BR3: The Repugnant Ramblers Vs Grey Knights - 1250pts

You definately need Scissorhands back for your characters
And haywire/heatrays for the Taloses.

Screening them off and tying them up seems like your only option. Stick together, and combine your assaults, and you may be able to bring one down on the charge. The apocalyptic explosion might really hurt you, though...

I know that we said Grey Knights would be the true test for this list but Imperial Knights seem like a much harder match up.

Getting your Grots into melee with the knights might be the kiss of death given the D CC weapons, stomp, and explosion upon death. Playing the objectives and using cover could be the best way to win this one. Finding points for haywire on your Talos would be good too.

I will be very interested to hear how this one turns out.

I want to have splinter cannons on my Talos ... what the f... is it called when there's more than one?

But.. I always have a hard time giving up the haywire blaster as it's reliable at stripping HP - and haywire is one of the few things Knights really don't like.

The sword is also S D, so be super careful and only charge when a knight has lost 4-5 HP's - do not get stomped!

In a list like this, I would never give the talos anything else than haywire blasters - your grotesques can murder just about anything with a wound profile (maybe short of balesword nurgle princes, at least until you get eternal warrior ;-)), and you really need some AT for dealing with armour, like land raiders and Knights that your grotesques can't damage.

I don't envy you trying to win this one Mush - your army excels at beating the opponent in combat, but against this list those grot squads are likely to be dead weight.

I'd be tempted to go heat lance rather than Haywire blaster, I know it's much shorter range but I'd want my shooting to have the maximum chance to do damage, and I see the heat lance as doing that (not saying the HWB is a bad option, just that the heat lance gives you the best chance to get that explodes result that removes D3 additional hull points).

The heat lance has a very poor chance of doing that.

It has to be within 9", which is very convenient for the Knight as that is very nearly a guaranteed charge.

If you somehow manage to get within 9", the chance of getting an explode result is 12.4%, and to do more than 1 hp damage 8.2%. We haven't even taken the shield into account yet, because then you can lower the chances to 6.2% and 4.1% if it's a 4+ shield or 4.1% and 2.7% if it's a 3+ shield.

Then you get charged, and your talos will die either to the sword or stomps - as the only reliable way to strip more HP's is to smash the Knight, and that's only 1 attack/cc phase vs. 3 attacks from the Knight + D3 stomps, which will auto-hit.

That is why I prefer the haywire blasters, because a Talos mounted haywire blaster has a 61.8% chance of stripping a HP - or 30.9% with a 4+ shield and 20.4% with a 3+ shield.

Much higher odds of killing a Knight, especially because you get to fire for more than one turn - and can hopefully keep your distance with at least 1 Talos, or one unit of Talos, and going in the other direction with the rest to get out of the shield coverage.

Septimus wrote:

If you can somehow play the mission you might have a chance - whatever you do, stay far away from cc, as the stomps will get you sooner or later.

That's the plan.

Sigmaril wrote:

You definately need Scissorhands back for your characters
And haywire/heatrays for the Taloses.

Screening them off and tying them up seems like your only option. Stick together, and combine your assaults, and you may be able to bring one down on the charge. The apocalyptic explosion might really hurt you, though...

My issue with that is that just because scissorhands and haywire let me potentially hurt the Knights, it doesn't mean I can actually do enough to destroy one. Even if I do the explosion might finish me off (as you mentioned).

Sinister wrote:

I know that we said Grey Knights would be the true test for this list but Imperial Knights seem like a much harder match up.

I completely agree, this match up seems a lot more intimidating.

Sinister wrote:

Getting your Grots into melee with the knights might be the kiss of death given the D CC weapons, stomp, and explosion upon death. Playing the objectives and using cover could be the best way to win this one.

Yeah melee is a risk, but I'm hoping my units can at least tie them up for a while, giving me time and space to play the mission.

Septimus wrote:

I want to have splinter cannons on my Talos ... what the f... is it called when there's more than one?

Taloxen? Talosi?

Septimus wrote:

In a list like this, I would never give the talos anything else than haywire blasters - your grotesques can murder just about anything with a wound profile (maybe short of balesword nurgle princes, at least until you get eternal warrior ;-)), and you really need some AT for dealing with armour, like land raiders and Knights that your grotesques can't damage.

Yeah, it's a dilemma, but I'm hopping I don't need to destroy Imperial Knights and Land Raiders to win games. As for Balesword daemon princes, I used to have a small nurgle daemon army so I know how to deal with them (grotesques will destroy a Nurgle DP as long as you make it charge through cover).

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

I don't envy you trying to win this one Mush - your army excels at beating the opponent in combat, but against this list those grot squads are likely to be dead weight

I'm hopping their ability to block, score and tie a knight up for at least 2-3 rounds will be enough (combined with coming in from reserve with no scatter).

Septimus wrote:

Much higher odds of killing a Knight, especially because you get to fire for more than one turn - and can hopefully keep your distance with at least 1 Talos, or one unit of Talos, and going in the other direction with the rest to get out of the shield coverage.

Honestly I don't think there is anything I could add to this list that would give me realistic/reliable way of destroying a knight, so I don't think I'm going to even try and destroy them. Especially since two of them have 3++ ion shields and one has WND. I don't have the numbers or the mobility to outmanoeuvre their shields.

I don't think you'll get a chance to avoid them in close combat. Those buggers are fast.

There's only 3 of them, though, so you might want to step away from your usual tactics of gathering the objectives closely together, and spread them as much as possible instead. You will not get any of the "kill something" objectives, but there is still the linebreaker and that kind of stuff. You should probably deep strike as spread out as possible, so he can't go for all your units at the same time. With some luck, you'll get the right "secure Objectives" cards.

In a recent game I played the Corpsethief Claw chewed through an Adamantine Lance. Don't fear the stomps, as you only roll once for the affected models, not per template. D chain sword hits on 4+ and he will prob be charging through terrain so I1. Smash on a 3+ will see some damage before the sword drops and he will be lucky to be killing more than one Talos a turn, barring overrun. The way it worked out with me was that the move through cover rolls for the Knights meant that they were charging one after the other, hitting at I1. I just kept smashing them and when the smashed failed to kill outright the knights seriously lacked the damage output to finish the Taloi off...

Sigmaril wrote:

There's only 3 of them, though, so you might want to step away from your usual tactics of gathering the objectives closely together, and spread them as much as possible instead. You will not get any of the "kill something" objectives, but there is still the linebreaker and that kind of stuff. You should probably deep strike as spread out as possible, so he can't go for all your units at the same time. With some luck, you'll get the right "secure Objectives" cards.

Yeah, i'm going to spread the objectives, but he will probably group his centrally, so they are easy to access from the whole board. I then plan on just spreading him out so that at most i'm in combat with one knight at a time.

Sulmo wrote:

Don't fear the stomps, as you only roll once for the affected models, not per template.

The rules say you roll once per template and personally I find that less threatening.

40k rulebook wrote:

A Stomp attack consists of D3 Stomps. To make the first Stomp, place a blast marker so that it is touching, but not over, the Super-heavy Walker model (or the Super-heavy Walker model’s base, if it has one). Each unit that has at least one model even partially under the marker is stomped. For each unit that is stomped, roll on the Stomp table (see right) to determine what happens to it. Each subsequent Stomp is made in the same manner as the first...

Emphasis mine.

Exactly, so with 3 stomps (1 roll per blast marker) it's not so hard for the Knight to roll a 6 and smear your Talos all over the table in one go.

That is, if the sword doesn't get you first. It's about 1-2 hits per cc phase, and any 6 will splat your Talos just like the stomp(s).

In the effect of each stomp table it refers to 'models' being removed under a template as part of a unit that is stomped. This is because (I read) the stomp is an area effect, rather than a wound allocation type attack. Subsequent stomps just allow the Knight to affect more models in several units. Secondly (likewise) D hits from a chainsword are allocated in the same way as regular hth and wounds do not spill over to other models if you roll well for the effect. Hence why I was not losing more than a Talos in each hth phase, assuming the Knight lived lone enough to hit me.

Sulmo wrote:

In the effect of each stomp table it refers to 'models' being removed under a template as part of a unit that is stomped. This is because (I read) the stomp is an area effect, rather than a wound allocation type attack. Subsequent stomps just allow the Knight to affect more models in several units. Secondly (likewise) D hits from a chainsword are allocated in the same way as regular hth and wounds do not spill over to other models if you roll well for the effect. Hence why I was not losing more than a Talos in each hth phase, assuming the Knight lived lone enough to hit me.

So you are saying a stomp attack can only ever resolve one stomp template against a unit?

No. You resolve up to three templates, which covers more models in the 'stomped' unit, which can then as per RAW affect several units rather than just the one locked in comabt with the Knight.

Sulmo wrote:

No. You resolve up to three templates, which covers more models in the 'stomped' unit, which can then as per RAW affect several units rather than just the one locked in comabt with the Knight.

Yes but you resolve each of those templates separately, each time rolling a d6.

I read it the opposite way that you roll once for all (up to three) templates, based on the above interpretation.

Otherwise if one template hit several units, then the effect of the stomp (i.e. the specific template) could vary between the units, which would not make sense, based on the above interpretation.

Sulmo wrote:

I read it the opposite way that you roll once for all (up to three) templates, based on the above interpretation.

Otherwise if one template hit several units, then the effect of the stomp (i.e. the specific template) could vary between the units, which would not make sense, based on the above interpretation.

Not really seeing that. The rules tell you how to resolve the first Stomp Attack, including rolling on the Stomp table, and then "Each subsequent Stomp is made in the same manner as the first". I don't see how this can be read as anything other than rolling separately on the Stomp table for each Stomp.

It also specifically tells you to roll on the Stomp table "For each unit that is stomped", so you can indeed have different units suffering different effects from the same Stomp.

My bad, how do the D chainsword wounds get allocated in hth as a matter of interest?

Sulmo wrote:

My bad, how do the D chainsword wounds get allocated in hth as a matter of interest?

You just roll to hit and then roll on the Destroyer table. So, for example, if you have a Knight inflict 3 hits with it's chainsword then you would roll 3 times on the table and apply the result to the nearest models in the usual way. Multiple Wounds/Hull Points inflicted by a Destroyer hit do not carry over to other models in the unit (any excess are lost).

Do you take wounds from the nearest model, until its dead, or do you have to take wounds from the nearest models hit?

Nothing in the Destroyer rules says anything different so I'd assume you would follow the normal rules for allocating wounds except you are allocating 'rolls on the Destroyer table' instead of specific wounds, remembering the caveat that multiple Wounds hit do not carry over to other models in the unit.

So nearest model until it's dead, then the next hit on nearest etc.

I would have still pasted him

Really?

Because 1 Corpsethief claw is at best doing 5 smash attacks.

That's 3.3 hits = 2.18 glance/pens - let's say you get one of each. That's 2-4 hp's per cc phase (if you manage an explode result on your pen).

Even then you won't kill a knight. It will at least take a couple of cc phases, unless you get really lucky!

3 Knights get a total of 9x S D attacks with the sword as far as I remember - that's 4.5 hits, and you only need one 6 to splat a Talos.

This is all before they start step-dancing, 3x D 3 stomps... so the odds are far and away from "pasting" any knight. Okay, maybe 1 knight, but 3 at once? I don't see it.

What about if the Corpsethief had 5 x HWB or HL? That should make taking at least one down a little easier. However, like Septimus said, if the Corpsethief is in combat with all three Knights at once, then it's probably game over.

Mush, I don't envy you with this matchup. One Knight you could handle. Heck, maybe even two Knights. But Ad Lance (or just 3 x IKs) seems like the rock to your scissors. Of course, I kind of thought the same thing before you played GK and your (brilliant) strategy worked that time, so I've learned not to doubt you and the Repugnant Ramblers even in the face of seemingly impossible odds.

With rolling two dice and picking highest for pen, the odds are closer to three pens from the claw a turn on average then two glances

if not slightly more for the 3+ to hit

Also, the change to how I interpreted Stomp would actually make it less likely for the whole unit to dissappear than the way I was playing it, go Taloi...

In which world is 5 smash attacks better than 9 S D attacks + 3x D3 stomps, and the higher the number of stomps you can roll, the higher the chance of rolling an instant-gibbing 6.

Shoot me. I give up.