Anyone else feel dirty using deathstars?

So recently I stopped using Duke Sliscus in every game I had played in for over three years and went down a much more competitive route with the well known, Baron, Shardseer and Beasts combo.

It works, everyone knows it works. It's winning tournaments and placing well left, right and centre (the majority of players taking it in a CWE/DE army) but when you use it do you ever feel, you know... a bit dirty?

Is it the same as when 9 Venoms prevailed in 5th or any other power builds such as Screamers - do you take them just to survive and put up a fight on the competitive scene?

I do feel a bit dirty but then I look at Screamerstars, Seerstars. O'vesastars, Superfriends etc and think that actually it's not that bad!

I only feel bad about using them against certain people, namely those who use them themselves.
If I'm playing a friendly game against a non-competitive player, I'll leave the deathstars out.
If I'm playing the guy fielding a Wraithknight and a Riptide together, or the guy with four Heldrakes, then I have few qualms about using deathstars.

I feel dirty using special characters.... haha. I couldn't bring myself to field deathstars like these. Thats simply the environment I play in though and the type of games we aim to have, slowing moving towards a much more narrative style of play.

If I did use the full out builds then yes I would. However I do not although if I were to attend a major event like LVO I might consider it.

I do use large beast packs and just started using a council. Both units are insanely powerful offensively but not OTT until you mix multiple jetseers and baron. In anything less than the highest level of competition I would advise against such builds.

Absolutely feel like a dirtbag. Deathstars are for tournament players who only care about beating up everybody else and don't have feelings. As far as the dudes in my meta are concerned they're pure cheese and indicative of a lack of soul, never mind the lack of effort and ingenuity necessary to win a game when you're using an easy-button.

This is coming from a bunch of guys (myself included) who play for fun, won't field multiple riptides/heldrakes for compassion's sake*, constantly list-tailor against each other, swear, curse, and vow ghastly murder on a weekly basis, and would likely not make it past the first round of a tournament scene.

Digest at your discretion.

*compassion also means "'cause we don't want to get our butts kicked in the parking lot."

Sky Serpent wrote:

So recently I stopped using Duke Sliscus in every game I had played in for over three years and went down a much more competitive route with the well known, Baron, Shardseer and Beasts combo.

It works, everyone knows it works. It's winning tournaments and placing well left, right and centre (the majority of players taking it in a CWE/DE army) but when you use it do you ever feel, you know... a bit dirty?

Is it the same as when 9 Venoms prevailed in 5th or any other power builds such as Screamers - do you take them just to survive and put up a fight on the competitive scene?

I don't feel bad about creating a winning puzzle. We all want it. Also, part of the puzzle is learning to master and relist against such things without overcommitting...or under committing for that matter.

treat it like a puzzle.

Well I'm with laughingcarp on this. It has been really hard to get a "fun" game in as of late. Seems that all my group have jumped on the "I'm gonna slaughter you!" band wagon. In my last game with my DE (months ago), I tried the venom spam thing and you know what, they were put in between two slices of bread and eaten like venom Spam sandwichs, haha. So if I could come up with a deathstar in my DE, well, in touries maybe but still not in my general games. Wow, now I really miss playing with my DE.

I'd probably feel bored doing it because everyone's doing it.

I'd feel dirty doing it in my group cos we don't go full out as the group preference is for non-optimised lists.

I wouldn't feel dirty doing it in a full-out best shot game though, if that's what the other guy wants. Nothing wrong with simply taking the best stuff in the list if that's the name of the game. Sounds like a fun game, one I wish I did more often tbh - although some of the power lists look incredibly dull.

I think so much of this is also just the over exposure "deathstars" get online. I wonder if we'd care nearly as much if every tagline wasn't "Deathstar...what do you think?"

Makes one groan.

In truth, I've still not seen a list that cant be beaten (though i will say that Tzeentch Daemon Flying Circus, while not a Deathstar in the typical sense, is freaking HARD CORE).

Honestly the main culprit is obvious.. 2++ rerolls from Fortune. Everything else is manageable although the rerolls get obnoxious, but every edition has something like it whether death company or full mechanized, air force and wraith wings, FMCs or stars. While these uber lists are very strong I have to agree with unorthodoxy.

Too many people buy into the hype of the X-stars, flying circus', leafblowers, insert unbeatable list here. Fact is the skill of players at the high end of competitive weigh into the mix, even with a "point and click" list, as do those at the low spectrum end. Likewise so do tourney rules and the meta game factor in. Players game the rules. Better players also game the meta. I would hazard a guess most of us play in unrefined metas, even when we feel ours is refined (compared to say LVO, NOVA, AdeptiCon et cetera) which also contributes to the success (or dare i say failure) of some of these uber lists.

Just for example I regularly play against tau and orks, among other things and orks put up just as good a fight, maybe even better due partially to sheer number of troops. Now the orks are utilizing FW dread mob list as primary with codex: orks as allies. The list easily puts out 6+ large blast ordnance barrage at S6-8 and ap 4-3 a turn many of it twin linked and i can promise you that units which rely on lynchpin characters can get dismantled by this army. Its almost laughable that I am testing the phoenix gem on my farseer to combat orks of all things!

The other thing worth mentioning is that combat oriented armies do not fear stars nearly as much as gunline armies do. People were crying about combat being dead. Well now it isnt. It just takes an inordinate amount of pts and dedication to making it work in a ranged edition. I say bravo. People hate stars I hate gunlines. Lets play..

I have never 'felt dirty' in any game of 40k I have ever played. I play with and without deathstars against opponents of multiple skill levels and various levels of competitiveness in them.

I have only ever felt annoyed by what an opponent was doing a miniscule number of times, and generally it was more personality than what they were playing.

Brom wrote:

While these uber lists are very strong I have to agree with unorthodoxy.

The other thing worth mentioning is that combat oriented armies do not fear stars nearly as much as gunline armies do. People were crying about combat being dead. Well now it isnt. It just takes an inordinate amount of pts and dedication to making it work in a ranged edition. I say bravo. People hate stars I hate gunlines. Lets play..

So true.  

I am having a BALL with melee oriented armies:
http://www.40kunorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2014/01/melee-oriented-40k-armies.html

My current list, which I have blog'd on recently, is a Night Lords army.  It is extremely short ranged overall and yet has proven more than a match for the best mechdar and Tau lists I have been able to put them up against and it beat Dark Eldar w Eldar Allies as well as Necrons last night.

Does it catch peoples attention that I spent about 340 points on two of my units?  Yeah.  But what's REALLY going to catch their attention is how well the list does.  It took me a long while to slowly mutate the list into a competitor.  Having the patience to do that isn't easy.  but if you have the patience to do it, you will find some surprising gems out there in codex's.

1996 Night Lords

  1 Obliterator, 76 pts (Mark of Nurgle)

  1 Obliterator, 76 pts (Mark of Nurgle)

  1 Obliterator, 76 pts (Mark of Nurgle)

  4 Chaos Space Marines, 52 pts
     1 Aspiring Champion, 23 pts
     1 Chaos Rhino, 40 pts (Dirge Caster)


  4 Chaos Space Marines, 52 pts
     1 Aspiring Champion, 23 pts
     1 Chaos Rhino, 40 pts (Dirge Caster)

  4 Black Legion Chaos Space Marines (Veterans of the Long War)
     1 Aspiring Champion (Veterans of the Long War)
     1 Chaos Rhino 40ts (Dirge Caster)

  1 Mutilator, 61 pts (Mark of Nurgle)

  1 Mutilator, 61 pts (Mark of Nurgle)

  1 Mutilator, 61 pts (Mark of Nurgle)

  1 Sorcerer, 120 pts (Mark of Nurgle + Melta Bombs + Increase Mastery Level+ Aura of Dark Glory)

  1 Black Legion Chaos Lord 285pts (Mark of Nurgle + Blight Grenades + Melta Bombs + Sigil of Corruption + Combi-Meltagun + Gift of Mutation + Veterans of the Long War + Chaos Bike)
     1 The Eye of Night
     1 The Hand of Darkness

  13 Raptors, 280 pts (Mark of Nurgle+ Meltagun x2)
     1 Raptor Champion, 50 pts (Melta Bombs +Mark of Nurgle+ Power Axe x1)

  13 Raptors, 280 pts (Mark of Nurgle+ Meltagun x2)
     1 Raptor Champion, 50 pts (Melta Bombs +Mark of Nurgle+ Power Axe x1)

  1 Heldrake, 170 pts

I wouldn't use a deathstar, and if a tournament requires such things to win, it's obviously full of people who are more concerned with winning in any way possible than actually playing a good game and winning through skill rather than broken rules, so I wouldn't want to go anyway. What's the point in going to a tournament expecting a few good, challenging, interesting games if you're just going to be plinking away at boring, repetitive deathstar/spam armies or even worse, feeling that you have to use one yourself to stand a chance? It just ends up as multiple tables of the same thing. Removes the point in even playing.

The sad thing is I don't doubt that such people are capable of winning with a 'proper' army, but for some reason they resort to such things just so they can say they won, regardless of whether it was anything to do with their skill as a player or not. At first I thought it might be because they want the prizes, but then I considered that the money, time and effort that goes into making and painting such armies is going to be much more than anything you would win, so it must just be for some strange ego boost gained by winning at toy soldiers by exploiting flawed rules.

The game and models are there so you can represent the armies of the 40k universe. If people exploit the rules to create silly units and armies that don't make sense in the fluff but work because the rules are broken, then they ought as well just be using pieces of card with technical designations written on them. There's no sense in calling it 40k if you aren't actually playing 40k, but rather a ruleset that you happen to be using expensive, cool-looking models for.

I don't want to have a go at you Anggul, but I read this sort of thing and I despair.

The reality is most tournament gamers, based on all such people I've talked to online, are there to enjoy the game. They may do so in a different way to you and me, but their motivation is still fun, and its still their game. They shouldn't be vilified and there shouldn't be some sort of dividing line. Some people look at the game and see a set of battles to be recreated and expanded on. Some people look at the game and see a puzzle to figure out the most effective armies and the most effective ways of using them.

Some - I suspect the majority - are in the middle. I believe I am. I don't want to go to a modern tournament, based on the homogenity of the lists that pop up for the best generals, although you can clearly see that there is a variety out there. Nor do I wish to play a game in which we constantly constrain our imaginations and intellects. That Beaststar could be an Exodite Wild Hunt, dedicated to the lost glories of Kuernos. Is that awesome if someone goes and converts that? Or beardy?

Is 6 Tactical squads a cool and appropriate example of a reserve company committed to battle, or boring spam? How about the White Scars grav-biker lists? Is it appropriate and characterful for cultists to be chanting the praises of Chaos as Daemonic engines and princes rule the sky, or cynical exploitation of allies?

One could go on for some time in this vein. GW have, for better or worse, given us a huge and unbalanced game and it is not surprising that we fans have differing opinions of the differing options. All we can do is decide what to make of them in our collectives.

I just wish we could do so with greater empathy and friendship towards the rest of our hobby.

I understand that they're there to enjoy the game, but it's just boring when they're all playing the same sort of thing, and only for the purpose of winning.

I think the correct distinction is 'it's boring for you' though. Clearly for them it's still enjoyable. Back when I did the tourney scene (which extended into 6th - though died out with Escalation) it was rather enjoyable for me.

Don't we all, to some extent, protect our HQ in a resilient unit? I love to wrap my Archon in Grotesques. ID still ruins the entourage. Beasts are a great unit but a good dose of Barrage will still ruin them, too.

I would not feel guilty about playing the "beaststar" is either Tourny or fun games with friends. Would hold back the Beastar against persons i haven't played against before and in a friend pick up game scenerio.

Its just a tough unit.... overall it is not that overpowering.

Its principal success in tournys is that it is good against other death stars.

Excellent post wanderingblade.

Quote :

Don't we all, to some extent, protect our HQ in a resilient unit? I love to wrap my Archon in Grotesques. ID still ruins the entourage. Beasts are a great unit but a good dose of Barrage will still ruin them, too.

And this is absolutely true. There are actually plenty of nasty tools that dismantle deathstar type units if people want to combat them. I personally enjoy the intrigue of evolving armies to one up the next and attempt to predict what the other guy will bring. I also enjoy pure fluff lists, just depends on the day.

Lately Ive been facing a huge amount of barrage weaponry along with whole tau units of advanced targeting systems and more dedicated tactics of focused fire via vehicle firing lanes, anti psyker assassins and other nasty shiz. The end result is my beasts have been taking a beating and ive had my jetseer warlord sniped first turn in 2 of the last 5 games lol. Ive actually resorted to starting him in the bottom level of ruins when possible. Even tried the phoenix gem although it had some flaws that werent readily apparent to me. Turns out its dangerous business being a fearless warlord worth 2 VPs.
I feel the skill level of these games with 'power builds' is far higher than what we were used to prior to introducing such elements for sure and the sportsmanship is the same as for games of a more 'friendly' nature. To each their own.

Maybe I will have another shot at Tau this weekend. It has been absolutely awful just trying to get an assault to work, but I will give this Anaris wielding farseer, Baron and beasts a whirl with a couple of flyers to mix up my approach this time. I could alternatively "play the mission," but I just want to open up that long overdue can of WA.

No.

But it depends on the opponent. Our gaming group is extremely competitive and all kinds of death stars are seen on the boards. I don't like playing against not so competitive players with a full tournament list but try to take those units and combos that don't see much use in our gaming group.

Yesterday I battled the new blob (Yarrick, 2 priests, 2 sorcerers, Chaptermaster) with my beaststar. It becomes very important how you place your models. Both of us had rerollable 2+ saves and Missfortunes and H&R:s so no clear advantage there. Mine was faster he shot 5 lascannon shots with ignores cover and rerolls to hit.

Hm, I've read the thread about two times. Still, I don't exactly know, what a deathstar is.
Of course, I know one, but that was an orb, that could destroy planets...

A 40k Death Star is named after that Death Star and the idea is a same; an invulnerable, incredibly destructive unit that can dominate any battle all by its lonesome.

Of course, no Death Star is truly invulnerable, but people can make them very very close to it with a bit of luck.

The nigh-invulnerability is one of the reasons people dislike them; its not uncommon to see at least one 2++ rerollable in the unit with many varying themes on that. Other reasons include the power level, which tends to be on the high side of 40k, and the fact some people find a battle built around "Can I beat/avoid that unit" boring.

Hope that clarifies things.

Most helpful. Thanks a lot.