GSC spawning blip markers

[mattblowers]

How do you use the blips in your games?

When I first read the index I thought the ability to respawn was amazing. And it CAN be, however, blip management is crucial and easy to screw up. It actually has turned out to be the hardest thing for me to get the hang of. The best strategy I have found so far is to park in a far corner at the end of their movement phase and then use the strat to return to shadows at the end of their turn. Outside of that I use the blips for misdirection to force my opponent to move where they don't want to go or risk a unit coming in where they don't want. What have you found so far and how do you make it work?

[No One]

I've just been more concerned about protecting them: stick them in my most protected corner, string out to be a relevant unit on my turn. I should probably experiment a bit more with RttS, but outside of e.g. knights and maybe Custodes, I think most armies will have more random units they don't mind too much going out of their way to kill a blip, especially since if they're screening well that's likely not far away anyway. Now of course, could impact their scoring or ability to screen if they're spread so thin. But also I think you'll often be relying on the blips to keep a hold on the board, and throwing them away for purely positional value seems super risky.

[mattblowers]

Jul 25, 2023 14:20:16 GMT No One said:

I've just been more concerned about protecting them: stick them in my most protected corner, string out to be a relevant unit on my turn. I should probably experiment a bit more with RttS, but outside of e.g. knights and maybe Custodes, I think most armies will have more random units they don't mind too much going out of their way to kill a blip, especially since if they're screening well that's likely not far away anyway. Now of course, could impact their scoring or ability to screen if they're spread so thin. But also I think you'll often be relying on the blips to keep a hold on the board, and throwing them away for purely positional value seems super risky.

Anyone that has decent movement can take them out pretty easily. Like I said, I find the blips to be really hard to use. It is actually fairly difficult to get units back in that you drop the marker when the unit dies and it doesn't arrive until the end of their next reinforcment phase which means no matter when they die they won't come back until your opponent gets at least 1 turn of movement. With the game being only 5 turns and deepstrikers not arriving until turn 2, the earliest a unit can back from a blip is turn 3, or turn 4 for units that deepstrike turn 3. And that's only if you went first, if you go second it moves to turn 4 and 5 respectively. With this in mind it is often worth it to use the blip to force movement where you want it since it has an impact a turn earlier. I would say I have found it to be a very niche tool that takes precision usage to get the most out of it. Luckily any unit can come back via any blip so you can still keep them guessing. I don't care if the acolyte bombers don't come back so it's no great loss to lose a marker or two.

[hivefleetkerrigan]

Blips could come back on turn 1 hypothetically.
If you have a unit die to overwatch or the fight phase turn 1 and tou go first, then the blipped units would come in bottom of turn 2.

[mattblowers]

Jul 25, 2023 17:30:43 GMT hivefleetkerrigan said:

Blips could come back on turn 1 hypothetically.
If you have a unit die to overwatch or the fight phase turn 1 and tou go first, then the blipped units would come in bottom of turn 2.

OK, technically accurate. But.... and it's a big BUT. Why did you charge something you couldn't kill on turn 1 when you went first?

As stated, our best units are best utilized as deep strikers (other than the abbys) so they aren't going to come on the first time until turn 2 or 3.

[hivefleetkerrigan]

Jul 25, 2023 17:39:40 GMT mattblowers said:

Jul 25, 2023 17:30:43 GMT hivefleetkerrigan said:

Blips could come back on turn 1 hypothetically.
If you have a unit die to overwatch or the fight phase turn 1 and tou go first, then the blipped units would come in bottom of turn 2.

OK, technically accurate. But.... and it's a big BUT. Why did you charge something you couldn't kill on turn 1 when you went first?

As stated, our best units are best utilized as deep strikers (other than the abbys) so they aren't going to come on the first time until turn 2 or 3.

True. I just lost an entire unit of von Ryan's leapers to overwatch turn 1 over the weekend so that's fresh in my mind. And no, they weren't over watched by a flamer unit

[infornography]

Could have been a hail Mary maneuver hoping to take down something dangerous, or maybe you didn't expect to kill it but also completely didn't expect it to kill you. Like a large blob of guardsmen who rolled incredibly hot or something.

[No One]

mattblowers said:

Anyone that has decent movement can take them out pretty easily.

Stick them in the corner of your DZ, you should kill or prevent (either through threat or bodyblock) anyone from coming close to your DZ. At which point it should be >15", and unless things haven't been going great, quite a bit more. Are there units that can do that? Yes. Do you need more than just a decent M, especially with hopefully terrain and units in the way? Also yes: something ridiculous like warp spiders, something like Adv+charge or impressive charge roll+fight phase manoeuvring could definitely do it, but just normal e.g. 12" M Fly shouldn't be sufficient. (Or DS can make it super awkward, which is why I've got a clamavus in my newest list iteration).

Now, would this potentially put you too far back to be useless? Maybe with acolytes ( ), but 20 models where essentially only 4 are relevant for damage gets you a long way. Of course, sometimes you'll not want to string out to stay out of threat ranges, but the option's there.

With the game being only 5 turns and deepstrikers not arriving until turn 2, the earliest a unit can back from a blip is turn 3, or turn 4 for units that deepstrike turn 3. And that's only if you went first, if you go second it moves to turn 4 and 5 respectively. With this in mind it is often worth it to use the blip to force movement where you want it since it has an impact a turn earlier. I would say I have found it to be a very niche tool that takes precision usage to get the most out of it.

This might just be me insisting on using melee acolytes (and not playing into heavy/mobile shooting yet either), but so far I've found starting pretty heavily on board to be important. Being screened out and losing the board can be an almost instant loss for Cult: you need to be somewhere useful, doing something useful, and tunnel crawlers only gets you so far. Having no threat on board gives your opponent too much free reign on how they move T1 (and even T2 if you go 2nd): abbies could totally be sufficient for this of course when neo heavy, and RI helps a lot. But also you want physical presence for screening: DS and mobile units for scoring are common.

And if things are on board early, being active early, they're likely to die early and come back fast enough to be relevant. Even when not on board early, Cult's squishy and dying mid gets you back to hopefully secure your end game, which is something that could otherwise be a problem with large casualties.

infornography said:

Could have been a hail Mary maneuver hoping to take down something dangerous, or maybe you didn't expect to kill it but also completely didn't expect it to kill you. Like a large blob of guardsmen who rolled incredibly hot or something.

Or charge expecting to kill it but whiff. I've had that happen a couple of times (two squads of acos with +1 to wound into a slightly injured BT, almost killed. Next turn my RI squad into same BT, completely whiffed). Or charge and don't care if die because CA: acos charging and dying essentially being just a free reposition if everything goes well with blips.

In the context of coming back T1 though, it essentially requires getting squishy stuff into combat T1 going 1st, which is very unlikely, and even more with something that you're not going to kill and can kill you. Or well, overwatch, but you shouldn't be in range/LoS of anything dangerous for T1 overwatch in most match ups. Towering would be the big exception I think.

[mattblowers]

Jul 26, 2023 4:24:35 GMT No One said:

This might just be me insisting on using melee acolytes (and not playing into heavy/mobile shooting yet either),

I like melee acolytes, I just don't love them. I find melee to 'meh'lee in this edition. Shooting seems to be far more effective. Melee acolytes have put up some real stinkers. They shred infantry hard, even elite infantry, but aren't the delete button they were. Four demo charges on the other hand simply delete what you point them at.

but so far I've found starting pretty heavily on board to be important. Being screened out and losing the board can be an almost instant loss for Cult: you need to be somewhere useful, doing something useful, and tunnel crawlers only gets you so far. Having no threat on board gives your opponent too much free reign on how they move T1 (and even T2 if you go 2nd): abbies could totally be sufficient for this of course when neo heavy, and RI helps a lot. But also you want physical presence for screening: DS and mobile units for scoring are common.

This is a great and useful discussion that will help all of us improve. The restrictions on deep strikers means that I still start with enough on the table. I run the abominant with Inscrutable Cunnning (thank to you) and deploy on the center objective with my abbies. Then I have a acolyte melee bomb and a neophyte unit deployed in cover on either end. Turn 1 I push my Rockgrinders up the field. I'm still waffling on their loadout. I want to like the mining laser but it has done (please do not swear) all for me to date. Haven't tried the siesmic. The incinerator seems to be the best option as I'm pushing close anyway and I want to be able to throw those bombs. I have no problem with board control as this gives them targets to remove (abbies haven't died to a man yet) until my devastating turns 2 and 3 come in. If that goes well I jump ahead on points. If I can figure out the blip management better I should be able to better control the objectives for a strong 4 & 5, so far that is where I tend to struggle.

[No One]

mattblowers said:

I like melee acolytes, I just don't love them. I find melee to 'meh'lee in this edition. Shooting seems to be far more effective. Melee acolytes have put up some real stinkers. They shred infantry hard, even elite infantry, but aren't the delete button they were.

In case it wasn't clear from phrasing, this isn't me saying they're good

I have no problem with board control as this gives them targets to remove (abbies haven't died to a man yet) until my devastating turns 2 and 3 come in. If that goes well I jump ahead on points. If I can figure out the blip management better I should be able to better control the objectives for a strong 4 & 5, so far that is where I tend to struggle.

Yeah, that's where I've struggled a bit as well, converting into points. I think tunnel crawlers and proper RttS usage is important for that.

Also app's updated, wholly within 3" for blips, which just makes essentially all of this discussion moot. Not sure what you'd even do with that: forced to be far away if you don't want to risk losing the blips, but everything's close range...RttS helps a lot but that's super slow for anything other than neos . Probably justified, but massive blow to my excitement for the faction...

[hivefleetkerrigan]

Did gw release a faq or is this only in the app? The app has had errors so I don't fully trust it

[mattblowers]

Jul 26, 2023 12:48:48 GMT No One said:

In case it wasn't clear from phrasing, this isn't me saying they're good

I wasn't suggesting you were. Melee has been the backbone for GSC/'nids for so long it is a hard habbit to break. I am constantly unimpressed with how melee works. Sad day for 'nids.

[No One]

hivefleetkerrigan It's been released now, see Index for the easy changes: www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/YRK9ZpspblzJHLb7.pdf

[hivefleetkerrigan]

Jul 26, 2023 14:40:06 GMT No One said:

hivefleetkerrigan It's been released now, see Index for the easy changes: www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/YRK9ZpspblzJHLb7.pdf

Thanks! Looked earlier and didn't see anything. It would be nice if they put versioning on the indexes as well. They updated the wording but didn't highlight the update.

[No One]

A blip right in a corner only fits 8 acolytes, letting you guaranteed res one for ~3" extra distance. Not sure if useful or just fun fact, since that's likely to be either very out of position or quite risky, but potentially an option for using aggressive blips but being less risky/forcing the opponent to move further away.