Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Mephiston


Hi folks. For my first post here, I thought I'd talk about the most controversial thing in my current army: Mephiston. Now, theres always a lot of snap judgements that things are broken and cheesy and to lay it on the line, I'll say that Mephiston is cheesy and a strong piece of gear for your army. But is he really broken?
On one hand you can say that he's appropriately costed and actually quite a points sink. I've heard people counter this by saying that he kills far more than his points worth, but then, shouldn't every elite aggressive unit be capable of destroying more than their points outlay? Otherwise they would be a bad buy. So why is he feared and loathed by opponents? Lets sum up those fears:

-Strength 10, so he's able to kill nearly anything and often instant kill multi-wound models
-High WS, I and preferred enemy; so you have very little chance of being able to kill him in combat without also being hit yourself
-jump pack powers and fleet, so you can bet he can get from the otherside of the board to your army in just a couple of turns.
-toughness 6 and 5 wounds means that it will take more than a little bit of thinking to figure out how to get rid of him (most of the time)

And now, for his weaknesses:

-No invulnerable save
-Can't join units
-Isn't fearless
-Relies heavily on his psychic powers

So what are the accusations?

Killy as Hell: Well its often hard to come across much more than a very vague cry of "he's just way too tough and too killy". The thing is, yes he is killy but he only has 5 attacks, 6 when he charges. That won't actually do much to an ork boy mob or daemons or dark eldar wyches as, if you have numbers or any kind of invulnerable save, the amount of damage those 6 attacks do start to dwindle exponentially. Even CSM players  who light a candle every night in hope of seeing a new codex before they become grand parents can stick Mark of Tzeentch on their marines for a 5+ invulnerable, making those 5-6 kills, more like 3-4. Of course, this doesn't stop him from sucker punching your dreadnauts to pieces and sweating whenever your independant characters are in base contact with him. But if that happens, you've gone wrong somewhere...

Practically a Monstrous Creature: This is true, he is in many ways exactly like a monstrous creature on a small base which can hide better than most. What do monstrous creatures do? They tear up troops with little fear of non-powerfist attacks back, they chow down on tanks and they dust themselves off when vindicator shells land on them. So yes, its pretty damn funky to have a space marine do exactly that. But by the same token, think of every time you've killed a hive tyrant or a wraithlord (remember, can't join units, high toughness but no invulnerable etc). What's stopping you from doing that to Mephiston? Lets face it, if you really have no idea how to kill him, then every game you play versus tyranids must be over by turn 2. You might say that his small size is an advantage and it is, but remember, he is an assault unit. If he doesn't end up within 6" of the bulk of your army at some point(s) in the game then he probably wasn't worth taking. That means that at least once, as long as you prepare for it, he will be in hozing range of every plasma gun, melta gun, powerfist and rending attack you have.

Psychic Powerhouse: This is actually almost a con for Mephiston rather than a pro. His psychic powers are awesome, but it becomes incredibly painful when he can't use them, especially if you were relying on it at a crucial moment. Imagine Mephiston ends up in assault range of a walker. That's fine, you should smash it right? At that moment the pesky rune priest you forgot about flicks a few switches on his psychic hood, Mephiston fails his test and ends up having to roll 6's to glance the dreadnaut that then puts 2-3 wounds on him. To put it in perspective, think of your favourite special character and then imagine that around 50-60% of 40k armies have abilities that can periodically turn your character's thunderhammer/relic blade/ power klaw / lightning claws into a bog standard power weapon. Not a pretty thought is it?

So, after all this, I want to re-confirm that I'm not saying he's not strong or anything like that. He's a beast and if you field him, you might as well replace your body's H2O content with liquid cheese (you naughty, naughty person, you) but, the end of the world he is not. Here's a list of solutions for every army (except Necrons, cos the crons are out of my expertise)

Space marines: TH+SS terminators will beat him to death and take little damage back
Space wolves: double plasma guns in rhinos, duh
CSM: Mark of tzeentch on whatever, power fists. Even Thousand Sons, one of the most lamented units in the book can be great against him, what with having 4+ invulnerables on the whole unit and a hidden force weapon
Oldie space marine legions: Storm shields may be crapper in your book, but its still a 4+ invulnerable, it does work!
Daemon hunters: Grey knight terminators wound him on 4+ with no saves allowed. Remember, your grand master has a strength 6 force weapon and he can't be targetted in a retinue. And you've got crap loads of psychic hoods available to ruin his day with. I would actually be pretty interested to see how long Mephiston can last against this.
Witch Hunters: 3+ invulnerables, blessed weapons, rending bolters. Done.
Daemons: Your biggest problem is going to be deciding which of your MANY options to use. Rending assault units with 4 attacks per model? Hmmmmmmm....! Strength 5 power weapon assaulters? Hmmmm.....!  2+ poisoned monstrous creatures? Oh and to top it all off, 33% of Mephistons attacks won't even go through your save. Marvellous.
Nids: Between shadow in the warp, death leaper's leadership nerf and lashwhip and bonesword, you should be digesting Mephiston's remains by sundown.
Eldar: You know howling banshees, right? You know how, like, they strike at initiative 10 when they charge and how a farseer can both rob Mephiston of his re-rolls and give the banshees re-roll to wound? Pretty funky isn't it? Not to mention things like wraith cannons, fire dragons and of course seer council!!!! But I digress...
IG: Shut up. You're worse.
Orks: You can always give Mephiston a game of that wonderful old pasttime 'chew through 30 boyz before the powerklaw kills you'.
Tau: This is actually the only tough one. You will find Mephiston very tricky, what with him being faster than you're able to JSJ and being able to instant kill crisis suits. Ultimately you will probably have bubblewrap half your army with kroot and then as soon as he's out of combat, shove a dozen marker lights up his arse. Whether or not you'll still be able to win the game after expending so much effort on Mephiston is another matter though...






1 comment:

  1. I hear what you're saying...but nah Mephiston is still BROKEN! :P

    Haha but no seriously, you make a good argument. He's powerful - as he should be he's the freakin' BA chief librarian! - but there are still plenty of things out there that own him royally.

    I recommend posting this as our first Tactica!

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