Our Armoured Potato

Emanuel Class's post:

"Where to begin. As far as playing the entire paladin boat I did it for a while and had good success using the feat to deliver the paladins to zones and flags. With Vilmon you can really triple down on the vengeance triggers. Getting both archons, paladins, and maybe a jack free attacks in the maintenance phase can help clear jam. I have outright removed heavies with this combo before anything activates. However, the paladin boat is an expensive boat. 18 points for the 4 solos is steep price to pay. Imagine if they were a 3 man unit with Vilmon as the UA. That would be the most expensive unit of weapon masters ever.
I agree with Marc Indictors are excellent with Durst. I really cannot say enough good things about the amount of denial they bring and the extra armor on feat turn really matters. There’s a tipping point where some things can’t hurt them. I almost never cast bulwark, but I see the value in running sanctifiers. They are self-fueling which is ideal for Durst and more ashen veil is good. The extra game into incorp can be clutch into some matches…but are those matches you are going to cover with Durst?

Ultimately after many games I found myself divided down two lines with Durst.

Avatar or Judicator? Both of these options bring a lot to Durst’s game. Having the judicator gives you a pathfinder jack that you do not need to boundless charge to get through a forest or rubble patch. The guns it brings punish your opponent for waiting out the feat. Native S&P make it reliable and it doesn’t need buffs to nuke targets with a punch. Its great against other similar threat colossal. If they try to sit back and wait it out, the judi just shoots rockets at them and waits. The feat delivers the judicator beautifully and that big base offers a lot of feat protection. Durst is great at protecting the judicator so it gets to its targets and annihilates them. Its big base helps durst small control area have a bigger footprint.

On the other side of the coin running more heavies lets you spread out and the avatar is useful to Durst. It is self-fueling and can operate outside of Durst small control area. Gaze can be an awesome thing for locking down parts of your opponent’s army that they would typically use to deal with your feated heavies. The avatar can hit like a Mac truck and is natively immune to spells. One of my favorite combos is to have three indictors and the avatar. The choir sings passage and you cant shoot at the jacks with non-magical guns you can't cast spells at them and they are all native arm 21 arm 23 vs magical shooting and spells if they have some jank. Once you feat your opponent is forced to deal with the lists high armor or give you a time walk.

Durst's game is to not only out last (as it would seem on the surface) but to also out wit and out play. You need to be able to outmaneuver your opponent with a brick. Not something easy to do. But Durst is one of the best casters at using the terrain and making the best of what he’s got to deliver Menoth’s mighty forces to his enemies. His feat is tricky and the protectorate can add so many layers of defensive tech from vassals to mechanics that you can create traps for your opponent and bait them into fights they will lose. Ultimately know your playing for turn 7. You are going to try to stall out scenario if you cant score and your going to focus your efforts on killing things that can hurt your armor. Scoring flags is your easiest way to score points

Final note. Don’t get Durst assassinated. He is good at backing your opponent into a corner. But many times in those situations he’s the weak spot in his army. Ensuring you take proper time to consider threats against him and are allocating proper resources to his survival. Many times its better to camp than allocate. You will kill stuff eventually sometimes its not all in one turn. There is a tipping point where the attrition game will slide in your favor heavily. If your opponent lets you keep steam into turn 6 and 7 its easy to get caught up in the attrition win and louse sight of the goal. Don't fall into the tarp. Stay the course and stay safe. Durst is also great at clocking people. He doesn’t use much time himself on the clock and he forces your opponent into complex situations to solve that involve making lots of attacks. Punish their clock by making every kill a daunting task.

Foot note choosing the right merc solo for him is the hardest decision. Paladins directly compete for points with these solos too.

Top 5 ive found so far
#1 Anastasia di Bray: +1 to go first is clutch for Durst. A stealth solo is nice in the shooting matches he wants to play into and an ambush model that if not carefully considered can cause trouble for your opponent. She’s that cherry on top to the clock mill.

#2 Hermit. The damage buff is nice and can sometimes be muted by a feat from Durst, so you don’t suffer as much negative impact. Mad visions can make solving Durst feat even more difficult but often you just save it to give you more long game after the feat. Its also a second ancient shrouded model. Having both the Convent of Menoth and the hermit in the same list can be a nightmare for your opponent to remove from zones or flags. Sinking 5 attacks into those models can be tilting while trying to deal with Durst’s jacks. It’s also 1 more layer of spell hate.

#3 Gorman the Mad. Whats better than another layer of protection in mentoh? Weakening targets that want to get at your jacks is amazing, he’s great at clearing flags and clearing jam, hes stealth and hes a “mat buff” on a stick too which is something Durst doesn’t offer directly

#4 Orin Mid-winter. He gives you protection from befuddle and the other nasty spells out there that want to get at your archons or Durst himself. Chain lightning can be great at clearing flags and clearing off jam. He is also a solo who can be stealth on a flag if you need him to be.

#5 Elish Garrity. He is more spell coverage and strips upkeeps of the opponent too."

This might be interesting to try. Its something Ive been thinking about. DEF15 dervishes are fun. ARM18 vs ranged/magic. On feat they ate 15/20 vs melee, 15/22 vs ranged magic. Just buddy them up and explode out in pairs when ready.

Theme: The Creator's Might
75 / 75 Army 0 / 20 Specialist

Stockpile - Steamroller Objective

Anson Durst, Rock of the Faith - WJ: +28
- Hierophant - PC: 3
- Indictor - PC: 14 (Battlegroup Points Used: 14)
- Indictor - PC: 14 (Battlegroup Points Used: 14)
- Dervish - PC: 7
- Dervish - PC: 7
- Dervish - PC: 7
- Dervish - PC: 7
- Dervish - PC: 7
- Dervish - PC: 7

Vassal of Menoth - PC: 0
Vassal of Menoth - PC: 0
Exemplar Warder - PC: 0
Scrutator Potentate Severius - PC: 0
- Redeemer - PC: 11
The Covenant of Menoth - PC: 4
Exemplar Warder - PC: 5
Wrack - PC: 1
Wrack - PC: 1

Choir of Menoth - Leader & 3 Grunts: 4
Choir of Menoth - Leader & 3 Grunts: 4

I like Purifiers with him more than Dervishes. Both are going to struggle against armor, but Purifiers can help on scenario play.

you can still get them to p+s 16 using sevy and choir.
knowing most warbeast sits at armor 18 thats something.

plus they ignore shields....for what it is worth.

on that note. shield or no shield.

PS 15(16 with eye) should do pretty well into hordes.
and with infernal horrors beeing "living" creatures, they are surprisingly dodgey against alot of things.
i think horde wise they might fall short vs skorne since they sure love their imortals atm.


Back on DURST though. If you Don't want to run FM how would you play him?

i'd drop the shrine, replace the crusaders with indictors. use the remaining 6 points for regular paladins and wracks?

like i don't see much recursion happening with the shrine or what would ghostly even work on other then the champions?

I asked because that is the list that one of our top WTC players* brought to Polish Team Championships. His team placed 2nd and in a conversation he talked how the Shrine is a big MVP of the list and Paladin recursion is extremely annoying for opponents.

So yeah, opinions vary

*- by this I mean he hardly ever lost a WTC game