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Post by No One on Aug 18, 2019 12:04:58 GMT
The all three involve triple battalions and I'd like to see what you guys think. That you should make your own thread, rather than hijacking mine (it's long enough already ). That said, while I haven't really played with those lists, I think the idea behind them is OK. But there's stuff I don't agree with in both (which is better will depend heavily on meta i.e. how much light infantry screens there are for the vultures to actually do anything against). More specifically: don't like the aberrant+field commander, esp with TH: the charge is risky even at 7", so you PA. And then you don't need the pts and CP for a +1: heck, for a similar reason you could drop the clamavus as well, though that's not terrible for a bit of surety (you could take abominant instead of primus since you still need the HQ, but you're already tight on CP and primus gives reroll 1s). In a similar vein, you don't have a clamavus for the FAE det: why FAE then? 8" charges aren't good enough. So again, you're restricting yourself to PA: which is not a bad choice, but you've got 3 units, and have the det and reroll WL, so...is this just a mix-up in list? I don't like biophagus, esp for 1 aberrant squad. The TL;DR is that I think list 1 is trying to do too many things with too little CP, while list 2 is...I dunno? The 5 man aberrant squad feels eh.
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Post by No One on Aug 18, 2019 14:09:15 GMT
Anyway, back on track. Had 5 games at a team tournament today/yesterday. I went pretty well, going 4-1 (team did...less well, 1-1-3). Will try and do up more in depth thoughts about games/overall etc over the week (please poke me if about this). My list: Battalion (Four Armed) (Vigilus: Broodsurge) HQ Primus 75 HQ Iconward 53 Elite Kelermorph 60 Elite Nexos 50 Elite Clamavus 55 Troops Acolytes (20, 3 saws, banner) 180 Troops Acolytes (20, 3 saws, banner) 180 Troops Acolytes (20, banner) 150 Troops Acolytes (20, banner) 150 Troops Acolytes (17, banner) 129
Battalion (FAE) HQ Magus (familiar, crouchling) 92 HQ Patriarch (Familiar) (WL) 137 Troops Acolytes (20, 15 hand flamers, 5 demo charges) 180 Troops Brood Brothers (10) 40 Troops Brood Brothers (10) 40 HS HWT (3xMortar) 39 HS HWT (3xMortar) 39 HS HWT (3xMortar) 39
Battalion (Kraken) HQ Neuro 90 HQ Neuro 90 Troops Gaunts (14) 56 Troops Gaunts (10) 40 Troops Rippers (3) 33
Total: 1997
The 5 games, quick run down: Game 1: Vs guard, 6-7 guardsmen squads, 3 basilisks+wyvern (Vigilus), tank commander (Vigilus), shadowsword and 3 hellhounds. Was a tad concerned about the IG match up with move move move, but this ended up going almost exactly to plan. Show up, hostage a unit while killing some screens, hand flamers kill off the rest of the screens and deny scoring, other stuff shows up as needed to try and kill stuff and secure position. Didn't actually end up killing much (killed the shadowsword and 1 hellhound that I hostaged for...3 turns or something), but I had most of the board and he wasn't able to shoot anything of relevance for 3 turns, so...yeah. 17-3 Game 2: Vs GSC+nids. Aco squad, flamer bomb, jackals and 40 stealers with swarmy. This was a bit of a messy game, neither of us really played it as well as we could've. But basically, I started some stuff on board, 1 stealer squad charged screens then died to the counter charge, the other died to PA'd flamers (Generations lying in wait). He went first, had to show up with everything else, I counter charged onto the board, killed all his threats and most of his scoring. Unfortunately ended with a rushed (my) T4, but it ended with me having 2.5 aco squads just outside his DZ, with him having nothing left but some BB stuff and the mal. 16-4 Game 3: Similar to game 1, but trading the shadowsword for more guardsmen, and my opponent didn't know the value of move move move. So I didn't even need to worry about him denying objectives: I showed up, consistent easy hostages (scout sentinels are nice for that), worked my way through the guardsmen. 20-0 Game 4: Triple heldrake, triple disco lord, triple deredeo and a leviathan, all with butchers and havoc launchers. I hadn't played the list at all: I knew what it was capable of, but not how best to play around that. Ended up massively misplaying: went all in on charges, but he'd screened well with heldrakes, I (just) couldn't make on disco lords. Will unpack later (this is the game I most want to run through and get other people's thoughts on this), but TL;DR. I showed up, killed nothing important, he picked up half my army (and I just realised I completely forgot an aco squad. Woops . Probably wouldn't have changed much though). Then the rest of the game was just me going for points as he killed the rest of my army. Early/mid game scoring almost carried me, but went to T6 and ended up being a middling loss. 4-16. Also, fun fact: the only game I went 1st. Game 5: 90 plaguebearers, 60 bloodletters. Not much to say, opponent didn't know how to play against me well. I got a T1 charge, got onto objectives right next to his DZ to contest, and just worked through the plaguebearers while scoring 4/6 objectives. Showed up, killed more, denied bloodletters anywhere to go. Easy 20-0. Overally, list went well. Had less 'show up and murder things' opportunities than I was hoping, ended up playing more like a DS stealers list with 6" pile in instead of fall back and charge, but hey. Still not sure if I've got any hope against Flyer spam/Custodes, but I think they're the only match ups that I don't really have answers to. Other match ups (e.g. Game 4, Tau, knights, guard with cc clears) aren't necessarily great, but should be OK as long as I've got the practice.
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Post by kazetanade on Aug 18, 2019 20:29:09 GMT
I can weigh in on the dreadnought list since I played it like 4 or 5 times.
One of the major things the player was most afraid of the whole time was MTO and the inability to kill that many models in the 1 turn he supposedly gets after the drop.
So the key here is to kill the Disco Lords, then get wrapped into the shooting Dreads, who can still shoot into you in combat but it costs CP.
Most of what I threw at him fails to kill him - a stock 20 guys doesn't kill the Dreads. 3 Saws and 20 guys might do it, not sure. You can definitely try wrapping, but with the Discolords out to play the Acolytes go missing every quickly - everything is -2ap with like 15A in total, so a unit should be wiped. The fnp on Abbys were a huge factor in their survivability when assaulted.
I succeeded mostly on Abbys that went in on S8 and managed to pick up 2 or 3 of them per unit, being able to soak damage like mad with the fnp and fight when die made sure the trades were always right. In fact I never used fight when die. This was made possible from poor positioning (he went aggressive to take me out early, Abbys in the board had a word to say), leaving no way to screen on shooty dreads.
A shooting element is definitely in the list - BC Lasers with WLT and Alphus took out a targeted Discolord every game they were in it, and usually maimed a 2nd model. I can see this working against wyverns or TCs, for example, forcing a lot of focus thereafter since you need to kill all 10 models to stop the Lasers. Changing that for more 20 man Acolytes didn't feel like it would do well.
A quick spreadsheet I made from the file you sent me tells me that I need 5-6 Saws to kill anything from that list, 3 Saws 20 man with Draw and Primus might be able to do it. Same with Might and Primus, but one is less effective than the other. 4 Saws need a LOT of buffs to make it work and I wouldn't really consider it.
On a side note, a 6 saw unit needs both Might and Draw to deal with the 4++ Knight. I don't think we can kill a 4+ to wound 4++ Knight with Acolytes.
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Post by No One on Aug 19, 2019 1:04:21 GMT
I can weigh in on the dreadnought list since I played it like 4 or 5 times. One of the major things the player was most afraid of the whole time was MTO and the inability to kill that many models in the 1 turn he supposedly gets after the drop. So the key here is to kill the Disco Lords, then get wrapped into the shooting Dreads, who can still shoot into you in combat but it costs CP. Most of what I threw at him fails to kill him - a stock 20 guys doesn't kill the Dreads. 3 Saws and 20 guys might do it, not sure. You can definitely try wrapping, but with the Discolords out to play the Acolytes go missing every quickly - everything is -2ap with like 15A in total, so a unit should be wiped. The fnp on Abbys were a huge factor in their survivability when assaulted. The issue was that the helldrakes added a third screen layer: there was literally 1 disco lord I could charge (I actually tried to charge the WL, which was slightly further away with PA, but didn't pre-measure well enough and would've needed a high roll to attempt), and almost no way to get even close to the dreads (I could've PA'd a single squad off in his backline, but that would've only reached 2 dreads and left me with no way to reliably get to disco lords). Considering that the 3 squads I showed up with couldn't even quite clear the helldrakes (killed 1, 1 to 1 wound, last uncharged with a failed charge, which was unfortunate but not unreasonable)? The other issue with MTO for my list is...just the shear lack of space to put everything. Now, on going over the game and what I did, I could've MTO'd better: drop the 17 man in his backline with PA, charge 2 dreads to cut down shooting and steal objectives for a chunk of VP. Everything else drops as I did except a saw squad. Part of the issue here is then that I maybe don't even kill a helldrake without PA on the saw squad, especially since I failed might. But that doesn't matter too much. The bigger issue is that, even tying up two dreads, I think he could've killed everything. I don't think the disco lords actually charged, pretty sure everything just died to shooting. So take out some shooting, add some charges, maybe I have a 20 man left because of having to kill the 17 man as well? Not nice either way. Edit: Tying into this is part of the reason I'm considering abbys instead of one of the squads. Smaller footprint for basically the same output. Don't know if that would've actually helped here, but maybe for the MTO if I drop literally everything??? The flip side of this is that the flexibility of PA somewhere else with obsec is pretty key to the list, and would've done more than an abby charge. So they would've been going for a 7" no/only CP reroll, which is eh. What I think I should've done was played cagey back: the mission was very hard for him to score on, so I maybe should've just taken maelstrom points T2 and made him have to make the play. But then...the play he could've made was possibly just deny me the centre (EW) objective with the helldrakes, while still using them to deny me good charges. Maybe not feasible, but if it was? That'd be game there.
Well, there's your problem . My opponent knew how to play the match up and played cagey. I didn't and died horribly. Yeah, it's something that I've thought about, but I've only got 4 mining laser models and have also shelled out more than I want to on Cult for the moment, so...something to keep an eye out for on the cheap, but I don't think that's going to work short term. I do like the idea, and especially something to consider with the flamer/demo squad as well. That came in and rolled hot, knocked his WL disco lord down to 3 wounds: with rerolls to wound and full commitment of the hand flamers on it? Unfortunately, that was not the one I could actually charge: see what I mean about making mistakes . I was perfectly fine just killing disco lords (where either might or draw blood kills without even saws) and touching dreads, which was basically my game plan. It just didn't work out that way . Silly Kazetanade: enough acolytes can kill anything . But yeah, it's not even close to easy: you need basically 2 full squads (stock: saws hardly help, getting ~0.5 more wounds than stock), full primus buffs and might+draw on one. Which is doable, but unless it's basically the only thing on the table worth trying to kill? Welp.
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Post by kazetanade on Aug 19, 2019 1:51:48 GMT
If he's playing cagey then the only thing you can do is try to force his hand really - if you can pop 2 kills and an objective every turn you've got it made basically on scoring. Granted you need to survive on the table, but you have enough chaff to do it. It's definitely a hard matchup for us if they know what they're doing, so just like Trapdoor we need to force them to act, or have another way of blowing the door open somehow.
Honestly if the enemy doesn't have this great tide of ignore LOS shooting I think Cults best chance of victory is the feed 1 kill 2 strategy. MTO only works if you can get kills on the drop and can't be taken out completely and can still reach the enemy, which is a trio xombi I haven't seen from Acolytes. Dropping 60 dies like flies if you don't get the wrap.
Edit: on the flip I'm surprised the AM list went well. Last time I faced one, a unit of Bullgryns were a problem I had to deal with before touching tanks. I dealt with them but lost to stupid reasons (denying spells with out of range psyker, take backs and removing units that were caught in wrap, and a lot of questionable). If all went well it still would not be easy. Granted I also had more Abysmal chargers (Saw Acos failed their game winning charge with 3 1s with reroll), and poor damages and saves (SL not totalling a vehicle like he's supposed to, failing saves in OW, failing Stomp saves), and less bodies. But in my head I don't see that would be an easy matchup regardless.
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Post by No One on Aug 19, 2019 4:16:20 GMT
If he's playing cagey then the only thing you can do is try to force his hand really - if you can pop 2 kills and an objective every turn you've got it made basically on scoring. Yeah, that was basically my thoughts on what I should've done after everything died: try and contest on scoring, 2/3 CP a unit each turn to take objectives as I could. The problems with that strat: A: Still not ITC . B: Plenty of stuff for him to kill in the mortars/BB/gaunts/whatever I drop. And we're playing KP, so...that's the only reason he won. C: Almost everything had to come on T3 anyway. I'm not sure if I'd get enough from neither of us doing much for one extra turn. The big problem with this is, for acos (except maybe something crazy like 20 max saws: I doubt even 15 5 saws could do it) can't reliably kill 2 reasonably tough targets without buffs. And buffs mean Characters who die if I don't bring in more units to protect them. He did . Everything had havoc launchers, and the only LoS blocker was a central bastion anyway: good enough to hide my Characters (just: it was almost pushed out by his helldrakes), but nothing else. The only reason my entire army didn't evaporate T1 was the 36" range on the butcher cannons. Luckily I never played an IG list with bullgryns: there were a few there, but I'm pretty sure the majority didn't have them, so I don't think it was super likely. How much is meta, how much is team tournament/not top tier teams? But considering how heavily I dominated on board, I think bullgryns would be OK. Lists without better than lists with, for sure, but they need to engage on the hostage unit, which exposes them to a counter charge. And then I should be in basically the same position I was in for both games: one less acolytes squad, but that's fine. (It mightn't go quite that well, but that's why it's one of the match ups I want to at least play). It sounds like you lost more to (extreme) bad luck and a poor form opponent than it being an actual counter list. Not a cakewalk or anything, but still.
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Post by kazetanade on Aug 19, 2019 5:36:46 GMT
15 with 6, with Might and Draw will be able to kill 2 tough units, IIRC - may need to math that. But definitely big unit with max saws full Primus Might and Draw will do the trick, since it simulates a 4 saw full buff. Could kill 2 Knights with no invuls even, if the positioning is perfect.
Yea I lost to not the list, but the list was not straightforward for me to handle. The issue would be that Acolytes charging into Bullgryns don't do much - I had to stack every buff on hand (Primus Draw Might Overthrow BCWLT) to take down the Bullgryn squad. That's a 7 man squad with mix shields, 1+ and 3++ and 3W; so you wound on a 5+ up to 3+, 3s and 4s save on a 2+, rends and Saws save on a 3++, and at least 2 saw saves to kill 1 Bullgryn. Bullgryns overkill on the counter so they could double charge 2 units. It's a really good trade.
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Post by No One on Aug 19, 2019 6:40:33 GMT
15 with 6, with Might and Draw will be able to kill 2 tough units, IIRC - may need to math that. But definitely big unit with max saws full Primus Might and Draw will do the trick, since it simulates a 4 saw full buff. Could kill 2 Knights with no invuls even, if the positioning is perfect. Sounds about right (depends on invul: I think it'd be risky with the 5++). But as I mentioned, Characters are going to die if they show up with a single squad, so I'd be trading 2 for 2 (KP), probably ~even points, but also losing large amounts of resources in CP/Char buffs. Unless I'd shown up with them in the backline? Don't think I could've fit them safely though, especially with triple helldrake. So many different lines of play, really need to run through this properly and do some testing. True, will need to have a look at how tanky they get (had forgotten about barrier. Edit: Yeah, 7 could be an issue to kill, I was thinking more 4-5). The one time I've faced bullgryns with GSC I killed 2 with demo charges and the 3rd was sort of irrelevant. The overkill is (questionably) fine, since I'm rarely going to drop 2 units unless I'm getting something very good out of it (either important kills rather than just hostages or objectives): so I've either already traded by killing something, and would have Characters to attempt hyp/horror/deny (none guaranteed, but options) or it's only a single expendable unit anyway.
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Post by kazetanade on Aug 19, 2019 12:47:10 GMT
I honestly think you should run also with 1 unit of TH Abberants. They are an absolute beast with the proper buffs - like mentioned, when given Primus + Icon, they will kill 1 tough thing, while giving them Might and Abom in addition will let them kill 2 Disco Lords in 1 combat rotation (Hypermorphs +2 Guys will kill 1, 5 guys will kill the other, so 1 for buffs, if you use the reroll 1 strategem you can use 3 guys for buffs remove 1 per side), so assuming poor placement that's 4 dead Disco Lords/Heldrakes.
With Fight Again, these guys basically trade like Monsters, similar to how Genestealers could have traded like Monsters if they could kill vehicles reliably.
Problem is probably getting buffs in place since you have such heavy FAE already.
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Post by No One on Aug 19, 2019 13:19:58 GMT
Problem is probably getting buffs in place since you have such heavy FAE already. Yeah, had been thinking about it (and similarly with the BC idea). And while token BC/TH doesn't break anything running mixed, there's no buffs except might to go around. Don't really want to shell out another 75 pts for primus for one unit, icon usually has better things to be doing...It'd basically require an entire list re-write to fit in a 2nd TH battalion, at that point go double aberrants (which I don't quite have either), and I'm pretty happy with how my list's been doing. I'll try out FAE abby's next game (whenever that ends up being ), see how they go: replacement that shouldn't cost me much, the mortars/kelermorph haven't really impressed.
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Post by No One on Aug 31, 2019 12:29:06 GMT
Played a game with the aberrants instead of mortars+kelermorphs, against new SM. And...they underperformed. Now, to be fair they had no buffs, and generally rolled poorly: but a 20 man acolyte squad probably could've chained to buffs, and would've had (at worst) draw blood to essentially put them on parity with the aberrants. Now, on the flip side they did quite well tanking stuff: I think I rolled a bit over, and as always there's the pts disparity between a 20 man aco and aberrants, but I think there's still potential there. Especially since they're 'replacing' a single <20 man unit. But, I think I need to play them a bit differently: need to play them with my Character blob, while I generally like to play the PA aco squad split. Either completely, or with a daisy chain+saws if that's an option. Neither of which abberants can really do. So...it's either 7" charge, no rerolls, or PA and...acos either daisy chain or can't do anything? Anyway, apart from that, the other new things I was testing worked well. Flamers showed up, killed a 10 man intercessor squad with rerolls: rolled above average, but with the demo charges I think it was pretty likely I killed the squad anyway. Didn't really miss kelermorph (though would've done some work against primaris) or mortars. Broodlord was cool: I liked the extra options with the melee punch, didn't really miss the extra smite, though the lack of save was a problem (rolled 5 6s for the auto wound squad in overwatch , killed 3/5 and then died next turn). New SM have so much anti-infantry shooting/combat...
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Post by kazetanade on Sept 1, 2019 8:34:32 GMT
Played a game with the aberrants instead of mortars+kelermorphs, against new SM. And...they underperformed. Now, to be fair they had no buffs, and generally rolled poorly: but a 20 man acolyte squad probably could've chained to buffs, and would've had (at worst) draw blood to essentially put them on parity with the aberrants. Now, on the flip side they did quite well tanking stuff: I think I rolled a bit over, and as always there's the pts disparity between a 20 man aco and aberrants, but I think there's still potential there. Especially since they're 'replacing' a single <20 man unit. But, I think I need to play them a bit differently: need to play them with my Character blob, while I generally like to play the PA aco squad split. Either completely, or with a daisy chain+saws if that's an option. Neither of which abberants can really do. So...it's either 7" charge, no rerolls, or PA and...acos either daisy chain or can't do anything? Anyway, apart from that, the other new things I was testing worked well. Flamers showed up, killed a 10 man intercessor squad with rerolls: rolled above average, but with the demo charges I think it was pretty likely I killed the squad anyway. Didn't really miss kelermorph (though would've done some work against primaris) or mortars. Broodlord was cool: I liked the extra options with the melee punch, didn't really miss the extra smite, though the lack of save was a problem (rolled 5 6s for the auto wound squad in overwatch , killed 3/5 and then died next turn). New SM have so much anti-infantry shooting/combat... One thing I noticed but didnt talk about is how an Abby heavy list forced me to sit centre field - I had to drop them at the front where the buffs could be reached, then force them up slowly and strangle the enemy with appropriate wraps. They often absorb 70 to 80% of the enemy's shooting themselves, which is value if I can get multiple fronts, but less useful if I had to come swinging from the front and they have space to just fallback. If you drop them back of enemy, then you'll have some very serious issues on T3 drop because buffs are in bad places. BC Reroll is amazing innit? I killed 5/6 Aggressors with bloody Lasguns and Webbers. But only works if they have 1 of these units to focus - I on average lose 20 of those guys after this drop, so it's about how much value they get on the drop, which can be pretty high if you send Mining Lasers into Tanks and everything else into your reroll target. So with the BC + Abby + FAE Aco, I get a 3 flank drop on T2/T3 and that really does a number on threat overload, as compared to the TH heavy drop I tried at first. If there's good placing to put them all on T2, the game is basically over - I struggled the most against lists with a lot more small but painful units, like the new SM with multiple Intercessors, Sternguards, Aggressors, Infiltrators, and Grav Cannons. There are something like 6++ units that could put the hurt heavily on me in combat and in shooting, I only have the equivalent of 4, and that makes things dicey.
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Post by No One on Sept 1, 2019 10:44:35 GMT
One thing I noticed but didnt talk about is how an Abby heavy list forced me to sit centre field - I had to drop them at the front where the buffs could be reached, then force them up slowly and strangle the enemy with appropriate wraps. They often absorb 70 to 80% of the enemy's shooting themselves, which is value if I can get multiple fronts, but less useful if I had to come swinging from the front and they have space to just fallback. If you drop them back of enemy, then you'll have some very serious issues on T3 drop because buffs are in bad places. This is (broadly) my strategy with the acolytes, in this list just changing out an aco squad to the aberrants. I was just facing SM with infiltrators on both flanks denying DS. Came in T2 and killed one and an aggressor squad, but there wasn't really anywhere to drop more than two squads usefully: considering that the aberrants/saws could chill in reserve, while the other 2 squads couldn't? Thought it was better to trade, then trade again (while scoring) than bank on having removed enough firepower that he couldn't chew through 40 acolytes and 10 aberrants, especially considering it would've been difficult to try and squeeze in another 10 aberrants. May have worked though. I think he only had enough to kill of the flamers, while the other 20 man was just finished off by Characters in combat, so aberrants would've probably lived: just don't quite have a handle on my damage/his damage. Could've been very awkward if the intercessors lived though, and he still had a squad in reserve, so wasn't sure how much damage I would've been taking. Not sure what the 'optimal' play would've been, but I don't think the idea behind the T2/3/4 drops was bad, it just didn't work with aberrant vs acolyte positioning for buffs. I looked at MTO as a bit more of a gamble: thought that the T4 drops would have enough damage to close out the game, which...maybe if I'd played them right, and/or they'd made the charge?
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Post by kazetanade on Sept 1, 2019 18:32:58 GMT
Honestly I think that the Abberants are only* great because of 2 things:
1. Annointed Throng allowing them to Fight Back when they die, hence always being a threat to whatever charges them. Honestly my Abbys have made their points back when they get stuck in purely from the Fact they get to Fight, Wrap/Fight Again into another Wrap, then Fight when Die, then Fight; I always lose the first unit by the end of T1 in combat, but they always kill 3 units or more in return.
2. Twisted Helix Fight Again giving me some real threat and trade potential. If I was fine with losing models, I could basically do a Fight into a Fight Again to completely wipe the few units I engage with. Abberants are very very very good at wiping units if they focus their whole unit into beating it into a pulp - most of my issues have been with splitting attacks to deal with several things at once. Like Genestealers, this also allows them to get wraps after securing Kill (and almost always Kill More later) - and truth be told, I rather wrap with an Abberrant shield than an Acolyte shield, because Acolytes will NOT survive the retaliation from SM guys charging into them. Pistol shots will wipe about 3 to 5, then another unit charging will wipe around 7 or 8 minimum, and the wrap unit will take out another 3 or 4.
Other than thes, I feel like Acolytes do the job better. 15 guys with Primus and +S banner kills about 6 Primaris. They're much more disposable, especially with the Patriarch at the back. They pair really well with the Abberants going ham somewhere and just wrecking face and forcing people to focus the Abberants. The key to them both is the MTO I think - it's not so much the "I hope I do enough damage to live through this,", but it's more of "I have too much problems for you to deal with at once so next turn I will definitely bash your face in". Since we have a limited number of units that we can fit into DS (points constraints, 50% units and points on table constraints, etc), the ability to flood the board full of disposable threats puts us on parr with Space Marines' new ability to control the midfield so well. The BC guns have helped a lot so far honestly but it takes up 6 bloody DS slots.
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Post by No One on Sept 3, 2019 3:38:00 GMT
True. The idea behind the aberrants in this list is that they're (essentially) more tanky acolytes, maximising survivability in reserve without sacrificing damage. It does sacrifice some flexibility though, but I've still got 4 20 man squads for objectives/hostaging etc, so I think the added flexibility from the aberrants would be better? Mortars just seem to give up KP too easily a lot of the time, kelermorph doesn't do much, and I like the broodlord swap so far. I think it'd need a fair bit of practice before I get any real improvements over the acolytes though, so something to just have on the backburner and keep testing, but will stick with the previous acolyte spam list for tournaments for the moment (bonus points since it's painted and doesn't have WYSIWYG issues ). Though the idea of swapping kelermorph for a broodlord and some more gaunts has some appeal as well. While I could go with TH or throng, I don't think I have the CP to fuel those, making them pretty meh: 1 CP isn't too much for the anointed option though... As an aside regarding pt 2: my game plan for hostaging into SM is just to keep my Characters alive. I'm dead to shooting or dead to assault unless I can fit everything in, but hostaging means that they can't kill anything else and have to be out of position. Aberrants may live from that though, yes: something I hadn't considered, but aberrant wraps are harder to do, esp with maximising damage/buffs to stay alive. As above, practice which I have less time to do at the moment .
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