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Post by thebuoyancyofwater on Mar 26, 2019 5:33:27 GMT
Bringing a 19-23 point unit (which gets absolutely murdered by Railless Interceptors) in order to deal with four 3-point solos sounds like a very, very bad plan. I mean, on paper yes, but if the trancers are really the biggest problem he's facing (not sure that's the case but it kinda sounded like it), then it might be worth it? I dunno. Agreed. Using 19-23pts to deal with 12pts of models is definitely worth it if those 12pts of models are screwing the whole match up. Do the nyss get murdered by railless before they do their job? If they can complete their mission then die that's still a win for the Khador player. Now you're dealing with 12pts that is causing serious match up issues and taking the attention of an 18ish point model that could also be causing problems to the rest of your list. Plus the nyss are useful in other matches. Like soulsamurai I'm not saying it's definitely a go-to solution, but it's not as clear as comparing the points values and declaring it a bad plan. Cheers, Dave
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Post by Soul Samurai on Mar 26, 2019 6:25:31 GMT
I suggested it as a possibility if Widowmakers under Guidance were not getting the job done, but I'm not actually clear on whether that's the case? Aiming Widowmakers with Guidance need 6s right? Add the Marksman for another shot (possibly needing 7s since he can't get guidance at the same time), and that also gives you Swift Hunter. Is that not enough to minimise the Trancer problem?
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Post by hocestbellum on Mar 26, 2019 10:23:15 GMT
A single Widowmaker needing 6, 8, or 10 to hit (aiming, not aiming, not aiming + concealment) has a 52%, 30% and 12% chance to kill a Trancer respectively.
The WMMM has a 76%, 53%, and 25% chance under the same conditions.
Behemoth has 50% chance to hit with a boosted shot under Guidance, and it gets two.
Nothing in the Trancer arsenal protects them from the Adjunct's Frostbite, and the Forge Seer's Hoarfrost also bypasses Force Barrier.
Trampling them will pulverise them whilst still allowing your jacks forward momentum, although that's more of an 'after the fact' thing as you won't get to use that option until they've already charged.
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Post by steeltitan on Mar 26, 2019 13:21:40 GMT
A single Widowmaker needing 6, 8, or 10 to hit (aiming, not aiming, not aiming + concealment) has a 52%, 30% and 12% chance to kill a Trancer respectively. The WMMM has a 76%, 53%, and 25% chance under the same conditions. Behemoth has 50% chance to hit with a boosted shot under Guidance, and it gets two. Nothing in the Trancer arsenal protects them from the Adjunct's Frostbite, and the Forge Seer's Hoarfrost also bypasses Force Barrier. Trampling them will pulverise them whilst still allowing your jacks forward momentum, although that's more of an 'after the fact' thing as you won't get to use that option until they've already charged. Thanks for that run-down and adding those percentages, that's helpful to get a side by side comparison on the options we have available. I don't think that a good player will put the Trancers out in the open when he sees Windowmakers (or similar) opposite from him, so I will have to count on them having concealment or having cover (e.g. a wall or clipping a house). If I'm looking at your stats right, a Trancer in cover also has a 12% to be hit WHEN the WM aims and a less than 3% chance without aiming...so good luck with those odds. So, cover screws things up because guidance (correct me if I'm wrong) does not take that away either. At the bare minimum, having WMs in your list forces the opponent to play it safe(r) so at least you're kind of dictating where they can go (i.e. where the forests and buildings are) versus having free reign across the board. The WMM definitely has better odds but that's more points sunk into a maybe hit... I'm not hating Behemoth odds though! If you really want to improve your odds, you could use OW2 Divinator for rerollable attack rolls. I don't know how to calculate reroll probabilities though You are giving up the Vexing Alignment Windstorm for it so you might take some more damage from the BEs and Vulcan. Another idea I had was Kodiaks. Why? Because Kodiaks' Vent Steam ability is not blast damage (like Devastators) and auto-hits and basically auto-kills the Trancer. Also, they have native pathfinder so don't need to charge to get it (unlike Boundless Charge). This means they can trample through terrain even if the Trancers are out of LOS and still get to them with their steam. HOWEVER, their threat range doesn't cut it. You could give a Kodiak to Malakov but then your trample + vent steam combo still maxes out at 10" (god, I wish BC didn't have the charge-only restriction)...and we need 11". Now I've been scratching my head to find ways to increase the threat range, apart from Vlad1's and Strakhov1's feat...
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Post by hocestbellum on Mar 26, 2019 14:00:33 GMT
Yeah, in all situations cover screws you over, with the exception of the Adjunct's Frostbite.
I would say a Kodiak is always a reasonable choice; it's an excellent jack regardless of other considerations.
As for rerolls, the hit chance becomes 1-(miss chance^2). So 1-(0.5^2) = 1-0.25 = 0.75. 75% chance to hit. But as you say, you are sacrificing a lot.
The way I see it, the Trancers are a nuisance, not actually a threat. The danger, as you point out in the first post, is that they interfere with your scenario game. That's already a massive weakness of Jaws, as it's slow and has very few models. On that point it might be worth considering two units of Eliminators; perhaps not the best into the Spray faction, but they could take out the Trancers if needs be, absolutely laugh at the Halberdiers, and are generally very, very good as a speedy contesting unit in a theme that otherwise doesn't have any. (Also funny when they run clean through a battle engine to engage something on the other side)
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Juris
Junior Strategist
Posts: 578
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Post by Juris on Mar 26, 2019 19:10:37 GMT
Yeah, in all situations cover screws you over, with the exception of the Adjunct's Frostbite. I would say a Kodiak is always a reasonable choice; it's an excellent jack regardless of other considerations. As for rerolls, the hit chance becomes 1-(miss chance^2). So 1-(0.5^2) = 1-0.25 = 0.75. 75% chance to hit. But as you say, you are sacrificing a lot. The way I see it, the Trancers are a nuisance, not actually a threat. The danger, as you point out in the first post, is that they interfere with your scenario game. That's already a massive weakness of Jaws, as it's slow and has very few models. On that point it might be worth considering two units of Eliminators; perhaps not the best into the Spray faction, but they could take out the Trancers if needs be, absolutely laugh at the Halberdiers, and are generally very, very good as a speedy contesting unit in a theme that otherwise doesn't have any. (Also funny when they run clean through a battle engine to engage something on the other side) I will point out that Eliminators killing a Trancer is a suicide mission for the Eliminators. Assuming that your opponent lets you charge a Trancer (which is, in itself, a little strange since the Trancers threat 0.5" further), when the Trancer is disabled it will blow up and deal a POW12 to the Eliminator that dealt the death blow and also to the second Eliminator if it was providing the Gang Bonus. As long as you're cool with them being a one-shot tool, thumbs up.
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Post by hocestbellum on Mar 26, 2019 19:52:54 GMT
I will point out that Eliminators killing a Trancer is a suicide mission for the Eliminators. Assuming that your opponent lets you charge a Trancer (which is, in itself, a little strange since the Trancers threat 0.5" further), when the Trancer is disabled it will blow up and deal a POW12 to the Eliminator that dealt the death blow and also to the second Eliminator if it was providing the Gang Bonus. As long as you're cool with them being a one-shot tool, thumbs up. I'm fully aware. But sacrificing a 2.5 point model to kill a 3-point model isn't a terrible trade, especially if that model can cause you as many problems as the original post implies. The Eliminators have no need to get the gang bonus; it just needs to roll a 6 to hit to auto-kill, and the Trancer needs 13s to hit them back if it fails. You could probably just run to engage to avoid poltergeist stuff. And whilst yes, I'm aware that Crucible Guard have a billion ways to kill a Stealthy model with sprays, the Syvestro list is hardly going to waste an Interceptor or Vulcan shot to kill one minor inconvenience. Speaking of that list; as a CG player, is that a common list? It seems a bit light on... well, actual models I suppose?
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Post by tjhairball on Mar 26, 2019 22:09:36 GMT
I faced some Trancers down with the full module of 22 points of Widowmakers + Eliminators on the table. It wasn't too bad, and while it felt painful at the time, I felt pretty good about the game plan I used afterwards. They're tough to deal with (easily with the full normal freight of 4 points per solo rather than their cheap 3 point cost), but they're not intractable. IIRC, I had one that came in and tried to tie down 3 of my Widowmakers. I moved one forward, which blocked LOS to a second, who then got to escape, and Widowmaker #3 moved to the two inch boundary. I got lucky and made the 9+ to-hit and stabbed it to death, and the other two Widows got to actually shoot that turn. (A) Shoot from as safe of a range as possible. Aim if possible, position advantageously if not. This is likely to kill 1-2 of them. Aiming Widowmakers will probably be in a bad position to avoid Trancers in future rounds, but it's worth the better odds of shooting them dead first.
(B) Stick solo Eliminators in next. Trading is painful but not hard at MAT 7 vs DEF 13, and with 0.5" melee, you can run and pin pretty well.
(C) Their melee reach is 2", their explosion is 4" in diameter. This leaves an 0.6" band where you've walked out of blast radius but haven't provoked a free strike. (C-1) That means that if you have a suicide bomber in your Widowmakers' faces, they can walk to the 2" line and be safe from being blown up. (C-2) It also means that if you start right at the 0.5" melee line, any push of at least 1" (Poltergeist!) brings your model out of blast radius. This is worth noting because of backup. If you miss from the 0.5" line, they push you away, and you send in a second melee attacker who pulls off the attack (e.g., an Eliminator from the other of your two units of Eliminators). In rough terrain, starting B2B means an 0.5" push leaves you in melee for a second Eliminator strike, but a 1" push makes you safe.
They're likely to trade close to fairly under those circumstances, but that's better than letting them run amok.
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Juris
Junior Strategist
Posts: 578
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Post by Juris on Mar 26, 2019 23:35:31 GMT
I faced some Trancers down with the full module of 22 points of Widowmakers + Eliminators on the table. It wasn't too bad, and while it felt painful at the time, I felt pretty good about the game plan I used afterwards. They're tough to deal with (easily with the full normal freight of 4 points per solo rather than their cheap 3 point cost), but they're not intractable. IIRC, I had one that came in and tried to tie down 3 of my Widowmakers. I moved one forward, which blocked LOS to a second, who then got to escape, and Widowmaker #3 moved to the two inch boundary. I got lucky and made the 9+ to-hit and stabbed it to death, and the other two Widows got to actually shoot that turn. (A) Shoot from as safe of a range as possible. Aim if possible, position advantageously if not. This is likely to kill 1-2 of them. Aiming Widowmakers will probably be in a bad position to avoid Trancers in future rounds, but it's worth the better odds of shooting them dead first.
(B) Stick solo Eliminators in next. Trading is painful but not hard at MAT 7 vs DEF 13, and with 0.5" melee, you can run and pin pretty well.
(C) Their melee reach is 2", their explosion is 4" in diameter. This leaves an 0.6" band where you've walked out of blast radius but haven't provoked a free strike. (C-1) That means that if you have a suicide bomber in your Widowmakers' faces, they can walk to the 2" line and be safe from being blown up. (C-2) It also means that if you start right at the 0.5" melee line, any push of at least 1" (Poltergeist!) brings your model out of blast radius. This is worth noting because of backup. If you miss from the 0.5" line, they push you away, and you send in a second melee attacker who pulls off the attack (e.g., an Eliminator from the other of your two units of Eliminators). In rough terrain, starting B2B means an 0.5" push leaves you in melee for a second Eliminator strike, but a 1" push makes you safe.
They're likely to trade close to fairly under those circumstances, but that's better than letting them run amok.
FYI, Poltergeist is optional. A smart player will not push you away.
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Juris
Junior Strategist
Posts: 578
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Post by Juris on Mar 26, 2019 23:40:13 GMT
I will point out that Eliminators killing a Trancer is a suicide mission for the Eliminators. Assuming that your opponent lets you charge a Trancer (which is, in itself, a little strange since the Trancers threat 0.5" further), when the Trancer is disabled it will blow up and deal a POW12 to the Eliminator that dealt the death blow and also to the second Eliminator if it was providing the Gang Bonus. As long as you're cool with them being a one-shot tool, thumbs up. I'm fully aware. But sacrificing a 2.5 point model to kill a 3-point model isn't a terrible trade, especially if that model can cause you as many problems as the original post implies. The Eliminators have no need to get the gang bonus; it just needs to roll a 6 to hit to auto-kill, and the Trancer needs 13s to hit them back if it fails. You could probably just run to engage to avoid poltergeist stuff. And whilst yes, I'm aware that Crucible Guard have a billion ways to kill a Stealthy model with sprays, the Syvestro list is hardly going to waste an Interceptor or Vulcan shot to kill one minor inconvenience. Speaking of that list; as a CG player, is that a common list? It seems a bit light on... well, actual models I suppose? That type of list is fairly common. I currently play this list: Aurum Adeptus Syvestro - WJ: +28 - Aurum Ominus Alyce Marc - PC: 0 - Aurum Ominus Alyce Marc (Big Alyce) - Liberator - PC: 10 (Battlegroup Points Used: 10) - Toro - PC: 13 (Battlegroup Points Used: 13) - Suppressor - PC: 13 (Battlegroup Points Used: 5) Railless Interceptor - PC: 16 Railless Interceptor - PC: 16 Gorman Di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist - PC: 4 Anastasia di Bray - PC: 3 Trancer - PC: 3 Trancer - PC: 3 Hutchuk, Ogrun Bounty Hunter - PC: 0 Crucible Guard Mechanik - PC: 2 Steelhead Halberdiers - Leader & 9 Grunts: 11 - Doctor Alejandro Mosby - PC: 4 Dragon's Breath Rocket - Gunner & 2 Grunts: 5 Dragon's Breath Rocket - Gunner & 2 Grunts: 0 The list never feels "light" on models to me. The OP's problem-list trades the 3 warjacks and a DBR for a Vulcan and 2 more Trancers. While that does change the model count, it's not a huge difference in terms of scenario footprint. You are indeed likely to encounter Syvestro lists running double Railless Interceptor and a single combat unit.
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Post by tjhairball on Mar 27, 2019 16:22:21 GMT
I faced some Trancers down with the full module of 22 points of Widowmakers + Eliminators on the table. It wasn't too bad, and while it felt painful at the time, I felt pretty good about the game plan I used afterwards. They're tough to deal with (easily with the full normal freight of 4 points per solo rather than their cheap 3 point cost), but they're not intractable. IIRC, I had one that came in and tried to tie down 3 of my Widowmakers. I moved one forward, which blocked LOS to a second, who then got to escape, and Widowmaker #3 moved to the two inch boundary. I got lucky and made the 9+ to-hit and stabbed it to death, and the other two Widows got to actually shoot that turn. (A) Shoot from as safe of a range as possible. Aim if possible, position advantageously if not. This is likely to kill 1-2 of them. Aiming Widowmakers will probably be in a bad position to avoid Trancers in future rounds, but it's worth the better odds of shooting them dead first.
(B) Stick solo Eliminators in next. Trading is painful but not hard at MAT 7 vs DEF 13, and with 0.5" melee, you can run and pin pretty well.
(C) Their melee reach is 2", their explosion is 4" in diameter. This leaves an 0.6" band where you've walked out of blast radius but haven't provoked a free strike. (C-1) That means that if you have a suicide bomber in your Widowmakers' faces, they can walk to the 2" line and be safe from being blown up. (C-2) It also means that if you start right at the 0.5" melee line, any push of at least 1" (Poltergeist!) brings your model out of blast radius. This is worth noting because of backup. If you miss from the 0.5" line, they push you away, and you send in a second melee attacker who pulls off the attack (e.g., an Eliminator from the other of your two units of Eliminators). In rough terrain, starting B2B means an 0.5" push leaves you in melee for a second Eliminator strike, but a 1" push makes you safe.
They're likely to trade close to fairly under those circumstances, but that's better than letting them run amok.
FYI, Poltergeist is optional. A smart player will not push you away. Depends on the situation, yes?
In particular, if you go in with a solo Eliminator or Manhunter and the first attack misses, it's a non-trivial decision, because pushing away would prevent the second attack. If they push away and you don't go in with another piece, the Trancer can make a boosted MAT 4 attack roll with a decent chance of killing the Eliminator / Manhunter.
Manhunter-to-the-face is sort of similar to Eliminator-to-the-face as a not-great piece trade. If the Manhunter doesn't have pre-existing damage, the spread of probabilities post-explosion looks like:
- 15/36: Manhunter survives standing with 1 or more boxes.
- 7/36: Manhunter is prone after Tough check.
- 14/36: Manhunter dead.
That makes the expected point trade something pretty similar to the 2.5 vs 3 spread from an Eliminator - if you're unlucky, the Manhunter dies, if you're lucky, the Manhunter is fine.
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Juris
Junior Strategist
Posts: 578
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Post by Juris on Mar 27, 2019 17:20:14 GMT
FYI, Poltergeist is optional. A smart player will not push you away. Depends on the situation, yes?
In particular, if you go in with a solo Eliminator or Manhunter and the first attack misses, it's a non-trivial decision, because pushing away would prevent the second attack. If they push away and you don't go in with another piece, the Trancer can make a boosted MAT 4 attack roll with a decent chance of killing the Eliminator / Manhunter.
Manhunter-to-the-face is sort of similar to Eliminator-to-the-face as a not-great piece trade. If the Manhunter doesn't have pre-existing damage, the spread of probabilities post-explosion looks like:
- 15/36: Manhunter survives standing with 1 or more boxes.
- 7/36: Manhunter is prone after Tough check.
- 14/36: Manhunter dead.
That makes the expected point trade something pretty similar to the 2.5 vs 3 spread from an Eliminator - if you're unlucky, the Manhunter dies, if you're lucky, the Manhunter is fine.
I don't remember anyone mentioning Manhunters? Certainly my comment was specifically addressed to the situation where an Eliminator is in melee with your Trancer. In that situation, I will 95% of the time not Poltergeist, because letting you roll more dice, and then me having an 89% chance to kill the offending model, is great. Particularly when the alternate recourse is me needing to hit a boosted 13 in order to kill the offending model otherwise. The only caveat is if a) I have other models that can kill your Eliminator and b) you don't have any more models to put into my Trancer. In the hypothetical to which I was responding, my opponent has at least one more Eliminator to put into the Trancer, so we're back to me just not using Poltergeist.
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Post by chickenslayer on Mar 28, 2019 3:17:07 GMT
Why are we using either a Manhunter or an Eliminator though when Jaws has access to Yuri, who can not only do it without risking suicide and takes to Boundless Charge better, but also is probably a necessity given the fact Trancers love to hide behind forests and abuse terrain.
Anyhow, I feel if you are playing into CG with Jaws and are using Sorscha 0 given she's out this weekend I feel you want any caster except Old Witch (who, frankly, is better in other themes anyhow. Wolves of Winter for instance). Butcher 3 or Karchev would be my picks. They give your Marauders much more effective longer threat ranges to threaten the Railless/Vulcan and stop them from kiting you and some beefy late game. Butcher has access to Silence as well if the Halberds become a problem with their No KD tough.
Honestly I found as Syvestro that scenario and late game are a big weakness if you are up against opponents that can efficiently remove your Halberds and Trancers, especially with No Rocketmen, so those are the name of the game. Frankly the Railless in this matchup are outside their comfort zone and whilst they'll do damage it's not like, say, them vs Satyxis Raiders or Doom Reavers where they will have a field day spraying your shit to death. Furthermore whilst he has super fuel to threat extend his constructs, he completely lacks ways to increase the threat range of the infantry which in this matchup will do most of the damage.
Also as a finisher, probably want at least 1 Kodiak for the Trancers to auto kill them. Yes you're trading a 13 point heavy for a 3 point psychiatric patient from time to time but the ability to stop them just hanging out behind forests and not have to risk missing them and thus triggering Poltergeist is worth it. Frankly if you're playing something like Butcher and chucking your Kodiak out there is a prelude to Butcher getting nasty then it's 100% worth
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Post by hocestbellum on Mar 28, 2019 9:58:45 GMT
You know, I looked at the Trancer's ability and my brain parsed it as 'Four inch template equals two inches from centre, thus two-inch reach models aren't safe.' Herp-de-derp, bases have dimensions too.
That's useful to know, thanks!
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Post by steeltitan on Mar 28, 2019 10:26:53 GMT
Why are we using either a Manhunter or an Eliminator though when Jaws has access to Yuri, who can not only do it without risking suicide and takes to Boundless Charge better, but also is probably a necessity given the fact Trancers love to hide behind forests and abuse terrain. I think that's definitely worth a try. I find two Seers aren't super necessary so I can easily swap one out for Yuri and see how that goes. I've written a bit about why i run S0 with OW2 earlier in this thread. Let me paste it here: Focus efficiency goes a long way though. Basically, S0 is there to cast one/two BC a turn (2/4), upkeep Fog of War (1) and allocate one to her Jack (for the contest/door stop tactic you mentioned as well). (power up is a thing)
With no access to actual pathfinder, throwing out a few BCs a turn (between S0 and OW2) goes a long way when you have a 20" line of jacks to move forward as fast as possible.
Seeing how OW typically spends 6 focus on turn 1, by casting Windstorm (in combination with Vexing Alignment) and Reconstruct, there's no room for BC. This means 1" less movement and no terrain mitigation in case there is anything close to your deployment zone. Turn 2 is generally a little less focus intense, with another Windstorm (3) and maybe a boost or focus allocation here or there. Here I typically have some focus to spare to cast BC with OW2. Turn 3 is where things get tight again (if I don't feat), because of Windstorm (3), a possible Curse of Shadows (3), allocating focus and needing to boost a possible Carrion Crows. If i do feat things get a little easier but that makes turn 4 tight.
Also, with OW2 BC range of 10" (plus movement but I generally find that the space around OW2 is quite crowded with my models) can be a limitation in case you need to play a little wider.
I would like to be able to say that Fog of War makes a difference, especially in protecting back line solos such as Malakov, the Adjunct, etc. but despite casting it, I've never remembered having it up when being shot again...oops.Long story short, I find that with the necessity to cast Windstorm every turn you're basically playing a 4 focus caster and that really puts a strain on allocating and casting your other spells. Leaving 1/2 BCs on Sorscha really helps keep your options open. Cheers for your input, that's some great feedback.
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