Got a couple of games in with the list this weekend gone and it functioned well, the deathstar unit is quite effective, but I’ve identified a few issues with the list:
- The use of a deathstar (of sorts) makes it feel a bit make-or-breaky, as if all the eggs are in one basket which I guess is to be expected, and wouldn’t be such a problem if the deathstar didn’t have a couple of serious weaknesses.
- Librarians have no invulnerable, and have 2 wounds. They are bait for anything at S8, but also bait for anything that can deliver 2 power weapon wounds on T4. The power-fist problem is real, but not actually the biggest issue in my opinion.
- Chaplains have an invulnerable, which is good. They are still bait for S8 but less of a target when in a unit with libbys.
-The real issue is Initiative. The whole unit is initiative 4, 5 on the charge. That’s pretty standard, which is the problem. Anything with I of 5 or higher will generally kill your librarian. Vulkan is the example that caused me the most trouble.
So the problem is this: The squad has two libbys, a chaplain and a priest plus its full assault squad. That’s pretty much overkill on anything you can find you would think. BUT.
Run it into 5 TH/SS termies with vulkan, even with you having the charge, and a bunch of problems pop up (similarly if you run into anything else that has higher initiative than you, whyches come to mind)
First problem is: How do you distribute your attacks? Everything in the squad against you will instagib the librarian, except for vulkan....who fights before the librarian, at S6 with a power weapon...
So you have three IC’s that are subject to death if they are left with a termie, and only one non-termie for you to target.
-If you put both libbys on vulkan, he kills at least one, possibly both (which is disastrous) , the remaining one has a pretty good chance of killing him, but not a VERY good chance. On average you’ll put 3 wounds on him, which is about a one in three chance of him living. If he lives, you’re in serious trouble.
-If you put both libbys on vulkan then your chaplain, sarge and priest have to, with the aid of the squad, kill all five termies or you lose your priest and possibly the chappie too if you’re unlucky. The odds say that at best you’ll kill 2-3 with your power weapons, leaving 2-3 to be killed by general attacks....which is doable certainly, you should hit with 22 or so and wound with 15ish. Thats 2.5 dead....
-If you go the other way and drop everything on the squad, giving vulkan just the normal marines to kill, then the odds say you will destroy the squad, vulkan will kill 3-4 and lose by 1-2. He’ll hold most likely and you’ll have to put the libbys in contact with him in the next phase and he’ll have a selection of targets. Probably killing the priest and a librarian. Though he may go for the double libby kill.
So either way you get through his squad, but you come out of it with quite possibly no librarians and a priest dead. If you’re relatively lucky.
If you’re unlucky, you lose both librarians and maybe a priest also.....not a good result for your deathstar, makes it a one-shot weapon and now you have no shield of sang.
On top of that, the fact that everything is at the same initiative means that the end effectiveness of the power weapons is reduced. In game I quite often do the characters separately, but that’s not correct and I’m cheating, I just often don’t think of it. If you do them as a single group, then the enemy gets a much better chance of dealing with it.
So the key problems I ran into were:
-Squad with whole group at similar initiative
-Initiative too low to deal efficiently with quality opposition CC characters
-Two wounds and no invulnerable makes the librarian very susceptible to being singled out and killed by even reasonably weak opponents, let alone solid opponents.
-Deathstar as a whole is a lot more susceptible to enemy CC than expected (Probably should have seen it coming)
On the plus side:
-Chaplain fearless gives a squad protection from tank shock
-The mini-deathstar is very difficult to shoot off the table, as predicted
So, from that I’ve decided to have a go at a couple of other options.
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