Mephiston, and my issues with him

[Demonus]

eldar seem pretty good at killing mephiston. runes to prevent his spells, guide for your 3 warwalkers with starcannons is nice. 4+ to wound, no armor save for him. throw in a doom if ya can. fragons and wraithguard if he ends within shooting range. hehe charge him with 10 banshees and pray for 6s to wound!

as far as spacewolves go, you can JoWW and hope for the best. load up on power weapons/fists.

i imagine it would be expensive, but a thunderwolf lord with mark of the bear (EW), a storm shield and frostblade (for 3+ invuln and 4+ to wound) would give him a good fight. givem a wolf necklace so he always hits on 3s. thats 5 attacks on the charge/countercharge, unsaveable wounds. keep a runepriest nearby to dispel his spells

[eagleboy7259]

Mephiston is only pri.ck-tastic if a Blood Angels player throws him into a transport (Land Raider, Storm Raven, Rhino, Razorback) On his own he really is only as bad as any other monstrous creature out there. Anti-tank weapons, power fists, etc etc. Just like other monstrous creatures its a WTF momement when he gets you into asssault.

Most armies have the units they need to bring him down. SM's have TH&SS Terminators, Chaos has Demon Princes (eternal warrior) Demons have everything in the dang army, Dark Eldar have poisoned weapons, Eldar have the runes and alot of S6 shooting, etc.

[plawolf]

Mephiston is only pri.ck-tastic if a Blood Angels player throws him into a transport (Land Raider, Storm Raven, Rhino, Razorback) On his own he really is only as bad as any other monstrous creature out there. Anti-tank weapons, power fists, etc etc. Just like other monstrous creatures its a WTF momement when he gets you into asssault.

Except that he is not anywhere near as big as any other MC, so its pretty easy to keep anyone from even getting a chance to shoot him until he is in range to jump out and eat something.

With his small size and the speed of a typical BA army, there is really no excuse for him to be expose to enemy fire unless you are exceedingly unlucky (eg the vehicle he is hiding behind gets annihilated) or if you are doing it deliberately to draw fire away from other assets.

The kinds of weapons good at putting wounds on Meph are also the kinds of weapons you need to take down things like storm ravens, and Meph is such a massive terror that if you put him out there, 9 times out of 10, the opponent cannot resist throwing everything they have at him. That means those two storm ravens full of DC, dreads and other dedicated CC squads get a free pass to boost up the field and really bring the hurt next turn.

The best thing is that Meph is tough enough and has enough wounds to have a decent chance of surviving a turn of shooting from an entire army (obviously not every army) so its not like you are spending all those points for a decoy. Meph on 1 wound is still just as killy as if he had full wounds, although obviously you need to be careful with who you attack if he is that close to death.

Most armies have the units they need to bring him down. SM's have TH&SS Terminators, Chaos has Demon Princes (eternal warrior) Demons have everything in the dang army, Dark Eldar have poisoned weapons, Eldar have the runes and alot of S6 shooting, etc.

True enough, but how much is a squad of TH/SS termies? And how do they plan on forcing Meph into CC if he doesn't want to play ball? SS TWolves are more realistic, but again they cost a hell of a lot more points than Meph.

DPs and most CC daemons are not a sure bet by any stretch.

Hoods, Runes and poison are far more effective counters, especially the first two, since they have a good chance to delay when Meph can get into CC and limit the types of units he can be effective against without his powers.

Grey Knights will probably also be able to counter him fairly well. A bog standard BC with a warding staff or a squad of SS/PW warriors should be able to tie him up for a fair while.

With Psykout grenades, even a standard GKSS squad would have a reasonable chance if they get the charge and can pop hammerhand.

[thecactusman17]

Seriously, do the math. It takes 270 bolter shots to kill mephiston, on average.

Sisters of Battle say "Hi." also: "Die, psyker scum."

[DarkLink]

THSS termies are only 200 pts in vanilla Marines, and they eat Mephiston alive. Take them in a Land Raider, stick a Librarian in there for the hood, and mephiston can't get anywhere near your army without getting killed, plus you're blocking half of his psychic powers. That's what termies do, is intimidate your opponent and keep him at bay, then hammer something when they get the chance.

[Gir]

I lost mephiston in 1 wave of shooting to 12 fire warriors and a devilfish. worst rolling of my life

[plawolf]

THSS termies are only 200 pts in vanilla Marines, and they eat Mephiston alive. Take them in a Land Raider, stick a Librarian in there for the hood, and mephiston can't get anywhere near your army without getting killed, plus you're blocking half of his psychic powers. That's what termies do, is intimidate your opponent and keep him at bay, then hammer something when they get the chance.

Most people i know run TH/SS termies in squads of 10 footslogging or 7-8 in a crusader so I automatically went with that. But your 5 man termie squad in LR with libby (presumably also in termie armour with a SS for good measure) isn't exactly clocking in at 200pts are they? So you can effectively counter him with a unit twice to three times his pts cost. I would just lead your hammer unit on a merry little chase all game while the rest of my army goes about beating the rest of yours.

And a Libby with hood is not great at completely shutting Meph down as he can have up to three bites of the cherry to get the same power of, so you need to be lucky to be able to hood him three times in a role a turn. Odds are at least one of those tries will work and he will wing his way away from you and then fleet a bit. Even if you go flat out you prob won't be able to catch him.

[Whoop!]

Im upgrading my grayhunter packs to 2 power fists each unit(one on guard). This way he should only be able to eat 1.5 units in my guesstimation.

[celldwellwer]

Thanks Jailbird, real helpful.

Oh wait! I am a Blood Angels and use Mephiston

[AngelsofDeath]

It use to be where a named character could not be fielded in armies under 2500pts at times. Now each army codex has its own special bad-azz character that people respect, fear, or complain about.

People complain and gripe and use another persons playing of a named character as a crutch or shield to complain and cover up some of their own short comings in a game. Maybe you should ask yourself a few questions beforehand.

1) Right off the bat, how did my attitude change when I seen this special character in my opponents army?

Attitude is everything. If you view the start of the game as a loss and as you start to loose units your attitude goes down hill things will progress in that direction. Its a game of multiple army builds from any one codex. If you build your army to be balanced and deal with multiple threats your army is flexable and lasts on the table top.

2) Was the game being played a mission? And did I follow the mission objectives or just try to wipe out my opponent?

I played and had myself forgetting the mission and just trying to shooty killy everything I could. Even assaulting on the last round and loosing cause that unit got beat down by sheer luck of the dice. Missions to me seem to balance out alot of short comings in people armies as long as you use your units in their designed roles.

3) Why do I play?

If you play to crush your opponent over and over and then put your tanks in reverse and grind the bones into dust you are setting yourself up to not enjoy this game. The 2 factors you cant control is your opponent and what they are going to do, you can only hope to make them react to you, and the dice.

Hey I am not trying to bad mouth anyone, just trying to give food for thought here. But this exact post is why I will not play special toons in my army. If I win its not cause of my playing style, or the opponents mistakes, or even the dice.....its always the Characters fault...