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Post by kazetanade on Sept 8, 2019 17:03:13 GMT
mrdodoSoooo, the Pick Your Poison thing was less of a factor than I'd imagine. Although people should have the ability to pick these things out, they basically have to come into my deployment zone to pick it out - Whirlwinds and Landspeeders are small and easy to hide in basic ruins, and Bikes can hide all day long. They're never getting Tiggy as long as I have a frontline left. What I had an issue with was the fact that the Whirlwinds were really, really, really, really, really bad. Due to the forward moving nature of this list, I couldnt just sit them in the back and plink wounds off of infantry for Kill 1 every turn. 2 barely did enough damage to hurt 1 Servitor squad. So they had to be removed, no questions. The mid-ground terrain was really important. Now, pretty much every SM player looking at my game told me I was screwed over by the terrain set on that particular day, and the list I was fighting was a natural counter (AdM with lots of ignore LOS shooting and some SM shooting support, everything other than Skiitari Rangers and Servitors was T5 and up). Putting the specific list aside, I think the game was difficult with how the list relies on MTO - overwhelm the enemy at one moment and deprive him of the guns to deal with what's on the table. So that means the Sternguard, Devestators, and Aggressors need to be in range to do stuff at the same time. Aggressors are the tough one because they move slow and are short ranged, so moving them properly and quickly is the no.1 priority. This list needs to sit in the centre of the field or near it to be useful, so the middle terrain will determine whether it works well or not. It holds midground, scores Recon + King of the Hill, and bides time until the enemy puts themselves in a position to be flanked or concentrated on with all guns at the same time. List changes include removing the Speeder for the 3rd Biker squad, Whirlwinds to Devestators, and removing the Intercessors to make space for the Devestators. As far as I can figure, Bikes deny back access, scouts deny front access and score recon/KotH, Devestators try to take out whatever long range anti-infantry LOS guns there are, then good luck from that point onwards.
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Post by kazetanade on Sept 10, 2019 17:25:20 GMT
mrdodoJust as a further update, I got a rematch against the same list (having difficulty finding other practice partner). For some reason he lost 2 Skorpius worth of LOS shooting and replaced it with the 48" straight shot big gun (probably as an anti-Knight measure since the rest of his list doesnt hurt Knights much). His Breachers all became Destroyers as well, so it was the de-facto AdMech list that should be running around. The loss of the LOS shooting from his side was a great impact - him losing those extra 6d3 of shooting meant that my Scouts and Bikes that were hidden away actually survived long enough for me to score objectives every single turn, losing them mostly only when they had to grab objectives out in the open. If I was going first, I probably would not have gone for the Obj grabbing route, but would have focused on taking out his LOS killing guns first. Aggressors being in an extremely aggressive position often was a big deal and a big part of how I could secure mid-field regardless of whether I lost the Aggressors or not. Being able to drop my stuff in not-suicidal positions was also a big thing of why I survived - unfortunately this list doesnt have the firepower to take out the AdMech list on my drop, due to the large number of invuls and the Cover save everywhere making it extremely hard to kill. (Like srsly, Kastellans are T7 W6 3+ 5++ (+1 save)(+cover), and Kataphron Destroyers are T5 W3 4+ 6++ (+cover) (+1 invul in detachment), with +1 to Hit on strategem and +1 to Hit on character. It's really madness), so being able to deny a portion of his guns and take out key targets one at a time, a drop at a time, while not dying off straight, contributed to a large part of my success. Positioning of buffs is extremely difficult - on one hand, I accidentally made my Warlord the Smash Cap who wants to get into the action, on the other hand I need buffs on my Devestators to be effective on T1 but they're far in the back (4+ rr1 is pretty not good). I am thinking of putting the Devestators up close upfront, but that's only if I can get good terrain and they dont have crazy immense wipe everything off guns like AdMech has. You literally cant show your face because whatever shows their face will die. I could make the other Captain into a Chapter Master instead so that they get 4+ rr everything, which is decent. I also have an option of putting the Sternguards out on the table with the Aggressors, then dropping the 3 Devestators and Buffs into the pods instead, but range difficulties... 48" + 24" dont match well together. I'm probably thinking of making the Captain the Chapter Master and give him an additional warlord trait, and give the Smash Cap a really ballsy type of WLT (like reroll charge + extra A on charge for like, 7A on the charge). I probably still want the Seal to reroll for the Sternguard and Aggressors, because the Missles wound most things on 3s anyway and the Grav already rerolls wounds. This list is a lot harder for Melee armies to crack, but shooting armies do have a decent time against it if you cant claim good LOS Blocking cover. Once this list gets into good cover though its extremely difficult to flush out (RG would be tougher to be honest), and if there are magic boxes in the middle then basically you score Recon and KotH for free every turn/game and that will almost guarantee your victory from then on. Now that I actually have 1 game under my belt and some time to study the codex and available combinations, I'm feeling a lot more confident in this list. It's not an easy list to play but it's really flexible in choices and able to deal with most threats, although not optimally - but at least I am NEVER. EVER. forced to just sit there and hope I hang on long enough to not lose.
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Post by mrdodo on Sept 12, 2019 22:10:48 GMT
hmmz that sounds interesting. I will be facing a white scar list in my first battle this weekend (and probably more to come after that). As you said, close combat armies will have a hard time beating lists like this, so we will see what happens. (fighting 2 repulsors and 3 invictors, smash captain on bike + some buffs is never fun).
I guess going after his buffs is not a bad idea as I can make up from your story that the buffs make the gears in your army that more reliable, but to do that I have to weather at least 1 turn of shooting and get around 3 invictors in my line. (seriously those things are less armoured dreadnoughts but they still have 13 wounds each?)
After these battles you think the marine codex has more potential at the moment then tyranids (especially ITC)? (I will be dusting off my iron hands pretty soon)
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Post by kazetanade on Sept 16, 2019 15:40:15 GMT
So, I finished with a bad score of 2-3, with quite a few lessons learnt.
The first is that Sternguard don't have enough damage. They're great for finishing something off for the last 3 to 5 wounds, but they aren't going to take down the Deredeos or whatever else you shoot at. Probably they could only really kill infantry.
I made a mistake swapping out my Intercessors and Whirlwinds for Missle Launchers Devs. Intercessors and Aggressors were the actual real core of the list, because Missiles and Lascannons don't do enough against most meta lists - the presence of 4+ invuls or 2+ armor makes them not GREAT, and Knights with these stats make them not good. They could not really March with the rest of my army, and they didn't contribute enough hits for the type of damage I needed for overwatch baits. Left alone in a ruin without buffd they don't actually do all that much either. They probably should have marched together for the reroll buffs. They're just like Sternguard - finish off damage rather than bulk damage.
I made a lot of mistakes taking Recon and KotH at the same time, and my engineers didn't survive too well most of the time despite being T5 - the issue was that I needed them bikes to both grab Recon and to Engineer, and sometimes due to scouts dying to spammed ignore LOS shooting, they needed to grab KotH too. They're actually decent for Recon/KotH grabs due to the 3++ strategem, and decent for Engineer against many different LOS shooters, but Eliminators just hands down take the cake for their cost and hardiness ratio. None of my enemies were shifting an out of LOS Eliminator squad out of terrain in less than 3 turns, making them extremely good candidates to push up for KotH/Recon/Engineers instead of bikes, from T1. If they were in vision, a quick Transhuman basically makes them impossible to kill - unless there is no terrain in the middle, in which case you Engineer in the back.
I think I misunderstood the fundamental strength of the army and made wrong changes to it, and crippled it in a way that made it not function. I needed more volume of shots to break through invuls, and Missle Launchers just don't have a high enough failed saves rate to make that difference when it counts.
Some new changes saw a Chaplain and a Intercessors back in, so I now have 40 +108 shots of bolters in my deployment from T1, and with Seal rerolls and Chaplain/Sternguard +1 wounds, this will be enough to badly nail a Knight, maybe even kill outright. Drop Sternguard into RF range and Tac DOC the Intercessors for Rapid-fire, and you've got 170 shots that will blow anything away. Grav and Missiles will take a 2nd tank down, and the enemy shouldn't have the firepower to take out all of this. Its only concern is range, which I do suffer a big issue with for the Aggressors.
All in all I feel humbled. I assumed I was a better player than I am, and didn't perform to expectations. I will need to keep in mind I need a lot of practice with a concept to really get it into my head.
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Post by mrdodo on Sept 17, 2019 14:10:27 GMT
I ended up going 3-2 in the London GT (not sure which tournament you went too, if it was also London GT, it would have been cool to meet) with nids. I think you are right, with only 2 weeks to prepare you just cant get on the level you want with an army. with the few games you did in the tournament you already want changes. For me that is what the practice games is all about, learning the army but most of all finding out what works well and doesn't work well, or what misses in the army and change that. You probably do/did the same for your nid/gsc army, but not enough time to get all the missing parts in your marine list. The fact that you identified what went wrong in the games and what you want to change already means you are a good player, so don't look down on yourself! Also sometimes just nothing can be done. I was 3-1 with my only loss a small one vs a 3 knight list that normally should be doable but where my dice just were retarded. hive guard in 2 rounds (so 4 times shooting with single minded) did a total of 4 wounds on 1 knight. My bikes came in with all the shizzle to bomb another knight. I throw fricking yathzee of 1's on the number of grenades.. doing a grand total of 2 dmg in the end. So his 3 knights just controlled the middle field and took out my army slowly. I was bold enough to think that I could handle any army after already defeating a eldar flyer list and a white scars list, until I found out round 5 was vs litteraly a list tailored to take out a nid/gsc list... I got tabled in 3 turns, which for me never has happened before. Which put me on place 118 instead of around 23 if I had won Still I guess some things are outside of your reach, the only thing you can do is learn, play better and believe in the heart of the dice.
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Post by kazetanade on Sept 17, 2019 15:13:35 GMT
I ended up going 3-2 in the London GT (not sure which tournament you went too, if it was also London GT, it would have been cool to meet) with nids. I think you are right, with only 2 weeks to prepare you just cant get on the level you want with an army. with the few games you did in the tournament you already want changes. For me that is what the practice games is all about, learning the army but most of all finding out what works well and doesn't work well, or what misses in the army and change that. You probably do/did the same for your nid/gsc army, but not enough time to get all the missing parts in your marine list. The fact that you identified what went wrong in the games and what you want to change already means you are a good player, so don't look down on yourself! Also sometimes just nothing can be done. I was 3-1 with my only loss a small one vs a 3 knight list that normally should be doable but where my dice just were retarded. hive guard in 2 rounds (so 4 times shooting with single minded) did a total of 4 wounds on 1 knight. My bikes came in with all the shizzle to bomb another knight. I throw fricking yathzee of 1's on the number of grenades.. doing a grand total of 2 dmg in the end. So his 3 knights just controlled the middle field and took out my army slowly. I was bold enough to think that I could handle any army after already defeating a eldar flyer list and a white scars list, until I found out round 5 was vs litteraly a list tailored to take out a nid/gsc list... I got tabled in 3 turns, which for me never has happened before. Which put me on place 118 instead of around 23 if I had won Still I guess some things are outside of your reach, the only thing you can do is learn, play better and believe in the heart of the dice. I went to Ardkore which is one of the previously bigger events in Asia, which started only last year. We're soon to be shadowed by East China ITC, but for now we're still the largest (by 3 or 4 more players only...). We're nowhere near the size of London GT, having only about 38 to 40+ players. As for the HG and Bikers - those are exactly why I stopped using them. They just don't have the consistency to be a cornerstone, and while HG are an all-star carry unit, like most carries they need to have sufficient time in the game to get going and pick up steam. Hitting on 3s no rerolls wounding on 4s no rerolls for 1 round of bad results puts you heavily on the back foot. For GSC I never rely on bikes, due to the severe random swing. Same with Shock Guard - the random swing makes them either crazy effective or useless, and the useless(game losing) outweighs the crazy(win more). I wouldn't rely on flamers either if we had better options, but the flamers are too cheap and there's enuf contingency to do well even with some bad rolls in their intended use. The one game where I felt stupidly frustrated was vs a triple Deredeos, Double Armiger + Chaos Knight, Mortarion list. I set up my castle expecting and baiting Mortarion to charge, he ate my whole Aggressors and 8 Missiles and other bolters in Overwatch with full reroll to hit and wound, but only took like 7W when he was suppose to take 14 or 15. I was suppose to kill him in Heroic Intervention combat, which only did 3W after fight twice. This threw my whole game off very seriously, and because I had to take an extra turn to kill Mortarion (his + my T1 instead of just his T1), and with 2 free shooting phases his Deredeos just showered me with mortars and butchers(wherever he could see anyway) and whittled me down. It double hurt when I dropped my Sternguard and my Grav on the back line to take down soem of the Deredeos and lighten the load, and took out nothing instead. If I had the Intercessors and the Sternguard down instead of Missle Launchers, Mortarion probably wouldn't have lived to see Combat, which is the bait plan in a nutshell. Its these type of mistakes that I felt I should have seen, because they were fundamental principles to the gameplay, which I completely missed until it was way too late. If I was an actual good general, I would have been able to discern this straight from sight, while having a countermeasure to why I brought missles in the first place. When I play GSC, a well executed plan never has this element of "well, the dice failed me". The odds are stacked so heavily that even the worst case scenarios are totally under control. I think that's one of the reasons why GSC are so good - when you put things in the right place, it works like a charm, and victory feels so absolute. You only have yourself to blame if it goes belly up. But the new SM Transhuman and Shock Attack does make me question this a little, esp once they start abusing Chaplain buffs, auto hit/2+ to wound bolters, FTGG with full rerolls, Auspex Scan, -1dmg auras, T1 deepstrike, T1 charge and flamer walkers, and god knows what other type of new tricks. In any case, likely I will be playing the UM gunline awhile longer before moving to an Eldar army. There's a Harleyz concept floated that I want to brain cuz it looks hella fun to play - although I'm not as keen on the Nightspinners, everything else I like the looks of and basically uses what I like most about the armies.
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Post by mrdodo on Sept 20, 2019 13:59:40 GMT
Man, I tried playing marines yesterday for the first time ever.
I feel dirty now, I tables a t'au list in 2 turns without getting into close combat even though I let him go first.
Marines are a whole different league as tyranids at the moment.
You should never be able to do this while never playing marines before 😅
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Post by kazetanade on Oct 13, 2019 20:06:54 GMT
OK, so I'm going to a 3v3 event in Singapore sometime in early December, and instead of continuing the UM gunline I decided to change back to GSC - one of the big reasons is because Iron Hands is out, and that promotes a ridiculous amount of vehicles all with -1dam and 5++ and crazy repair speed, so my UM gunline would never be able to burn it down before being tabled.
One huge deal about IH is that they have some ridiculous anti-GSC power: they Overwatch on a 5+ strategem to 4+ (so if went CM instead of no Capt, you can expect to lose an Acolyte squad in Overwatch alone, I lost 10 guys from a 10 Devs unit so I expect charging a Repulsor to be 100% dead), and they cancel our Mass Hypnosis on a 4+ AFTER attempting the deny.
I also expect that whatever they shoot at is going to die - with all Heavy weapons, and having a strategem for 6 to wound = 2 saves, I can see them forcing a huge number of saves, with no save for us since everything is -2 minimum. 20 Man units are getting burnt to the ground, and Abberrants arent going to tank much of anything at all.
There is also this very ridiculous Leviathan which has 20 shots of S7 -3ap 2d, which is just a buttload of attacks and that's crazy IMO. It's got 24" range, so it's less powerful in other matchups, but against us it's pretty much a death sentence. The only consolation is that a Leviathan + 2 Repulsor Executioners = 1k points, so he doesnt have too much left to play with after these two, and if my read is right, 4/5 sets of Lasers into a Repulsor wont be enough to kill it - so I will need the 5 man bikers + the lasers to take 1 Executioner down from shooting (even then I feel super unconfident about it). It remains to be seen if I really have to take down the Executioner, but they do still have like 39-50 shots of anti-infantry on them (considering the Repulsor has about the same number of anti-infantry shots, the Executioner is crazy cheap), and they can be used to screen out with that annoying -2 to charge.
Edit: a couple of thoughts I had in regards to the new IH/SM-
- I think Overwatch is dangerous for us here. Assuming they do take a CM, that's 4+ OW for most things we can charge. Assuming it's the ubiquitous Leviathan + Double Repulsor list, then you would eat either 20 shots (for 15 hits) of Autocannon, or between 39-50 shots of anti-infantry, with next to or just no save. Acolytes charging would be eviscerated, or would die in combat - Abberrants lose between a third to half the unit, severely dropping its capability to perform. Allowing the enemy to actually Overwatch will be a death sentence. Even for like Intercessors, the damage you take going in is too severe - I only took a Dev squad to the face and bled out in the charge, let alone how much damage you take in combat thereafter. NOT TO MENTION, AUSPEX SCAN.
- With that in mind, they also have a deny strategem for 1cp, that denies on a 4+; World Eaters and old Black Templars had it and it was really powerful against any army that relied on a psychic spell to enable its army. Mass Hypnopsis becomes a really bad crutch when it can go poof in a 50-75% chance. So we must have some charger who can make a long charge of sorts. With Repulsors in play, things get super precarious.
- Then, how do you assault a Double Repulsor + Leviathan setup with Infiltrators, Ironstone, and Father centered around them? The simple answer is you cant, but they are so impaired by doing that, they give up the rest of the board - it becomes a necessity that we force them to castle and really play the board and grab everything else, and give them nothing to shoot with. With a move of only 10" and no double move, Repulsors cant pose a threat to our characters (although Eliminators will pose a super huge threat, unless we can pass off wounds all day long or hide out of sight because the ignore LOS shots arent that big a deal).
- The key will probably to assault the flank(s) and delay the enemy shooting phase as long as possible - single-timed drops that are powerful enough to wipe then grab something are probably parr the order. Shove them off their objective, or sneakily grab another (or suicide grab it every turn with some chaff). Being able to come down and shoot-kill one will also probably be helpful.
- The inability of our drop charges to reach things is a real mess - with Landspeeders, Bikes, and Scouts easily pushing back deepstrike past the Infiltrator bubble, we need a way to deal with these pesky forward pushers. I think bike units can do so, and I am going to try a bit of a Fearless table start with Patty and some guardsmen to take out the forward pushers. I usually have an Abby squad on the table too, so they can push up and wrap something while the Bikers and the Patty go forward and clear flanks.
- I am seriously questioning the role of Acolytes now - not because they cannot do work, but because the role they served is a bit unsteady. The Saws unit may not survive charging a Repulsor - the Flamerlyte unit has nothing to flame. They both have to drop and charge something to be useful (and I assume I can clear enough of the flank to open a space so they can access vehicles at the back), but 7" now becomes a 9" rerollable because PA is used on either the Abberrants or on the other Acolyte unit - and all this while, they're going to have to fight through -1dam and 5++, thereby nullifying the power of the Saw. With the Patty to clear out the flanks early on, and an Abominant to give me an easier OW denial charger (the 3 options were an Abominant with Clammy and WLT, an FAE Iconward with Clammy and WLT, or a Patriarch with PA), I dont have much if any points left to have Acolytes.
- There was also some consideration of starting the BC Neophytes on the table to clear out the flanks, but I'm not in agreement on this because I need both 1st turn and the right angling to clear out flanks. Starting BC Neophytes on the table is something I could consider as part of my Fearless March, but I would consider it as a main build itself rather than as part of an Abby list.
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Post by kazetanade on Oct 16, 2019 15:11:04 GMT
Sooooooo, new update: Terrain rules and placement scheme is out. Centre has 2 Ls facing out, one corner has a ruin, the other corner has a hill, and edge centres either have Forests or Magic Boxes. Diagonal reflection.
The Ls are impassable terrain and only half the size of the Nova ones - meaning Directly across is blocked by the L, anything behind the L is also blocked, but the angles are big so you dont have much space hide more than a handful of units (at least its bigger than the Bastion I got at the beginning of the terrain experimenting).
Because the Ls are impassable, and the angles are so huge you're not traversing the distance between the Ls without being shot to death, walking melee isnt going to work. It either has FLY, or it's coming down in Deepstrike.
Conversely, the middle setup is fantastic for a No LOS shooter to sit in, since it hides the unit well and quite possibly will give cover (by virtue have being based and hence "area terrain". Almost all deployment types will have access - other than DoW and Spearhead Assault, is my guess, but they're short distance maps so the Ruins will be fine for camping the LOS shooter.
This merits HG to be in a great position. Since the gun that looks at it is the TFC, you only lose like 2W to 3W to one every turn, possibly losing like 1 model per turn to Shoot Twice. The Skorpius and Relic WHirlwind are out of play now so it's safe for HG.
It also helps to solve my "being penned in by Scouts early game" problem. I tried the bikes today but unless they're really close to our deployment zone, the bikes arent useful and need to be pulled back into DS, hence costing more cp. It also solves the other things that were giving me issues like LandSpeeders, Eliminators (if in range), Infiltrators.
With Knights being featured less and less and less, I think Nids start to show more promise again. The original list of GS Sling isnt going to work right now, but maybe it doesnt have to. Gaunt Carpet is still a thing. What I CAN say is that although Nanavanti's list was working well for me (and it just won a Major? last week), it's not doing well for me with the new IH in town. It could probably work with more time, and very precise play. Shutting down the Overwatch/Deny strategems for eg, making sure charges work, and pairing the Lasers at the right moment. Stuff like that.
I will probably like to try out both a bit more before making a choice on either...
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Post by kazetanade on Nov 9, 2019 17:38:25 GMT
New updates! Good News: IH survivability has been nerfed so the Double Repulsor + Leviathan build isnt going to be up and around as often, although they remain a top contender because of Master Artisans being a thing. There's no need to buff vehicles with their Chapter Trait if you dont use a lot of vehicles (other than the mass Fliers build, which arguably does fine even heavy damage dealt to it), so give everything Cover and free salamander rerolls. Bad News: Salamanders were not nerfed to my knowledge, and they are a little Borked. I've also finally seen an RG list in action and it's actually pretty decently scary - if you are going 2nd, expect to be completely decimated by an RG army unless you're GSC, I think. I also saw WS and that 20+ inch first turn charge caught me by surprise (thankfully it seems only 1 relic bike can do it? But I got charged by 3 Characters that game on T1, no idea what's going on there), but 7" charging Assault Centurions are something to be feared and considered. Neutral News: Our Middle L's are going to be ruins and are gonna be huge apparently - I think they decided to copy the Nova Ls? So melee infantry are really good and can cut through the centre extremely quickly, which is great for GSC. Not so good for HG, because it means now not only Smash Caps and Fliers are going to screw it - any infantry unit that can cut the middle is going to screw it hard. It's assumed that the tournament turn out will be like: 40-60% SM/AdMech(supposedly the AdMech are converting to SM), 30% GSC, 10-30% Knights & Soup. With such a huge GSC expectation going down, I'm not actually keen to bring on GSC myself, because 1: there's going to be a fair bit of army counter-playing going on and Marines are hard enough without having players specifically looking to counter GSC strategies and 2: I dont want to play the mirror match, I cant get *any* experience at it at all and my one mirror match was weird as hell. I heard that Eldar Flier lists took a huge dump and arent good anymore esp in the new marine meta, so guess what I'm playing? Eldar Fliers! Inspiration and Base List Theory from follows: www.goonhammer.com/tournament-report-blood-and-glory-2019/Some changes from the above final list was removing a Serpent and some guns from everyone to get a 3rd CHE in, because 2 doesnt feel like it does any damage, and the fact I had 3 CHE in my game was one of the reasons I could stay in the game instead of being finished the moment he got his drop - 1.5 CHE take out 1 target with some certainty, 1 doesnt take 1 out with any certainty at all. It's essentially an Eldar take on the Tzeench/PB lists, with durable outer layers gunking up the board and a psychic core mass mortal wounds. 4 Smite casts and Yvraine's special smite, and 2-3 more Wave Serpent mortal wounds. It's got 3 distinct damage cores - the massive Mortal Wound core of characters, Planes, and a Wraith Knight, using the Planes and the Serpents as the durable outer core and the Knight as a piercing lance. Use the Fliers to pick up hard kills / screen the front of the characters (since you're not Alaitoc, you dont care about distance other than shot/not shot), the WS as the 2nd layer or as objective grabbers/recon grabbers, and attrition them into the end game where they have smattering of troops and chaff, and you've still got a smiting core that can hold its own vs leftovers. The problem vs Marines is that the T1 DS makes things very complicated. If you go 2nd, you're likely losing everything important in one go - Grav drop will pick up a plane easily, with Cherub quite possibly picking up a 2nd. Whatever the 2nd drop is, such as Salamander Flamers, or Melta, or Missle Launcher Devs/Landspeeders are going to be a real threat and can take out between 1-2 themselves. Transhuman makes them extremely hard for the above list to pick off after the drop, since it's all quality number of shots. Assuming its an RG drop, those are also Aggressors or Centurions in your face, and vs BA/WS there are actually flying units coming around to smash your planes from across the board. That T1 drop is so severe, and it goes 2nd too easily. The flip side is that if you can mitigate their T1 drop and then somehow manuver around them, you're almost home free? Or at least that's what happened for me - I manuvered away from a Salamander's Castle that came in on a quarter of the board, and fed him just enough in range to either split and hopefully not get his kills or feed 1 at a time. But his drop was so severe that I lost a lot of fighting prowress, losing a Hemlock and a Crimson Hunter, half of a 3rd plane, and losing 2 of my smiting characters to a surprise suicidal Smash Cap that I overlooked during deployment (almost lost all 4 characters, got lucky on the 4++). Marines have a fantastic T1 and T2 burst potential that's absolutely safe, and that makes them hard to work around. Right now I figure they have at least 3 or 4 usable builds, which involve drop alpha strikes, lots of invuls, and hard to kill/shoot characters, and well priced trading units. If you get penned in, then the game is pretty much over at that point, so it needs to be a point not to get penned in, or being able to mitigate a lot of their penning in damage. On the flip side - the bloody Eldar planes have been way harder to kill than I expected. T6 W12 3+ is doing extremely well, much better than I thought it would without the -2 or -3 to hit. The WK was also a bit of an all-star himself, scoring me 2VP by himself and removing the hard to kill T8 models and stupid stuff like Aggressors, and barring a bad roll in combat, would have stomped all over a unit of Flamer Sallies in combat. If I didnt let my SpiritSeer die, he'd have the 4++ to stroll into the enemy Grav after that and really start kicking things around. 5+, 5+, 7+(can be rr), 7+ rr for smite, then 5+ for YvSmite is pretty damn good honestly for consistency of damage. This Eldar list will take some finesse to play but I think the Character Star is a pretty easy concept to get into - once I learn the WK placement this should be a "go" list to take up.
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Post by kazetanade on Dec 5, 2019 17:19:22 GMT
Update: Army lists are up, and the new PA FAQ is in effect. Army lists here for browsing. Main changes I made were to make accommodations for Eldrad and an extra psyker for additional spells (I dropped a CHE for this, but put stuff on others). Why Eldrad? 7+ Super Smites. This list has a total of Eldrad + Yvraine (2 smites + 2-3 Mortal Wound spells), Spiritseer, Spiritseer, Hemlock for a total of 7 Mortal Wound spells (I will not usually be casting 5 Smites though, maybe 3 or 4), and my highest dice roll to cast is a 7+ on 2d6, with 2 psykers having rerolls... And it also gives me a reliable way to cut through SmashCap 3++, with a +5 difference on Ldship for Mind War. (please do not swear) can still happen, but that's what CP rerolls are for. drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vNa-wr5hpszxct_il28sBNsRxxd8Av5_First impression, THAT IS A LOT OF DREADNOUGHTS. At least 2/3 of the SM lists had Mortis Dreadnoughts, Contemptor Dreadnoughts, Relic Contemptor Dreadnoughts, Contemptor Mortis Dreadnoughts, Relic Leviathan Dreadnoughts (a combination of them, of course). Only 2 lists were using the IH Fliers, and only 2 lists were using Executioner (maximum 3 lists, might have missed one). The IH Flier actually looks scary, but other than blowing my Planes out of the air, everything else tanks them fine. Its the Dreadnoughts at the back that give me a bit of an issue thereafter - but with Duty Eternal around, I may have issues killing them off, so it might be better to get my Autarch into them (or at least 1) constantly and deny it shooting. It's manageable. There is a huge Tau and decent Aeldari showing. The Tau all sport Triptide, some of them also sport triple Seeker Missle boats, some sport Broadsides, and 1 list brought Trip Hammerheads. The pure Craftworlds mostly have Trip Prism Trip CHE - surprisingly this is the list that gives me the most pause, I lose my WK straight up and the Planes have issues with dealing with whats left, and my Smite damage isnt high enough to take out the Planes and the Prisms so far away. The Tau lists is a matter of partial luck and positioning - if I can avoid the WK getting totalled in T1, it's got its invul up and can stroll up and start pressuring. Against the Seeker boats it's got clear targets of focus as do the planes, and my Characters can start the Smite Storm right away on the Riptides and start chunking them down. If The Seekers get into my WK, it's probably going poof - I need to make sure it's safe no matter what, then just posture with it for two turns after, draw their fire, guard characters. The SM arent obvious losses like vs these Aeldari lists, but they're hard. Invictors punch hard and every list has something like 8 to 16 Lascannon shots, with rerolls and some luck that's enough to total the WK on T1. I dont have enough Mortal Wound power to total the Invictors myself, so I need the Fliers, who then cannot deal with the Lascannons. If the WK is up and running though, I think it can total one to 2 of those smaller Dreadnoughts, while the Fliers clear up Invictors (or vice versa). I dont regret taking the WK instead of two or 3 more WS chassises. The WS is good, but it doesnt have the output you need - the WK does output, melee counterthreat, and fire magnet all in one. This takes pressure off the planes, which I dont really do much better bringing more with since they dont help me score objectives very well. The thing is in two days, lists are locked in, it's now all about the luck and the dice! Playing a WK seriously and competitively, I probably need it!
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Post by kazetanade on Dec 26, 2019 19:02:53 GMT
Right, came back 3-0. Will edit in my thoughts and conclusions from the event.
New list: New Nids. Taking into account most of the strong stuff I felt is in the codex, building an old style aggression list with a new concept for durability - instead of having all the bodies in the world, we will take out the big anti tank threats early and use Flyrants/SL innate durability to bully out the game.(the list does not look different from generic pre GSC GS Sling lists, but plays very differently in the new meta and new tools. Has different scoring and game closing conditions now that we have several tools to deal with our greatest problem of BFGuns on BFRobots.) Hormagants to run interference and early damage, SL for targeted threat removal, HG and Exo to take out early threats and put on board pressure alongside Flyrants. This list scores Recon and 2 kill objectives on average, but can steal objectives from under an enemy's nose to secure early Hold and Hold More, while reducing the Kill and Kill More score from the enemy due to huge units requiring a lot of focus to kill.
Behemoth Batt: HQs - SL, 2x Flyrant with HVC/MRC Troops - 3 x 30 Hormagaunts
Mixed Batt: HQ - Neuro (Kronos), Neuro (Jorm) Troops - 3 x Rippers (don't care) Elites - 1 x 6 HG (Jorg) FA - 1 x 3 Ravs w/ DS (Jorg) HS - 1 x Exocrene (Kronos) DT - 1 x TCyte w/ VC (Kronos)
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Post by No One on Dec 28, 2019 11:20:08 GMT
Well, nids can't mixed bat for a start. Otherwise, what's the plan for on board/in reserve?
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Post by kazetanade on Dec 28, 2019 12:35:33 GMT
Well, nids can't mixed bat for a start. Otherwise, what's the plan for on board/in reserve? Uh? I'll go back and check, but I thought every faction in the game can mix batt. That will create some difficulties if not possible. Exo HG Tcyte Ravs Flyrants in the sky, everything else on the ground. SL 3 Hormas is already like 700 pts, 2 Neuros are 180 pts, rippers are 99 pts - I might need to tweak a little to fit the last 30 pts. Rippers just take ground and push back deepstrike. Hormas go up aggrro and take space, present themselves as a target, have one slingshotted up the board and screw some troops.
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Post by No One on Dec 28, 2019 12:49:39 GMT
Uh? I'll go back and check, but I thought every faction in the game can mix batt. That will create some difficulties if not possible. It's the battle brothers thing, to stop GSC+nid soup. Except there's nothing between Tyranid and <Hive Fleet>, so no mixed bats.
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