Portland Meta?

[brettdavis1991]

Hi me and my roommate are just getting into 40k painting up first armies. I'm going Death Guard (later switching to Dark Angels when codex drops) he is going Ultramarines. We were wondering if there is a local meta or something we should look out for when kitting out our armies. 

[Guest]

Been told that most of the armies are doing gunlines. I've been running Khorne, so we go to point blank and I've been getting compliments on that because it's refreshing over the current meta. So, yeah, expect most opponents to have an army lean towards ranged battles.

In any case, take a peak at the Imperial Knight or Renegade knight rules. Your army needs to be be able to contend with about 3 of those in a 2k list. Most armies won't, and some knight players will feature more, but you should be able to handle most super heavies if you can cope with 3 knights. 

Don't need to be able to auto-win 3 knights, just to contend with them enough where both players have fun. Super heavies are not fun for either player if you can't cope with them.

[brettdavis1991]

How common are those knight lists?

 

[Guest]

45 minutes ago, brettdavis1991 said:

How common are those knight lists?

 

Not super common. Most local scenes will have at least 1 regular knight player, just like most local scenes will have at least 1 horde player. Most players will play some variant of SM. But many armies will include a single Knight or other super heavy, if only because they are very good at dealing with other super heavies. 

It isn't that you should expect to face knights every time, but you should design your list to be able to cope with them. Coping doesn't mean auto-winning, but it does mean having a fighting chance and not just relying on statistical anomalies (like destroying them with bolters...it can be done, but the odds are not favorable). 

So, if I show up with 3x T8 giants with 24 wounds,  3+ armor, and a 5+ inv (vs shooting only), which is quick (12" move),  and has both strong ranged and melee, can your army cope with it? And that's maybe 1500pts, so this isn't my entire army, just most of it.

A knight player could bring 4 or maybe even 5 knights at 2k, but I think you really only need to be able to cope with 3 for general, all-comers list creation. 

Ideally, your army should be able to put up a real fight against 3 knights. Your "Coping" solution might be to focus on avoiding the knights, or in reducing their stats so they can't hit anything, or using brute force to smash them, or even using them against the opponent. Point is, in order to have a fun game, you'll need to be able to win, even if it means an uphill battle. 

Knights are an extreme example, to be sure, but it does come up and having zero solutions makes for an unpleasent experience. 

[Steel Angel]

Your army should be a nice balance between anti-tank and anti horde. How you do this is up to you. If you specialize in one the other will bite you in the butt.

[SPaceORK]

So... Three knights are bad. Unless your completely unprepared for them.

When your writing a list, regardless of the meta, you have to be able to kill a solid 10-30 t3/5+ guys or put 10-15+ wounds on a t8/3+ model.

If your list can do that, then it doesn't matter what they bring, you'll be able to put up a fight.

[Steel Angel]

So to sum up there are four specialty builds.

1. Horde= lots of troops overwhelm opponent.

2. Heavy=  centered around one or two super heavies

3. Multi-Small-Units (MSU)= taking lots of small units to grab objectives this one is designed to win Battleplan more the beat opponent.

4. TAC. (take all comers)= built to take on anyone.

Now of these the TAC. build can be used by the other 3. ie.(TAC-Horde, TAC-MSU) but at a cost of weakening the specialty area a bit.

 

.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Spaceork said:

So... Three knights are bad. Unless your completely unprepared for them.

Totally agree.

[brettdavis1991]

11 hours ago, Spaceork said:

So... Three knights are bad. Unless your completely unprepared for them.

alright, couldn't imagine it was too common.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, brettdavis1991 said:

alright, couldn't imagine it was too common.

Well, how much have you spent on your 2k army? How much time will you spend assembling or painting it? Doesn't a 3 or 4 model army sound appeally in a time saving or cost reducing capacity...? 

Knight armies are common enough because knight armies are easy from a hobby stance and relatively cheap. And they do look really cool.

Plus most armies can use Knights (because most armies fit into the Imperium+chaos group...).

 

[happycamper]

Thinking about a Shadowsword, Bandeblade, and MACHARIUS Vulcan list.  Some support units for them (salamander command vehicle, Trojan support vehicle, etc)

[Lord Hanaur]

Astra Militarum seem to be the most dangerous faction this time around, ironically and I'd take a look at what they can do as a first step on meta.

 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Lord Hanaur said:

Astra Militarum seem to be the most dangerous faction this time around, ironically and I'd take a look at what they can do as a first step on meta.

 

AM was the faction last edition that was most heavily nerfed by the ITC. They had some of cheapest super heavies, ones that ITC ruled couldn't be fielded in duplicate. Multiple super heavy tank AM should have been a thing last edition...

Anyway, I did peek at the guard book. Nothing overpowered in there. But, like the Knights, if you are unprepared there are things may seem overpowered until you start preparing for them. 

For the OP, being a new player with SM, don't try to outshoot Astra Militarum - they are really good at stationary shooting armies. As a SM player, your army will be above average at everything, but never better than a specialized army in their field of expertise. Gunlines is where AM really shine - they can certainly do other things, but it's very easy to make an effective AM army that holds position and shoots.

[brettdavis1991]

I'm starting with a Death Guard army. haven't quite worked out my list yet, debating if I want mortarion or not. but I plan to be fairly melee focused using pox walkers as t6 meat shields with a big melee group of plague marines following up. I was very much inspired by this list 

 

 

[Guest]

That linked video is like fanservice for Deathguard. The SW player complains about smite spam, but has no psychic defense. He has an extremely elite, small army. But the player used good tactics, just didn't really include the tools to cope with that list. 

Still, unclear if my list would do any better...

 

[Steel Angel]

It's kind of funny it's a rock paper scissors. A basic grey Knights list would basically beat the Death guard list but the Space Wolves would probably defeat the grey Knights LOL

[Torg]

hmmm I was building a Knight list... allied with Mechanicus... I've recently restarted this project with a willingness to play 8th ed.  2 knights most likely - but I had started the plan as a knight army only.  I would never just bring it to play without my opponent knowing though lol.  I have other armies for fun games.

 

-d

[peter.cosgrove]

You need to be able to kill a 30 model tarpit and a land-raider each turn. Anything less and you end up getting wiped.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, peter.cosgrove said:

You need to be able to kill a 30 model tarpit and a land-raider each turn. Anything less and you end up getting wiped.

Thought a lot about this since you suggested it to me. Rather bleak way of looking at it. But yes, you should be able to destroy between a forth and a third of their points in each turn, assuming your army is at full strength. Though I suppose if you can make them useless without destroying them, that works too and would count towards these points. 

But you know, you won't be at full strength for most of the game, so even if you can destroy 30 models and a land raider turn 1, you may have trouble maintaining that momentum.

[peter.cosgrove]

Yes. That's the point.

8E is very much bringing back the high model count cheap screening forces from 2nd in front of high point gunlines from 4th.

This, combined with a mandated deep strike distance means it's very easy to block off the side/backfield from deep strike, which means any deep strike will still end up in the midfield.

8E is bringing back the old school backfield/midfield concepts, and on a 6 foot by 4 foot board you either  need a lot of models to control space. or very precise placement of select units that really can't move.

Because this is so easy now, and the high cost of deep strike transports, and the odd way that 8E has to control first turn assaults, the use of 5E style first turn midfield control just turns into a target rich environment. Add in the 6E requirement that half the units need to be on the board on first turn means that the army lists that take advantage of high cost stationary weapons platforms and high model count screening forces become the most dependable/durable army's

Also add in that pretty much any list can take advantage of the most durable list means that every game you can expect to fight the meta.

The side meta, the one that.. some.. people are shaking their heads at is the smite meta. Since this is most easily taken advantage of by Choas armies, that also can use the whole range of cheap multiple tarpits and gunlines.

[peter.cosgrove]

I mean, it's brutally easy to build the meta. Take 6 20 model troop units, take enough stationary guns to guarantee a kill on a Baneblade/Landraider, take some HQ to make the guns better and add whatever midfield fire options you need to take out a 30 model tarpit within 24 inches after movement/advance.

The more wounds you put onto the board the better.

I don't know if they deliberately designed the balance to work the way it does, or if it's just painful simplicity of the 7E D weapons or what. The fact is, template weapons are gone, large scale destruction of the tarpit is gone. You HAVE to kill each model, one by one.

In every codex you take a look at the weapon sets. Find the best tarpit killer, then start running the cost to kills ratio and the tarpits win EVERY time.

For example. Space Marines Twin Assault Cannon. Very good weapon. Heavy 12. Most likely course of action hitting on 3's, re-rolling 1's with a Captain. Average 9 hits, ap -1, average 6 kills. ONLY 6 kills. To take out a 120 point tarpit (don't count the morale because the tarpits bring their moral saves w/ them) you have to have 5 twin assault cannons. But you can't just take 5 twin assault cannons, you have to put them ONTO something. One of the least expensive choices would be the Razorback, 5 Razorbacks with Twin Assault Cannon, 500 points. Good threat dispersion, the enemy has to pick and choose which razorback to kill, But still, 500 to 120. To make the cost ratio EVEN .. JUST even, you would have to kill 5 tarpits just to break point cost across 5 turns. And THAT is exactly what the tarpit guy wants.

The only way to effectively put threat down on the enemy's backfield is massed long range threat dispersed firepower, and lots of it. Because the guy that puts a gunline down in the backfield that you want to put effects on is also going to put cheap cheap units screening those gunlines and preventing the deep strike into the backfield. And you have to put together a dual threat mechanic where you spend a turn killing off those screening forces (which requires a 36" MINIMUM range threat), leaving those big guns 2 full turns to shoot at you before you can get an effective deep strike down onto the guns. Because movement is first/shooting is second. It would be different if it was shoot first/move second, but they condensed the old Run into the movement phase so you can't even get a little additional movement closer after you kill off some of the screening forces. And then add in the whole free no penalties fall back of 8E, means even if you DO get half of your deep striking forces stuck in, either you are going to kill off all the screening forces, in which case the consolidation move won't get you in range, or the screening forces will just fall back closer to the guns leaving you out on your tod, swimming in a barrel of dakka.

[peter.cosgrove]

Now, take the Razorback example even further. The other little mechanic that 8E brought in was that you can assault from a vehicle. MMkay, that's what we wanted. You can assault from a Rhino/Razorback. MMMkay, that's icing on the cake of what we wanted. 

BUT.... in order to assault from a vehicle you have to disembark from the vehicle BEFORE it moves. 

Ok.. now see, that little bit there.. breaks the transport assault concept in twain. Because even with the 3" free movement from the disembark, you still only get 9" of movement depending on the model movement.

Even in the best case scenario, where you take jump pack units in a Land Raider of some form, you still only get a 15" movement. And the average deployment neutral distance is.. 24". What's 24-15? 9". which is the same as the mandatory deep strike distance. So, if that's the case, why bother trying a jump pack assault from a transport. 

There are no guarantees in the deep strike mechanic. Not only is it random, but trying to place any type of threat density into it still means that you are going to lose a LOT of wounds sitting there waiting for your next turn so you can move/assault.

[peter.cosgrove]

I can't tell you how irritating it is to see how they keep splitting units away from where they were supposed to be good and now another unit is better.

compare Blood Angels Death Company to Black Templars Vanguard Veterans.

Black Templars gain a free re-roll on the charge. You have to put Lemartes in with Death Company to get that. Lemartes point cost is the same as a whole additional unit of Vanguard Veterans.

I mean.. really, what's the point of trying anymore.

Ultramarines are now better bikers than both White Scars AND Dark Angels.

Just.. boggles the mind.

I have to say that I keep looking at Legion of the Damned. They can drop in with a Multi Melta double tapping on 4's and a melta on 3's. They bring their own ablatives with a 3+ invuln. 2 attacks in melee. All in all, very expensive for what is essentially only a 5 wound unit. But, every time I look at a deployment on turn 1-2 there is always too much space to bridge the 12" gap for the double tap to be worthwhile.

Really, nobody is going to give you the deep strike capability either for shooting or assault on their gunline. Not when they have cheapy troops just to have sit there and eat dakka.

[SPaceORK]

2 hours ago, peter.cosgrove said:

I can't tell you how irritating .... Blah blah blah...

Dude, why do you always have to throw up a wall of text when like one or two sentences or a small paragraph will work?

Especially when most of this stuff your writing has nothing to do with the op's question.

[peter.cosgrove]

you added the blah blah blah. Pretty sure I didn't put that in there. I would appreciate it when you quote me in the future to not change what I type.

Please.