MAWR COTEAZ SPAM! (Please sir, can I have some more?)

A little while back I wrote a 3 part series on the joys of Coteaz and what I called ‘The Core’.. This followed some reading over at Whiskey & 40k and an article by MVB (of NOVA fame) on the topic.

A very solid core can be built around:
Coteaz
4 x 3 man Acolyte, Razorback – Psybolts
3 x PsyflemenDreads
This only comes to 753 points, leaving just under 1000 points to with as you will.

Over the course of a number of playtest games and tweaks here and there, adding in my experiences against GK lists at the most recent tournament I attended, I have concluded that Purifiers are a part of this core too:
5 Purifiers, 2 Cannons, 2 Halberds, 1 Hammer – Razorback, Psybolts 199 points
Three of these and boom, we have some fantastic fire support and reasonable CC ability.

From articles like Killswitch’s yesterday we can see that a lot of guys are running very similar stuff when it comes to Coteaz spam, it tends to be personal choice only in the last 400 points.

Alex throws in Death Cults, small Strike Squads and add meltas to his Aco’s…
Me?

I love Terminators. I have been using a 5 man GKT squad with Halberds, Cannon and Psybolts.
I add a Ordo Malleus Inquisitor to this for an extra relentless Psycannon, ablative wounds and a Hammer.
Coteaz runs with these bitches too, and we have a very resilient unit, with 2, 3 wound characters with a 2+ save to eat as many wounds as possible.
The joy of Coteaz being in the squad is that he also brings a Hammer.
Combine the stacking Hammerhand from the GKT unit and from Coteaz himself and we get 2 measly humans up to a lovely S10 Hammer…6 – 8 S10 Hammer attacks per turn is pretty god damn great.

I have points spare then, so I throw in a 5th Acolyte squad in a Razor, this time with a 4th body – I know crazy! 4 men in a tank? How resilient is that, they’ll never kill all of those dudes………

My Coteaz spam then looks like this:

Coteaz

OMInq – TDA, 3 Skulls, Hammer, Psycannon

3 x 5 Purifiers, 2 Cannons, 2 Halberds, 1 Hammer – Razorback, Psybolts

5 x 3(1x4) Warrior Acolyte, Razorback – Psybolts

5 GKT Cannon, Halberds, Psybolts

3 x PsyflemenDreads

1750 on the nose.
8 Razors, 3 dreads
11 2+ wounds
I’ve played this list 8 times now over the past few days (God I love being a teacher…summer holidays are amazing) and can honestly say it is just brutal. Brutal. The shooting is horrific, the CC is actually pretty decent AFTER 2 or more rounds of shooting have happened..

So I thought I’d then apply my new favourite list building tool, Nikephoros’ 40K-Metrics.
Those of you not familiar with it, go check it out HERE.

Just as a quick summary:
The system looks at 4 different measures..
How many Marines can be killed from shooting per turn (DMS)
How many Marines can be killed from CC per turn (DMCC)
How many Rhinos can be killed per game (DRPG)
How many Land Raiders can be killed per game (DLRPG)
(There are several things to note with this system, a ‘kill’ on a vehicle is an uncovered penetration, and most importantly, this is only a tool to help identify weaknesses in a list when building a force and for examining over-reliance on any one unit or unit types to get the job done..And finally, everything is OPTIMUM, so a Psycannon is static, there is no cover etc)

So whats the skinny here for my Coteaz Core?

DMS: 21.73
DMCC: 21.68

DRPG: 78.42

DLRPG: 11.55

Impressive numbers, but how does this compare to say my Space Wolves that I took to Brighton Warlords Tournament the other week?
The numbers for Fafnir’s Bitches were:
DMS: 26.5
DMCC: 22.4
DRPG: 54.65
DLRPG: 11.9

DMS: Notable edge per turn for the Space Wolves, this difference is down to the Troop variations, the Coteaz troops (with the exception of the Termintors) do very little in the shooting phase, whereas Fafnir’s Grey Hunters rapid fire the shit out of marines.
DMCC: No real difference here, the sheer volume of Grey Hunters and Wolf Guard in the SW list compensating for the quality of bodies in the Purifier and Terminator units all armed with high initiative, Power Weapons.
DRPG: Wow. With 20 missiles and Living Lightning in the SW army we can kill alot of rhinos…But holy shit can the GK army kill Av11…78 Rhinos! Killer. I think I need this due to the number of mech DE, Marine, Guard and other coteaz lists in the tournament scene. When everyone shifts to all foot lists…maybe I’ll rethink.
DLRPG: Similar, despite the 5 double melta units in the SW army. With the GKs however, the army relies on Rending Psycannons. The number is worked out based on the MATH of rending, so it SHOULD work…as a failsafe, I have NOT included in this figure the 5 S10 Hammers I have access to in the force…just cause its hard to say when or if they’d be in assault with a LR, but we all know it happens..

Interpretation
Like all analytical numbers/results, we need to actually figure out what they mean…I think the figures demonstrate an ability to put real damage on the other army’s transport capabilities and that this ability is in fact spread throughout the GK army, not simply concentrated in one or two units. Whilst it can be argued that the Dreadnaughts and Purifiers/Termies do a lot of the work on this front, it can also not be ignored that the weight of medium strength fire available from 24 TL S6 shots will also do good work. In addition, whilst we state that the main work on the DRPG result is mainly focussed in the Heavy Support and Elites Section, plus one troop, it is very important to realise that this is internally spread across 7 different units.

Ultimately, when we consider the ability of the SW army to bring the pain in the shooting phase to transports, vehicles and bodies alike, we can see that the GK army has the same ability, but at a greater range (remembering the majority of anti infantry work in the SW army was done by Rapid Firing GH’s) therefore minimising the return fire in most cases.

Whilst the Wolves did have the ability to put down 124 marines per game (without considering VGL), the GK can do 108…I personally had a number of people shocked when they asked me how many marines I had in the SW army I took…70. At 1750. Do you know any marine armies that can boast 20 missiles and 70 bodies? Nope, me either, but that was at the sacrifice of vehicles, this GK army is the other way around, it could kill all marines from shooting, but it also really suffers from only having 15 marines and 11 TEQ wounds..the other 16 bodies are really just that…bodies.

Shit ones.

Ann Widdecombe bodies.

This is the weakness of the Core as I build it. I know, you know it.

But fuck you. Can you survive the torrent of fire to gun them down? I’ve played 8 games so far with this and nothing has yet. IG have done the best as the Av12 increment in armour really impacts the S6-7, but they still went down…very bloody though.
Pissing demo charges.