Mars Ascendant

[Prot]

Well it’s very similar except I was using 2 Infiltrators, and an arc rifle instead of the Rustalker.

 

I found the very short range of our weapons meant most times I was hitting on 5’s. Also with T3 and 4+ armour I feel like I must have first turn to have a chance. I have great difficulty wounding anything with the regular weapons. I’ve had games where the Arquebus is cleverly picked on and the rest of the AdMech has to get within about 9” to not suffer a penalty. Once you have a flesh wound, forget it. I can’t hit/wound a barn. The low leadership is scary too.

 

I am undefeated with my DG though. I run Poxwalkers for obscure purposes in front of my DG heavy Flamer and Flail combat specialist. Those two guys alone have removed half of a team for me. Not to mention the beauty of the Grandfather Nurgle blessings on my Blight Launcher gunner.

 

Conversely I have had pretty much the opposite experience with my AdMech. I can’t seem to figure them out. I can win games with higher body count but can’t really sustain or put out much damage.

 

Multi damage weapons in Kill Team are huge.

[Heliomanes]

I get you. We can mitigate a lot of this though, but not on everyone at once. The omnispex and the comms specialist can get you to ignore the negative penalty due to cover, and net you a +1 to hit. Still, since it is limited to one model per turn, I guess we need to get a lot of plasmagunners rather than normal rangers or vanguard. Using the canticle for rerolling 1s to hit on everyone is pretty strong too, especially in a list like that. The data tether provides some help with the leadership issue, and buffs the defender protocols quite well, so we get yet another buffed plasma caliver per turn if we play our stratagems right...

Not sure about any of this, of course, but I think I'll keep experimenting with a list consisting of ;

Data tether vanguard
Comms specialist ranger with an omnispex
at least 2 vanguard with plasmacalivers, preferably more
Ruststalker princeps, perhaps some regular ones too.

Not sure about the rest. The arquebus and the Infiltrator princeps were ok-ish. Not sure about which specialities to use either, apart from the comms specialist.

Maybe something like this;

Leader: Ruststalker princeps

Comms specialist: Ranger with omnispex
Sniper specialist: Plasma caliver vanguard
Heavy specialist: Transuranic arquebus ranger

Plasma caliver vanguard
Plasma caliver vanguard
Data tether vanguard

[Heliomanes]

Just hopping by to share a couple of pics from my deployment zone today. I lost, but really enjoyed playing my list. A 2k point one including Cawl, 4 kastelans, 20 hoplites!, 4 dragoons, a knight gallant, 2 helverins and some min sized skitarii squads. I'll keep tinkering with it.

[Vel'Cona]

They really look impressive arrayed for battle.  Perhaps we could get a few more details on your game? :)

[Heliomanes]

Sure thing!

I brought a Mars / Taranis list with Cawl against a list with 60 plaguebearers, Abaddon the despoiler and more than 60 cultists (all alpha legion, some slaanesh, some khorne), a bunch of support characters and a few vehicles. In the end, we had almost killed everything on the table, leaving a few skitarii survivors, Cawl and a immobile robot squad holding one half of the table, while a bunch of cultists held the other half (divided by left-right, not by deployment zones).

Generally I outdamaged him, but struggled to outscore him on objectives - but it didn't look as dire points wise as I had assumed. With a little more mobility, and some smarter decision making I could have done a lot more.

The big winners on my end were the fantastic phalanx of hoplites. 20 man with a data tether was pretty cheap, durable and did a whole lot of good. They started out circling around Cawl and his robot buddies, then advanced and ground down buffed plaguebearers, and even shot their D3 shots into vehicles on their way. Generally a really good support unit that works well with the robots - who pretty much are 75% of my damage output but really require a lot of baby sitting.

Not sure what to say about the Gallant. He is such a work horse. Incredibly durable and powerful, while not feeling overcosted. I went with the 2+, 4++, 6+++ Taranis gallant that can get back up again. The highlight was him, with 3 wounds remaining, using Death Grip on Abaddon and squishing him.

The helverins were incredibly underwhelming, but that might be because of consistently terrible dice rolls for them throughout the match. Together they did little more than a grand total of 6 wounds throughout a whole 6 rounds. I think I will keep them in the list for a few more matches, but they were clearly the worst choice I brought with me today.

[Magos Takatus]

Those Hoplites look fantastic arrayed in cover like that. I'm very tempted to get some if I get another Start Collecting box.

[Heliomanes]

Yeah I really like the look of those Hoplites, Flame Boy. I've been toying about a list with 3 knights gallant supported by 3x20 hoplites... I mean, I'll have to get a substantial pay rise first, but just imagine what that looks like...

WIP of the week. What are you guys up to?

[Prot]

Cool looking game... very thematic! Get out of Cadia Abe!

 

Seriously though the game looked really fun and I always get a kick out of Chaos "Space Marine" armies where you have to look for the space marine (which is typically the HQ). It's stronger to run such large blobs of Plaguebearers and Cultists, especially with Abe.

 

We don't really do Forgeworld here but otherwise your list is extremely similar to mine except I haven't used Gallant yet, I typically love the Crusader but I'm hearing great things about a properly used Gallant.

 

(I guess my jazzhands replace the Hoplite function?)

[Heliomanes]

I'm prepping for a two day tournament next month, and strongly consider following the "rule of cool" and bringing these guys. Hope they do well, I think there will be plenty of Knights for my Porphyrion to hunt in the local meta.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

You have a fine army.

[Vel'Cona]

Definitely looks the part of a Knightly House Detachment!  Best of luck in your games :)

[Heliomanes]

Thank you, kind sirs. A few thoughts after the new FAQ:

1. I'm switching to Lucius, and probably should have done so way earlier. In these kind of lists I think the ability to deep strike skitarii infantry squads is invaluable. It gives them something to do that isn't just a worse version of what guardsmen can do for a cheaper price, namely hopping in and grabbing objectives, which compliments the knights. Doing so is also optional, so I can choose how many squads I want to deep strike in as objective grabbers, and how many I want to keep in my backfield or as bubble wrap depending on the opponent.

2. I feel like my unit configuration suits House Krast well. Rerolls to hit in melee is nice, especially for the Gallant when he has taken a few hits too many, the admech stratagems are a must, and the relics/warlord traits work well. Warden with the Krast trait for rerolling 1s to hit, and the gatling relic is a nice combo. Same with a Porphyrion that gets D8 versus knights via the Krast relic.

Thoughts? How are you switching things around after the FAQ?

[Heliomanes]

Allright, gents. I'm back from a 30-something man 40k tournament using Nova rules. I ended up bringing my knight house, including my Porphyrion and a big squad of Secutarii Hoplites. Against all expectations I won "best overall", which is a 50/50 mix of painting scores and game points. In GP alone I ended up on 8th place, and had a ton of fun games.

Here's a few pics from the event. I'm the bald neckbeard with the smile.

[brother_b]

Bald neckbeard? I see only an annoited tech priest dominus of the Omnissiah! Congrats!

[Clingy]

Lovely army, congratulations sir

[Charlo]

Sweet looking force!

 

How did people react to the Porphyron? Anyone Cry Foul?

[Heliomanes]

You are too kind, fellow Magi.

No, nobody reacted adversely to the Porphyrion itself, or perhaps they were too polite to say anything? A few opponents did bring lists that struggled against knights in general though, and were very open about it. Then again they'd struggle even against a single knight or a tank-based army. 4 meltaguns isn't an impressive anti-tank detachment in a 2000 point army, so that felt a bit self inflicted. But everyone had fun and we tried to make even the bad matchups as fun as possible for everyone involved. Nova missions are really good at letting everyone gather points in a way that fits their army and playing style, and allows for a lot of flexibility and player choice. I found myself surprised at how well it worked.

I think bringing the Porphyrion is essentially handicapping yourself a bit as a Knight player, and most opponents seemed to agree. You'll make a much harder knight detachment by maxing out on gallants and perhaps a warden or two. Get more gallants. The one I brought always took down twice his value in points.
Still, I love the Porphyrion model way too much to turn him into a shelf warmer.

[Heliomanes]

Sorry for the spam. A few more pictures from the event showed up, and I wanted to add them to the thread.