Let me ask you something: When trolling the internets for the forum monkeys best army lists, and someone brings up techmarines, how many times have you seen this?
Techmarine, Conversion beamer
Techmarine, Conversion beamer
Techmarine, Conversion beamer
?????
Betcha when you saw that, the forum poster proudly declared something along the lines of “Regardless of your build, you don’t want your Techmarine in close combat.” (Nikephoros, Bringer of Victory)
O rly?
First of all, I don’t really want to dis the conversion beamer…….OK, yeah I do. It’s 20 pts, right? Except you have to give up the servo harness for it, something which a vanilla techmarine pays 25 pts for. So really, it’s costing you 45 pts. That’s a fair bit.
I actually have a fair bit of experience with conversion beamers, having been fond of heavy dreadnought lists in the past. You know what a conversion beamer usually is? 90% of the time it’s a Str 8 Ap4 small blast. That btw, is when I had the master of the forge mounted on a bike, which gives you relentless. You’re talking about mounting on a single wound model that cannot move with it. 42″ is long a way, folks. Even if by some miracle your preferred target is that far away (because you can’t move) in 5th ed I virtually guarantee they get cover saves.
What I’m saying is that you’re paying 110 pts for what is for most purposes a plasma cannon. Usually worse, actually, except against vehicles. Does that sound worth it to you?
Well, ok, so why did I techmarines were awesome, then? Well, cuz they’re awesome in combat. They can also fix vehicles, which is nice. It should be noted, btw, that the GK version is slightly better, off the bat. Yes, we essentially lose an attack because ours are for some reason not smart enough to bring a pistol. But they probably have a good excuse–They forgot to bring a pistol because their head is filled with things like hammerhand and Reconstruction, which is really, when you think about it, about equal to bringing an extra two servitors along for repair rolls (which we can’t buy, anyway, so that works out).
Let’s go through their main features:
- Well, at first glance, they get 1 attack. Sounds lame. But the thing is, they get two powerfist attacks, due to the auto-included servo harness. That’s 3 power weapon attacks. How many attacks does a grand master get? That’s right, 3 attacks. Hmm.
- They have a 2+ save. That’s pretty awesome.
- They only have 1 wound. That sucks.
- No invo save, though you can possibly buy a NFW staff for them, granting them a 2++ in combat, when it will matter. OK.
- They have a flamer, and TL plasma pistol. Unfortunately, these can’t be used in CC. But, I’m reasonably sure we can put those to use. They can fire both at one, which is pretty awesome.
- They can repair a vehicle. With Reconstruction, they have a 67.9%chance to do so. OK, that’s pretty good.
- Ah hah! They can buy servoskulls. Well, that’s ok, we can get servo skulls on most of our HQs, but having another place to take them is pretty good. But what’s this, we can get them at the cheaper, Inquisitor rate? In the grand scheme of things that will only save us 6 pts, but still, that’s kinda cool.
- Ohhhhhh………now I get it. See, they can buy the “I win” grenades, blind, rad, psychotroke. They’re the only model that can buy them besides GMs and Xenos Inquistors……that’s going to matter. They also randomly get a discount on rad grenades.
So, to me, it’s kinda obvious what you want to do with these guys. You’re going to buy them the 3 sets of awesome grenades, for the most part nothing else (well, servo-skulls, but servo-skulls are fungible), and stick them in a Land Raider with something nasty. If the land raider gets immobilized, or loses a weapon, you have a full 67.9% chance to fix that, which is hella better than no chance. Moreover, eventually you get to charge something, and the techmarine comes charging out with 4 attacks (2 reg and 2 powerfist) shooting its flamer and plasma pistol en-route, which is going to add, what 2-3 kills before combat? Then, well, your squad just wins. Because you brought the “I win” grenades. All that and you got to buy your servo-skulls for cheap, cool.
The major hole, of course, is the single wound. But I’ll argue the techmarine’s largest contributions are actually before combat: adding grenades and shooting the flamers and plasma pistol. I don’t really think your enemy will target him specifically, but if he does, ok, you probably wiped out his squad already. If you really cared, you can always buy him a staff. This is basically fool proof, I think, btw, as its not like your opponent is going to dedicate attacks to model with a 2++. In the end, I’ll probably save myself that 25 pts.
Make sense?
12 Responses to “Grey Knight Techmarines are awesome…….and everyone is using them wrong”
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I've only used him with an OSR and to bolster my Vindicare's hideout. How do you feel about this use?
Anyways, isn't an inquisitor better as a win-'nade delivery system? I mean, he's cheaper and has three wounds.
( Thanks for the blog though, it's great
)
How has the Orbital Strike Relay been working out for you? I've built a few lists with it, but only have gotten to use it once. Obviously very hit and miss.
Vindicare on the other hand I've use quite few time by now. It's funny, when others use the vindicare against me, I kill it right away and usually pretty easily. (I'm very scared of it hurting my land raiders) but in the games I've used him (1 tournament, and a number of pickup games) the enemy has literally never even shot at him. I figure it comes down to applying "pressure"–I'm very good at giving the enemy other things to worry about.
If anyone cares, you the techmarine actually gets psychotroke grenades 5 pts cheaper.
In the end, if all I have points for is the Xenos with grenades, sure, I'll get him. But if I have the 50 pts more, then the techmarine is totally worth it.
Glad you like the blog.
I'll confess I'd mostly ignored the techmarine until I saw this article. It's an interesting view of the Techmarine, and surprisingly I found his ability to heal the Landraider while it drove across the board almost as useful as the win-'nade deliverer.
Also interestingly enough, my opponent virtually ignored the Techmarine in close combat, well until those strength 8 servo arms nailed a pair of Terminators. Good times.
Thanks for the suggestion. If nothing else I've looked at a unit I wouldn't otherwise have used.
- Godeskian
It has also been my experience he gets ignored in CC, though they shouldn't. It really depends. I had a game today where he got pulpled by a GK pretty early– GK on GK. Made me think very seriously about getting the staff for him, but no…it's 25 pts, that's a lot. You should be steam-rolling through the enemy anyway. I dunno, my views on this could change.
How did the combat go? Who were you playing?
Too many points. I already struggle to add the tech-marines in addition to the other toys. Since I have him primarily for the grenades, I don't worry too much if he dies.
Won the combat, lost the mission overall as it was a badab specific mission and normal victory conditions didn't count. My opponent was wielding a deathwing Terminator army. In retrospect I should have thrown the Purifiers at Belial and his squad of THSS terminators and let Draigo and his Paladins smush the regular Terminators.
Well, the way to kill THSS termies is dakka…..say Str 5 bolters.
My friend has an uncanny ability to roll absurd numbers of 2+ saves. I watched him shrug off a 10 man paladin squad with libby, 4 master crafted psycannons, psybolts on all the Stormbolters and the Warp Rift template with 1 casualty.
Somehow, they never do as well in close combat, even the THSS ones.
Most people make the mistake with the conversion beamer. Don't have the Techmarine by himself, put him in a Rhino and a Purgation Squad. Then go as far away as you can from the enemy and use Astral Aim. As you said, every man and his dog are getting cover saved these days.
So lets just shoot through buildings.
Oh, wow. I do like that, as an idea. But then the target is still getting a 4+ cover save, anyway, and you are still paying 110 pts for 1 small blast template, of varying strengths, and if there's an enemy outside 42", this is still something that happened due to happenstance, rather than your ability to control it.
I think if I were to do something like that, and it's a thought, I would rather do with the Orbital Strike Relay.
I don't really agree with your assessment of how to use techmarines. You are right that they can fix vehicles and their chances are pretty good, but the way you have them geared out, they are very costly.
First I will address the vehicle repair. You pay 120 points for the guy with all his gear. He has a ~70% chance to fix a weapon lost or immobilize result. This ability won't be useful until your vehicle is damaged, and he has to be alive when the damage occurs for him to be able to fix it. I would much rather spend the points on say three razorbacks, or around half of another land raider. I'd add more vehicles (and their firepower) to the list, giving more targets for my enemy to disable, rather than being able to fix a broken vehicle.
As far as CC, I have to qualify my opinion by saying that I don't have practical experience with CC in 5th ed, just theory. But it seems to me that a techmarine is very vulnerable in CC. If you attack a unit that is a meaningful opponent in CC, the techmarine will likely push you over the top in a close fight but die to return attacks before they can dish out their power fist attacks. If you attack something that isn't meant to be in CC, you were probably going to win anyway, so the techmarine doesn't add much to your capability.
His shooting attacks are useful in close range, but I don't see them killing 2-3 models if the unit you are targeting isn't GEQ. Plasma pistol has to hit, wound and bypass cover save. Flamer has to wound and then get through failed saves. If you are targeting marines, 2-3 dead seems pretty generous. If you aren't facing something that can take that kind of fire power, then what does it matter? They are gonna be wiped out in CC anyway.
I'm not saying that techmarines are a bad unit. I just think there are better ways to spend those points if you want vehicle survivability and cc dominance.
Well, it's 120 pts for this build I spend the most time thinking about.
First of all, keep in mind he is an IC, and apparently Hammerhand stacks now . (weird, weird ruling) So acutally, the +1 str he provides is pretty valuable on it's own.
As far as bringing the "I win" grenades, let's look at the other options: GM at 220 pts, fair combat and other potential there, though, and Xenos Inq at 93 pts –psyker with hammerhand and power armor, force weapon and grenades (can't get blind grenades). The Inq has a lot more wounds, but he's much weaker offensively. Poorer armor, of course.
As far as wounds with charging in…Plasma has an 8/9th hit chance, and 5/6 chance to wound. (8/9)*(5/6)= 54% chance of a wound. Flamer, hitting lets say 6 models (typical, you get to place him where you want coming out of the raider) will wound 3, and 1 will fail save.
OK, 1.75 wounds on a MEQ then, not 2-3.
You're right, sorta that the enemy can kill him if they want to. He does have a 2+ save, so it comes down to the power weapons. Now, as the charger, you can actually control things so that he's not near the power weapon or fist, and he'll be pretty safe, then.
Of course, you can also make a ruin give you +1 cover.
He's also extremely unlike to be dead when repairing an LR. He can only repair weapon destroyed and immobilized, and he can do it from inside, sohe wouldn't even be in any danger.
All told, it sounds pretty ok to me.
Yeah, I agree, he is okay. I'd even be tempted to take one in a 2500 point army or something. I just think at 2000 or under, GK seem to always need more bodies or armor, so that's what I'd rather spend those points on.