Chapter Tactics is a 40k podcast which focuses on promoting better tactical play and situational awareness across all variations of the game. Today Peteypab, Reece, The Falcon, and Brandon Grant talk about what the best Imperium army lists and allied units are and how they will effect Space Marine players as they transition into their new codex.
Show Notes:
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- Click here for a link for information on downloading best coast pairings app where you can find lists for most of the events I mention.
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- Intro by: Justin Mahar
Kinda weird you (correctly) identify undercosted stuff like Caladius or Scorpius Tanks, but than jump to recommending Tank Commanders, which are worse than either of them.
They certainly need to go up a score of points and, more importantly, shooting one twice should be a 2 CP Strat in line with Endless Cacophony, Single Mondes Annihilation, etc…
Stuff like move! move! move!, fall back and shoot, for Guard also needs to be moved towards strats or psychic spells in line with temporal corridor, etc..
Having that many CP-free, non-deny-able, even non-Vect-able, not-even-deniable-by-pulling-Models-correctly-as-with-old-soulburst, completely non-interactive additional activations for an army as Guard has is insane.
That’s a fundamentally failed design in Imperium atm.
Caladius, Scorpius, whatever are vanishingly minor problems in comparison.
I hardly think a Caladius is a minor issue compared to Tank Commanders. Tank Commanders are quite good but you don’t see people stuffing 3 of them into lists like you do the Caladius. You often see 1-2 in a list and not nearly as frequently. Perhaps in your meta that isn’t the case but here it certainly is.
GSC players happily stuff three of them into a list. So do most Guard players, including you, even in lists that are otherwise mostly infantry.
I don’t take three? I take 2 at most, often only 1.
Also, I rarely actually see or read GSC lists with 3 (or any, but I have seen that trend changing as more are adding in some) the only spammed vehicle I have seen in GSC lists is the Vulture.
I have seen or played against triple Tank Commanders at every RTT or Major I’ve been to in the past few months. They are crazy good for the points.
Oh yeah, not arguing that at all. They’re very good. That’s interesting though as my experience is usually seeing 1-2 but hey, that’s just me.
Never thoughts I’d disagree with Brandon/T1000, the caladius have amazing board presence because they can be anywhere and shoot anything, to say that they don’t create lanes because they can shoot everything doesn’t make much sense. They can also move extremely fast and take the mid board, jump lines etc.
Just because some people play them defensively and don’t move them doesn’t mean they aren’t way better than the tank commander etc.
They are vastly better than the Tank Commander, I agree.
I feel like the Tank Commander is spot on the money. They’re good for the points, not overpowering, they die, but they contribute a lot.
The Caladius often dominated the game and creates unenjoyable rules interactions.
Allow me to elaborate. Board presence means “if you move here you will get hurt” in my book. You’re controlling space by threatening part of the board. Paradoxically while a calladius is able to threaten the entire board with 8 powerfist shots hitting on 2’s it’s not as points efficient at killing as a knight gallant for example. The gallant has a smaller threat range but does more damage when it reaches you. So yes a calladius will be able to move and see stuff but conversely it’s not as powerful at keeping you away from itself as there’s no penalty for you getting closer to it. I may as well throw an Ork horde into a calladius but I’d think twice before doing the same to a gallant.
I kind of get what your saying but I think it’s still better to have unlimited reach than limited threat reach like a gallant. The pointlessness of trying to avoid a caladius is kind of what makes it so good, you basically can’t avoid it. At least the gallant or other slow moving you can outmaneuver into firing lanes and stuff.
They serve different purposes. Something that can hit anywhere on the table is just damage. Something that has limited range, but that limited range covers important parts of the table (Objectives, whatever), forces your Opponent to make decisions, and the more times they have to do that, the more likely they are to make a bad one.
I don’t know about this particular case that well, but way back in the day, when they were actually scary, I saw the same thing play out all the time with regular Leman Russ and Demolishers.
I am also a little surprised at Brandon’s account of fighting Sisters.
Sisters infantry certainly doesn’t hit on WS 3+. That’s arguably their biggest drawback, especially going down the Bloody Rose route. Unfortunately, there’s (to my knowledge) not even an Act of Faith or a Strat to get them there.
Celestians and Seraphim are WS3+, and they are fairly commonly seen.
Thanks for pointing that out. Ws 4+ is still not bad with 3 str 4 attacks per model.
I just want to tell all of you guys thanks for making such a helpful and positive podcast. I’ve always been a bit of a news junkie and that lead me into learning a little about military procurement and modernization. It’s interested me for years and list building seems to stimulate the same parts of my brain. I really enjoy hearing people talk about how to make things work.
If there’s one complaint I’ve had in trying to learn from the community it’s how often I hear about how this doesn’t work or about how you have to use this or that. There’s something that the people saying that bring to the discussion, and there’s a lot of value in some of the stats which I know one of you works really hard on. That’s all good I just find a lot of value in the other side of things. The speculative side (how things might be made to work, or what makes what is working work), balances the talk about what is working and what’s in the meta.
Great job, particular when talking about how the Assassins work best with support.
Glad you liked it!
Thanks for the shoutout guys. Great show and super informative. One correction, Richard Cozart got top Chaos at Slaughterfest 2019 after beating me at the final table with Chaos Bikers and Daemonettes. But over 250 models died in that battle so Khorne’s happy.
On the topic of whether you should play all your matches, I’d like to offer an opinion and a little anecdote in case it helps other players out there. The opinion is that if you are serious about wanting to improve as a competitive 40k player, you should play all your matches. Also, you should play all your matches letting your opponent know your army’s main tools and hoping you get your opponent’s best game. Every match I play, win or lose, I want to take away 3 things:
1) Learn at least one thing about playing against my opponent’s army (some enemy unit or combo or stratagem).
2) Learn at least one thing I can play better about my own army (unit to unit matchups, improved action sequencing, resource allocation).
3) At least one epic moment because the dice gods decreed it to be so (having 3 out of 4 knights blowing up on 6s in your army’s face or Trajan one-shotting Abaddon).
Nothing improves your skill level faster than playing against good opponents and even the lower tables at tournaments will give you better and more competitive matches than casual play.
Just to reinforce my point, a little anecdote. My very first GT was Hammer of Wrath 2018 and I went into Day 2 at 1-2. Thought about dropping since it was an hour drive away but decided to go and throw some dice. 4th round opponent was Junior and his Necrons. We had a fun match and that was my first taste of Necrons in 8th. I won cause this was pre-CA 2018 Necrons and they were still overcosted. But getting that game under my belt, even against pre-CA Necrons, really helped me in round 4 at Slaughterfest 2019 against Michael Timpe and his killer Necrons list. My 5th round opponent at Hammer of Wrath 2018 was against an Astra Militarum player running Catachans, a mix of Space Marine librarians, a Castellan and 9 Bullgryn. In that match, my opponent kept targetting Abaddon with psychic powers even when he was not in threat range until Abaddon finally fell. I lost that game handily and in chatting after the game, my opponent told me that the main thing his Bullgryn feared was Abaddon. I went home, ran the numbers and low and behold, he was right. Abaddon minces Bullgryn in CC. I was able to use this fact against Brandon Grant in round 5 in Slaughterfest 2019. So if you ask me, play all your games cause you never know what you’re going to learn.
Just a final little twist. My opponent in round 5 of Hammer of Wrath 2018 who told me Abaddon crushes Bullgryn? It was none other than Brandon Grant. Now Brandon’s probably played a million games since then so I can only chalk him putting his Bullgryn within threat range of a warptimed Abaddon at Slaughterfest to memory overflow. But thanks for the tip Brandon. I couldn’t have won our match without it. =)
Off-Meta Chaos list?
A Chaos List without Ahriman, lol.
Hint: It basically doesn’t exist.
Don Hooson disagrees.