawn to 2 characters for the 8bound, and possibly trying the Exalted for DS instead of trying to push Scouts. With all the Zerks mounted, the 8bound feel too vulnerable as obvious bullet catchers in turn 1, whereas a little Rapid Ingress and Battle-lust could get them right where they need to be for turn 2/3 charge.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

Edited 6 hours ago by Dr. Clock