Other Formations

[javaman21011]

Has anyone had luck with any of the other formations besides Living Artillery or Skyblight? I think the Gargoyle, Bioblast and genestealer/lictor ones look like fun, but haven't had a chance to get any games in that use them. What say y'all?

[coredump]

There is a gargoyle formation?

[WestRider]

Bio-bombs. From the first Dataslate. 3 Broods of Gargs, 3 Spore Mine Clusters. The Spore Mines don't halve their moves if they're within a certain distance of the Gargoyles. Not bad if all you want to do is free up more FA slots.

[gigasnail]

that one's pretty bad iirc...

[metrognome]

Bioblast, Wrecker and Endless Swarm are good tier 2 formations...

[Freeman]

I think bioblast is on par with skyblight and Living Artiller

[WestRider]

Aug 16, 2014 7:49:01 GMT gigasnail said:

that one's pretty bad iirc...

The benefits suck. But if you just want to take a bunch of Gargoyles without clogging up FA (so you can still take Shrikes, or a couple of Crones, or whatever), or going all the way to Skyblight, 45 Points worth of Spore Mines isn't a terrible price to pay to shift those out of your CAD.

[metrognome]

well guys I believe the question is "What is a good formation?"... not "How do I game around the CAD?"...

How?... it costs +90 point in DS Rippers (because we all run 2 Flyrants) to get a whole second CAD worth of slots...
and while this is more than minimum spore mine clusters (S4 blasts???) they are also a great deal more effective...

You could compare the Bioblast to Living Artillery... which only shares top spot because of its affordability...
But Bioblast is in absolutely no way comparable to Skyblight.. which blows it out of the water point for point...

[Nightmare20]

I like the 3x Genestealer Broods + Broodlord with Pref Enemy for more fluffy games but it also forces the player to react to the list which puts you at an advantage (Genestealers vs Grav Cents) and same goes for Deathleaper's Assassin Brood. You can force some very interesting reactions from an imperial armor parking lot when 6 lictors deepstrike behind them, close enough to wreck rear armor with luck (S6 Rending vs AV 10-12) and too close to blast with pie plates without movie closer to your incoming models.

Skyblight is just killer but dictates the entire list. Bioblast pales in comparison to the supped up Biovores and Exocrine free of FoC and come with synapse to boot.

[metrognome]

well both come with pretty much the same warrior synapse... Bioblast just costs double with an inferior bonus...
Still a good pick if you run these popular and effective models anyway... but not really a goal to strive for...

The main problem with the Stealer formations and to a lesser extent the Endless Swarm and Incubator...
is losing objective secured... Objective Secured is about the only thing stealers and gants have going for them...
especially the Broodlord hunting pack because it only allows one BL... Manufactorum is better because you can have many BL... and Hit and Run...
Still neither (nor the Incubator) is worth losing objective secured... the loss in Endless Swarm is forgivable because the bonus is pretty awesome...
If the broods in Endless Swarm retained Objective Secured it would be vying with Skyblight for top spot...

[fuzzwyr]

I'm playing Deathleaper's Assassin Squad all the time, with two Genestealer squads with Broodlord für -3 MW on the Horror and two Mawlocs - quite fun, if You can handle go to ground and falling back. And great synergy, if You roll for Psi: Mental Scream (is this the name in english?) or Fear of the Lictors...

[Freeman]

Skyblight has the same issue. You pay a huge tax of three sub par units (harpies and to a lesser degree the crone) for another flyrant and OS gargoyles.

Once again you'd be better off with a second CAD. Unfortunately second CADs break the game completely and won't be seen at any serious competitive events so are largely irrelevant in a discussion of competitive builds.

Plus skyblight had its time in the sun before the nerfs to vector strike and smash and didn't Win anything then either so considering it to be a top tier build in relation to tourney winning lists seems optimistic.

[gigasnail]

problem with SB is that while it had a serious nerf to its damage output (along with a greatly appreciated but by no means equally compensatory buff to FMC survivability), it's still a natural counter to a number of issues the codex faces and seems to continue to do well. blasts, knights, etc.

going to be a nice boon to airwolf/air cav lists too (5 or so of the new SW flyers, 3 of which are OS) which i think are going to give some other list builds lots of problems.

i do agree we can probably do mostly the same with CAD/self ally though, aside from the ressurecting OS gargoyles, while retaining flexibility that we loose a lot of because of SB's pricetag.

[gigasnail]

bioblast would be better, except that with a crone, you have a much more maneuverable S6 template weapon on a hard to hit/jink platform that is also a at least decent AA option (if no longer the all-star it once was). a tfex is a specialist anti-infantry unit (and egrub platform) and was hit nearly as hard as the crone with the smash nerf. it's not just a warrior tax, for the 3 fex broods, it's a warrior + tfex tax when you may (or may not) want that tfex. i've sort of gravitated away from them because of the threats from podded melta and grav bike scout/spam, and the soon to be seen grav centurians in pods.

[coredump]

The reason you take skyblight, is for the OS returning gargs...