Competitive mech list < Restrictions>

[synthaside]

Hello Folks
 

It’s that time again and I've signed myself up for an event, it’s a one day 1250 points 2 detachments with no duplicates affair with some restrictions firstly its Single codex : Your warlord stratagems etc may only be taken from one book, the only exceptions to this are Inquisitors sisters of silence, assassins and Free blade knights as a super heavy Aux , but they don’t get access to stratagems unless the warlord has the keyword for the faction.

I've been toying around with a hard hitting alpha strike Stygies list with a little bit of a twist , I’m looking for thoughts , criticism and comments , This even often brings out Maximum cheese , last ran in march the Victor last year was an army of 90% Plague bearers and pox walkers  killing either of things was ill advised , but expect full on Eldar / Dark eldar cheese and as much pain as it possible within a single codex , I’m well aware this is a bit of a Glass sledgehammer the idea is to surge across the board and take objectives and score lots of points , in my experience most of these games  go to time games are 1.5 hour rounds and while I don’t expect people to actively slow play no chess clocks will be available.

Here’s what I’m looking to Bring:   No one expects the Stygies Inquisition

Ad Mech Battalion  7 CP
 

HQ  :  2 X  Tech priest Enginseer: 94 PTS
1  Warlord  Monitor Malv ( CP regen)
1  Relic : Omniscient Mask ( Re-roll misses in combat for Skitarii)

Troops:  3 X 5 man Ranger , 1x Vanguard team (had 40 points) : 145PTS
Elites: 2 X 10 man Secutari Hoplites  :194 PTS
Fast Attack:  1 X  3 man Dragoon team  204PTS
Heavy Support:   1x Onager with Icarus Array :130PTS
Dedicated transport:  2 X Terrax Termite assault drills  with Stormbolters :268 PTS

 

Supreme command: Inquisition 1 CP
Greyfax : Terrify
2x Inquisitor: Psyker  Bolt pistol and power maul : Dominate & Dominate

Army Concept

 

The idea of this llist is pretty simple its 3 Cp before the battle with an attempt to regen them  with the warlord  and  drop both Terrax full of Hoplites the TPE with Mask,  Inquisitors and the dragoons right into my opponents face, it’s very hard to effectively screen at 1250 but if I see my opponent has got the units to do so I will adapt accordingly eg not paying for the Stygies Terrax drops and using regular Deep Strike.

The Inquisitors do 3 things in my List primarily they provide 4 denies, I’m expecting Elder to be quite rampant this time they are very strong as single codex thus having denies right in my opponents face will do a lot of disruption.  Secondly the powers  “terrify” for overwatch removal Dominate along with our old friend  smite are excellent against Knights and support my Hoplites, dragoons and drills on the charge …  I’m expecting Tau gunlines , IG gunlines  and a few other things that can overwatch on 5’s or better I once lost a mole to 5+ overwatch from a baneblade >.<

Finally, Greyfax and her inquisitor pals are equipped with power mauls to  help out in combat as well as provide leadership buffing aura’s  to help my guys stick the landing , I have thought about giving them melta guns for a bit more anti armour punch but its either than or an extra 5 man team of vanguard.

While im not gonna win any friends I think I think this will do pretty well I came 5th out of 50 last time out , and because its mono faction there wont be Smash captains everywhere.

 

 

 

 

[Prot]

Interesting. I think mono faction works in your favour. I personally get sick of seeing all that smash captain stuff... I think soup is just gone too far. It's reduced codexes to 2 datasheets that every one cherry picks, but that's my rant.

 

I use Greyfax the same way. Again I don't have/use Hoplites, but I imagine my Priests act similarly. Do you anticipate Knight lists? Would that give you a serious problem? (I really don't think you'll see an ocean of Poxwalkers this year. )

[synthaside]

I think so too, apart from the fact that I don't typically take allies anyway being a bit of purist, I've never really fallen down the soup trap
PLUS - THEY MUST NOT KNOW OUR SECRET ... * Dragon of mars be praised.*  Ahem ... 

Cough sorry  ...   It appears I've been spending too much time reading stray's posts.

I do anticipate knight lists... I've actually set up my first practice game is against 1250 of Hawkshroud, which i know the guy is bringing to the event, smart money says 2 Gallants and something with a bit of shooty probably a Castellan and they will all be Characters. 

I've found unless I'm running my own knights I just can't kill the things ... while guard CP farm spam isn't a thing in this event rotate ion shields for a  3+ 4+ save Sanctuary and Ion bulwark have all but made shooting at knights or fighting knights impervious to damage, So my tactic has been to try to bog them down with hoplites with invulnerable saves ...  As unfluffy as those shields are reflecting stomps ...    , 40 attacks plus 20 shots from arc lances can do about 18 damage average to a knight ... I just hope with a bit of smite and a bit of luck i can do a bit more.

[Are Verlo]

You can expect some damage from the two termites as well. The melta is good and if you get them in CC you have a high chance of inflicting a few more wounds.

 

Great idea mate.

[Mainman_99]

I am building almost the same detachment. Original plan was to buy the Victoria Miniatures Spanish Inquisition models and yell "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition" as I deploy them 

[Prot]

Synth... did you have your Hawkshroud test game? Interestingly enough I was wondering if he pulled off the heroic intervention trick on your hoplite assault.

 

I think Knights are made to compliment AdMech. The more competitively I play AdMech the more I feel they need some form of Knight interaction. The funny thing is a lot if the Knights are in the AdMech Codex so even in your mono codex scenario, this would be legal.

 

Otherwise to take out Knights or other super heavies I rely on goofy mechanisms like giant squads of jazz hands or infiltrators relying on Wrath of Mars strats.

[Xisor]

Has 'many Onagers' been tried?

 

E.g. (many) more than 3?

[synthaside]

Well we can't take more than 3 that's kind of our problem ... No vehicle sqauds and they share a datasheet I do own 4 >.<

 

Ive played 3 games with this list or a variation of it now , I'll write up a proportion report in when The boss nips off to lunch .

[synthaside]

Well we can't take more than 3 that's kind of our problem ... No vehicle sqauds and they share a datasheet I do own 4 >.<

 

Ive played 3 games with this list or a variation of it now , I'll write up a proportion report in when The boss nips off to lunch .

[synthaside]

Quick summary as i've been busier at work than expected.

Game  One 
Ion shield Warlord trait Reliced Castellan,
Errant with thermal cannon and relic fist,
Stock Warglaive
Astra militarium patrol 10, IG and Filthy and Relic  CP farm warlord trait Company Commander.

I expected to lose deployment here as my opponent has 1 fewer drop than I did, but my opponent rolled a 1 getting 2 then failed to seize... I deployed my Inquisitor bomb ... in a semi-circle around13 inches away from his Castellan, the guard screen is about 3 inches away ... I'm going to have to punch through it ... I move all my units to about 1 inch away, I go for 3 powers terrify, dominate ( at the Castellan and smite at the guardsman ) ... all go off and  I turn the supercharged plasma decimator on the nearby armiger getting 8 shots  5 wounds and   2 of which my opponent saves for 9 damage I finish it off with an icarus with +1 to hit later ( first rotate of the game ) and to boot i do 1 mortal back on the Castellan,  my own shooting is a little  unremarkable i wipe out most of the 10 gaurd screen with various small arms fire, long-range ranger fire, and the storm bolters from the moles i do some bonus wounds on the Dominus class knight from my melta and hoplite shooting  .. then proceed to charge ... 

Both moles fluff their charges of about a 5 which is catastrophic, but all the hoplites and dragoons make it ... the moles were a multcharged into the last 2 remaining gaurdman which they mulch ...  the hoplites , do ok about  12 wounds ... but the dragoons murderise it doing 20 wounds ...  My opponent probably a little bit salty detonates it murdering a load of Hoplites and  the goons and 1 nearby mole ... but greyfax holds morale.

I score a  few objective points ... but my opponent after a turn where he thermal cannons a  mole to oblivion ... the writing is pretty much on the cards.



Game Two Pure imperial Gaurd

 

3 Russ command tanks with various guns.... lots of plasma  turrets and guns including Pask this would be excellent against anyone but Stygies .
Guardsman and Some Hq's in a battalion, including a primaris psyker who was pivitol in annoying my casts but the main problem and  well hidden and invisible to me until way too late were... 3 Cyclops demolition tanks .

 

 

This game was a bit of a comedy of errors ... while I made good ground across the field my opponent screened very tightly, I deployed first and proceeded to murder the screen , but  3 overlapping lines of guard wall is a lot to tunnel through, in hindsight I might have been better saving at least 1 mole for " real deep strike "  to arrive behind the lines once things were a bit more disrupted .

I forgot my psychic powers apart from in turn 1 this game ... because in my opponents turn 1 I  lost 50% of my army to two detonating cycolops I had essentially fallen for a trap ....
My plucky Skitarii had fought their way through the lines and were just getting to the juicy "lemon russ's" behind the chaff too.

For those like me who had never fought a demo tank before let along 3 ....  d6 explosion range ... Cp re-rollable ... 2d6 auto hits to all nearby units friend or foe .... Str 9  Ap-2 D3 
I got off quite lucky from these two explosions losing 8 wounds and 6 wounds on my terrax's 2  dragoons about 6-7 hoplites along with a bunch of wounds on inquisitors tech preists etc ...  more out of opponent's bad luck than my fortune, His Leman Russ plasma guns were very ineffective against me at -2 or -1 to hit with all my invulns helping out

We continued slugging at each other over objectives ...  in the last  2 turns my few remaining hoplites surrounded Pask and tried to beat their way in with maces .... I won due to linebreaker and a last turn d3 roll of a 2 rather than a 1 for a card.... before retiring to the pub to buy each other beer and  talk about broken units ....  and the meta a whole :-P

My next games tonight  : 1750  

Against Primaris blood angels with  3  Repulsors .....

 

[synthaside]

Very very close game ... just finished packing away , final win on a hail mary charge with a Terrax but  a list VERY strong against me  3 repulsors  full of blood angels intercessors .  they spent all game flying above terrain out of charge range :-(

[Clingy]

Enjoying your reports, keep em coming :)

[Charlo]

Cool list, a nice alternative to the norm.

 

Nice reports too - keep it coming!

[synthaside]

As promised a detailed write up for this battle <stygies> Vs Blood Angels

The 3 repulsor list, built and painted by a good friend and regular pal of mine Joe, he's lucky enough to be off to no retreat this weekend so this was a practice for his first game against Stig from Tabletop tactics.  I've seen Stigs list its very nasty has units I don't actually own (40 Electro-priests)  and a 5 man las-strider unit plus it didnt want it to be joe figuring houw to counter stig thats not in the spirit of things. Instead followed the SN battle report's  No retreat list building rules , A 1750  which doesn't allow for any Allies ... I had to dump the knights and inquisitors .

https://img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/agXMpOW_700bwp.webp

Here are joes glorious Primaris marines of doom, he's over on the blood angels section including a guide on how he's painted 
its 1750 , 3 fully loaded Repulsors full of Primaris , banner of feel no pain Primaris captain and Ltn for re-rolls on all the repulsor fire


My list was a bit different as I am forced into no duplicates of detachments ... so i decided to go Brigade.

<styges>
HQ  1 TPD Warlord (relic fits her model  D6 extra attacks), 2 X TPE 1 with Mask relic 

Troops  3 Stock rangers 3 Stock Vanguard
Elite  2X 11 hoplite  units   1 X taser goad Sicarians 

Fast attack   1 x 3 man Dragoon team   2  x  1  Ironstriders with Autocannons

Heavy support  1 Neutronlaser  Onager   2 E-rad beamer Onager

Dedicated  Transport   2x Terrax with Stormbolter

 

The Game
 

Things start sub-optimally for me as I lose the Roll off for the first turn … Joe has 3 drops … so this isn’t super surprising but what is that he  can completely counter deploy me  he deploys all 3 of his Repulsors on the top of large buildings … Serves me right for fully stocking the table with suitable terrain in the deployment zones ( I’d still do it again because buildings are awesome)

Deployment is dawn of war , the Mission is a combined Eternal war , of 4 end game objective points  and Maelstrom , tertiaries Line breaker , warlord and first strike …  winning the primary is 14 points secondary is 10 points and tertiary is 4.
 
Knowing I’m going second I Stygies deploy my moles and dragoons, I put the dragoons in position in the centre to take an objective,  should I draw it and respond to any moves from the flying Gunboats 2 of which are in the far left corner on a building one of which is on the far right corner on a building.  
I favour my stygies deployment to the right side  making sure everything is 14 away meaning he will need to leave his cover to get remove my -1 to hit.  I also hide my Drills as best I can from line of sight, 1  at the bottom of the building, with a repulsor on top the other more or less in the mid field near a bunch of objectives , the rest is relatively well hidden from fire  …. That is at least until the gunboats move .

Turn 1 , I lose My neutron Onager , to all the repulsor fire some wounds are picked off one of my moles,  both of the left corner repulsors surge forward  to take the left side of the board, but I deny him all the maelstrom objectives , In retaliation I fire back and use the bonus 3 inch distance from disembark to move my hoplites up the building 9 inches to try and beat the snot out of the right hand repulsor … I try an advance roll to get my central  drill in range for its Melta array  dropping the hoplites onto a middle defend objective I will use Acquisition at all cost on these guys to ensure its scored the mole itself is 14 inches away after my 8 inch move  … I roll a 1 … and Cp it for another 1 , All I can do a plink with my e-rad beamers knocking one to 5 wounds remaining and I manage to do a couple of wounds to the right hand repulsor in combat , no first stike this will be my downfall later on.

Turn 2 involves my opponent disembarking marines and locking up my Onagers in combat … but even the mighty blood angels on the charge can’t kill my onagers in combat I <3 you 5+ saves against power swords,  I heroically intervene with my warlord and she murders some blood angels making me feel a bit better the big loss is the disembarkation of primaris  marines …. 3 inches down the side of the building  where they will make an overwatch free charge back at my hoplites wiping them out in combat … while the engineseer makes a valiant stand killing 2 primaris with his axe.

Here’s a shot around the turn 2 point… I’m feeling like I’m on the ropes but it’s just about to be my turn and im going to remove some repulsors very soon.
 

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/dl1D_LtyRR2BMeDy6WN3kH6Vvhm-HggFb8Y8-7zAzpuNRjAd7jlzPEkdtzj5qIH__yx13An0cU3miMEBmJF8CdmatF_wP67OXsMEGr5yeg3JF4uORkNzDeNkYhMFWkCTDCCozv4jLmlMCWYnQQJfm5qlzqYrr_7g-ScyZfegZ45TVVZsWgDHA-UA-4J2Hh-s_fOkx-QvoAC3JcSyUsa7xpLewJUC0n65WIZYZ9n920AroDVWjwmprSpvAnSTMrNHzsBGdIr-oJg3rkO1-Yjioa0rg2rv1H8IevxWgH2nNb6MMGkv9_GXL3X3-UbQrtZDGzwvPhipAI5D_OSX700E-I0VbT0aeOMc5ruc-tFTXo5MMRcKNFW6yKrC5CcmxdLQl3gWYrt1tiuXCMf5cWx4-e679bFXeiUPgvNNZDUqclwO4mN3Fvur2P6tsqS2fITMBj20LBHvEgK6dNBiluWgOnnHpH7XEooPkIFM3s_w8SedFltvlD2430gsIEBPRlD6CF5L7CcJ_RHzh0bg_0DikpCuDkQHro0WH7aaiAHh-t0RwoAHsMzfhlZLmo8elE8786CIc0mpfvB1MxKrkxqeXr18Gx9pLdNzbIsJdJr2Xs7pRfpSmyU6uNK6SyILOFI=w1259-h944-no

 



 

[synthaside]

Turn 3  , I make the slightly odd move of leaving all my onagers in combat … I’m not going to do much on overwatch and if I fall back they are just going to get charged again and again meaning the blood angels get their strength boost but at  S4 will struggle to wound on 5’s  … plus they cant shoot at my skitarrii … or advance over the flank … In the midfield hoplites and dragoons  … move across to make a charge into the  pair of repulsors  together on the photo , killing off one before getting murdered by the assorted blood angels characters …. I make another mistake dropping my infiltrators to support this move only to find out the primaris captain has a special “ 2 wound power sword perfectly suited to murdering their 2 wound T3 bodies ….  while I throw a bucket of attacks at him  through strong save I can only do 3 wounds, but he can wipe the unit in a single swing.

In the long run its working while I’m haemorrhaging Mooks , but dominating the Maelstrom its 8 points to my opponents 1,  I hold my backfield objectives with all my skitarii on the flank along with an undamaged mole  but in the mid field its all gummed up …  I’ve got units over contesting the blood angles side objectives as well , If can play to a draw on the primary mission I can still win the match.

Turn 4 involves consolidation and the thinning each other down … I manage to  muder all the blood angels on the right side of the board , with some spectacular melta wiffing its 3 shots  with 3 hits and 3 ones to wound I’ve already cp’d the shots from 1 to 3  on the mole instead its amazingly lethal storm bolter fire and combat.  Joe does pretty similar  the same on his side of the board killing off my remaing Ironstiders  and killing my warlord under weights of primaris bodies ..  Its back to an even keel on the primary …  Joe catches a few points up on the Maelstrom but I’m still in the lead …

Turn 5 …  joe kills all my squads on one of the objectives which is obviously rather bad for me he advances the last repulsor  onto it and will win on the primary unless I kill it … contesting with my mole isn’t enough as he has both on his end of the board,  the mole has a bit of a stinker of a shooting phase  and only does 2 damage I roll 2 d6 for the only penetration to roll 2 X 2’s
in the fight phase my 6 attacks on my 6 attacks I only hit with 2 which do 6 damage to the machine …
this I then start to roll my mortal wounds  doing  4 leaving it on  4 which isn’t enough …

We roll for the game end and It’s a 2 the game ends  final score

Blood angels  14  plus 4 for Tert's  as I lose first strike.
Ad Mech  10  

[Xisor]

Machine-God damn me, but that was damn thrilling.

 

Any takeaway lessons you get from it? I'm not sure I caught much in the way of errors or things to vary - squeezing points to allow for more Neutron Lasers?

 

Even there, I'm not convinced - it sounds like the moles *should* have been a touch more useful, it was just the rolls that robbed their effectiveness?

[synthaside]

Definitely ..lots learnt if I had used the infiltrators as an objective grabber rather than an I'll fated charge on the warlord .. especially by dropping g them in on turn 3 on my side I would have won .. two units would have been enough to win my side primary. .. I had a bad luck game with the moles . On my turn 1 advancing and rolling a 1 when I needed a 2 followed by a CP to a second one .

Looking back to it though , I would have done the same deployment wise ... His army is all but immune to stygies turn one bull:cuss :-p which is great ... It's also T8 .. for all of turn 1 and the repulsors are -2 to charges .. he used the nodels very well. I'm hoping he does great at no retreat .. he keeps trying to get me to apply but my painting just isn't good enough in my opinion.

If anything actually having a neutron laser was a bad move ... I should have taken 3 Erad beamers  for shooting at primaris and then upgraded my ironstriders to lascannons .. I always roll d3' shots  really badly so having 2 strength 9 is typically better than 1 strength 10 , yes it's a lot of points but they are very easy to hide from shooting .. an onager isnt so easily done especially when you look to castle up around a dominus and the other Onager for the re-rolls of 1 .

3 repulsors while it sounds bonkers is very very strong they are like fighting eldar flyers that are harder to charge and stronger when you shoot at it , Melta struggles with t8, I definitely also missed my smites ..

[Charlo]

Been following Joe's progress in the BA section and it's great to read this write up! Sounds like a tough match-up.

[synthaside]

Yeah he's been pretty instrumental in getting me back into the hobby , He, I and his brother played when we were in our early teens, now in our early thirties have the time and disposable income  ... along with eye rolling other halves :-P 

Joe and his brother are both outstanding painters far better than I will ever be hence why they are at no retreat and I am sat at home posting on bolter and chainsword :-P ...  Im hoping one of them will take home best painted ... while Joe is the master of the airbrush with his blood angel's  Max is an oustanding Character painter and his space wolves are also pretty jaw dropping