Frankie tries out the new Helbrute formation in a Crimson slaughter list against Eric’s Triple Knight army backed up by Marines!
Frankie tries out the new Helbrute formation in a Crimson slaughter list against Eric’s Triple Knight army backed up by Marines!
Great BatRep, as usual. Would like to see Helbrute formations against a more “fair” army. Based on the two games we’ve seen, the triple knight lists seem OP. I feel like 1 knight is fine, but if the only way to stand a chance is to “just bring four heldrakes”, something is amiss. Squishing a juggerlord and multiple spawn units (+some # of oblits) on turn ONE doesn’t feel like balanced 40k to me.
I don’t think they are op at all. The outcome of the game was determined mostly by lucky/unlucky rolls. I made some exceptionally long charges with the knights in turn one and two, coupled with some high rolls for stomp attacks made the knights very effective. The helbrutes wiffing their meltas hurt their effectiveness and the knights were able to press the advantage. Still, all three knights were killed. They did their job but as people get more used to playing against them the knights will become much less intimidating.
Case in point, the next game I played I got ran off the table by a trip tide list. One of my knights was even killed in cc by a rip tide( three ones and a 2 on the charge, dead before stomp attacks could be resolved). If they were op they would have a better way to cheat the odds but as it is every knight is vulnerable and sound tactics with good rolls will best them just like any other well designed unit in the game
The comment about taking 4 heldrakes was a joke because he took out two of my knights with vector strikes from his solitary heldrake. Highlights probably the biggest weakness of the knights; completely vulnerable to flyers.
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I am no expert, simply a new player who has dove headlong into the competitive side of 40k (more appealing to me than “casual”), and as such I depend on the insights of players like you to formulate my opinions of the metagame. If you feel like triple knights is fine, I bow to your superior wisdom. I’m probably just biased, being a chaos player. Either way, keep the batreps coming, they are often a highlight of my week! 🙂
I’m not an elite player by any stretch of the imagination and I play chaos mostly as well. Meltas will do it, a squad of oblits could likely take out a knight in a couple rounds of shooting as long as they don’t get charged, obviously the vector strikes are hugely effective(mostly because even if your opponent allows you to use the ion shielding it is pretty easy to get around the protected side) and anything with armor bane. If you could get kharne in there somehow he would crush a knight. I still think the other monstrous creatures are more broken(wraithknight’s and rip tides) because their points costs are so low for the work they do. Exploit the knights weaknesses and you should be fine.
Keep’em come good stuff
Will do!
I’m curious in the Crimson Slaughter list, specifically what build was on the HQ selections. I see div Sorc and Khorne lord on Jugger, but any other relics from the CS book?
Hes Black Legion so prob the Skull of Eternal warrior Fist and Claw.
If a formation is from the same list as your primary army, could an exception be made to the “source” rule? I still doubt you’d see a 5 riptide list… (Tau Primary, 3 tides, Tau formation, Allied Farsight) too many points. You’re close to 1500 before you add in Farsight allies.
Then ‘nids could take two formations and Chaos could take 3 brutes at 300ish points
I really like this idea
How about sticking to the fundamental FoC but allowing some flexibility to include Formations/Dataslates?
I.e. The flexible additional units (+1/+2) are from your core book or allies and used up by your Formation/Slate choices first. Normal minimum HQ/Troop requirements remain.
2 + 1 HQ
6 + 2 Troops
3 + 1 Elite
3 + 1 Fast
3 + 1 Heavy
So, you could take Coteaz but he’d take up your +1 HQ slot, meaning that you wouldn’t be able to take the minimum requirement for allies.
You could also take the 3 Helbrute formation, but it will only leave you with one Elite slot.
This idea allows the use of some Formations etc. and allows more choices from a single Codex (e.g. it lets Tyranids essentially ally with themselves) but stops the FoC of a “normal” army (Core Codex plus Ally) getting really broken by a Formation with 5 Elite units or 6 Fast Attack etc.
Formations are essentially allowing you to ally with yourself. That is why we count them as a source.
Good battle report. I’m curious, is this the first playtest of the helbrute formation? if so then I don’t think it’s a good assessment of the formation. Frankie had bad luck rolling his scatter for the helbrutes and also missing his shots the first turn they came in. I also think if he deep struck them in a way to concentrate on one knight at a time would have been better. I would like to see you playtest the helbrute formations more before a final assessment is made 🙂 It was still a close game with almost everything destroyed.
The problem with deepstriking in close is that you increase the odds of a mishap. And yeah, he did whiff, but that happens. That is the problem with single shot AT weapons.
I think we need to see 3 knights vs the deathstar council. Make it happen!
It would interesting to see if those stomps/melee attacks chew up the council or if they can survive it and drop a knight.
Yeah, I’d love to see that play out.
We have a Seercounil coming by on Friday, but we only have a single Knight in the shop. We’ll see if we can drum up 2 more.
back and forth game.. looked really bad for frankie, then it was ok and then it ended with a slaughter. I get really cool vibes from the Knights.. tough but certainly not invincible and with a decent punch but nothing outlandish.. 6 on the stomp IS murder though haha.
Would love to play ya with my Nids Eric 😉
Absolutely. I like Hamm.
Time to play some Hades Autocannons on those Heldrakes…
S7 Vector Strikes before dude can put up a shield…. that’s where the strength lies. Getting 4 S8 BS3 shots isn’t going to scare the Knight too much.
The Flying ‘Nids would *eat* that Knight list. Those S8 Vector Strikes are just too good against them.
(Vector happens at the end of the movement phase before Knight can put up the shield)
It’s my understanding that the shield is always up, even in the movement phase, it’s only the facing that changes in the shooting phase.
That said, the shield doesn’t work at all against close combat attacks. Whilst I don’t think the rulebook explicitly states what Vector strike hits count as, it is clear that a Vector strike is meant to make physical contact and certainly isn’t shooting!
Even if you take the Ion Shield RAW that it works against everything except CC attacks, Vector Strike hits the side armour so comes up against the same issue as Barrage!
Depending on how people play it. HIWPI is the closest side to the striker. I’d fly over in a particular way, or a particular knight. D3+1 S8 hits against AV12, I’m taking off hullpoints, or potentially outright killing the knight.
We read vector Strike as a pseudo CC attack, so no shield.
crimson slaughter sorcerer on a bike. level 3 psyker. daemonheart, and mannon. powerfist and combi melta on him. Hope for a 5 on divination. I would roll all three on divination. You get a toughness 5 model w a rerollable 2 up and a 4 invuln. stick him with 13 or 14 possessed with mark of slaanesh and icon of excess. they have a 5 invuln w fnp. it s a nasty unit that can take a lot of ap2 shots to kill it. 3 maulerfiends to go with and two units of spawn. take fabius bile so you can infiltrate d3 units. stick him in an aegis with 20 cultists. comes to around 1850 w lasher tendrils and a few other gifts of mutation. all crimson slaughter.
spawn with MoN. units of 5 each.;cultists get fear from crimson slaughter. I meant huron blackheart. not fabius bile. Huron sometimes has access to divination also.