Mephiston, and my issues with him

[Whoop!]

I played against Mephisticon for the first time this week. That sucked! He was just chomping away at my troops, and that toughness 6 is a killer. I even reworked my Grey Hunters to take a powerfist to add a little more punch. I already have the guard with a PF attached. Ill be posting an updated list to my Storm Wolves 2500 to my blog, but only for play testing. So what Whoop! wants to know is this.

What ways has this made you guys change your armies?

[celldwellwer]

He has not made me chagne my army at all.

[Whoop!]

Thanks Jailbird, real helpful.;)

[fuzzbuket]

think of mestaphosion as a fex- arfter 2 turns of lascannons, meltas, plasma, massed bolters HE WILL DIE

killing him in CC is a bad idea! lure him with some cheap wolf scouts- then position your firepower within shooting distance!

[Whoop!]

I thought I had him cold, until I found out he was FLEET. Oops, my bad.

Hungry for some long fangs to wet the palette? Here, eat these! How bout a pack of bloodclaws as a main course, lead by a wolf guard and wolf priest? Still hungry? I guess gray hunters and a rune priest will make a tidy desert.

I took apart everything else in his army while that bllod sucker ate through three units, two IC's, and about 30 models in CC. He still had a couple of wounds on him too!

[DECOY]

The best way to deal with Mephiston or any "D-bag" character is to slow them with foder units and shoot them til their dead. I treat him just like a squad of terminators, fire enough at him and 1's will eventually be rolled. Hell the last time I faced him the guy actually killed himself from perils of the warp causing 2 wounds to himself. Granted I had to pump him full of lead for two turns from two different units, but ... 1 he was the only thing worth shooting at the time, and 2 the player was dumb enough to belive the guy is invincible. Yes he's a BEAST, but a killable beast. You shouldn't have to change your list just because "he's" running aound.

[Whoop!]

I just realized how I don't really have an answer for high toughness & high wound count in my army. I was alos surprised by the fact that a wolf priest and a wolf guard with a power fist still couldn't more than one wound assualt round on that monster.

Am I the only newer player that thought they had a awesome list going, only to be shown a huge flaw? I think playtesting is there so that I can get the most balanced army possible, able to deal with all threats. That and I love messing with my army list anyway.

[plawolf]

Well you will only ever get a chance to shoot Mephiston to death before he hits your lines if the controlling player is inexperienced or careless with him.

A good BA player will only expose him to firepower as a decoy.

For example, sometimes I would stick him in the middle of nowhere inviting the opposition to shoot at him when he is next to a stormraven with a priest and libby inside with an honour guard squad and dred.

With FNP and a cover save as well as T6 means shooting at him with small arms is next to pointless. So you can either use those autocannons, lascannons etc on Meph or the two Stormravens full of assault units and dreds.

Either way you are facing the prospect of something really nasty in your lines next turn unless you get amazing luck.

The best way to counter him is to get a Hood or take stuff like Runes of warding if you can.

Without his powers, its going to take him about twice as long to get at you without transport, and is very rarely in a transport. If you have Runes, you will probably get him to put a wound or two on himself from perils before he gets close.

[DarkLink]

What is it with people talking about killing stuff with weight of fire? Facing Mephiston? Rapid fire him with bolters. Grey Knight Paladins with an apothecary? Bolters.

Seriously, do the math. It takes 270 bolter shots to kill mephiston, on average. You could literally sit down 2 full tactical squads and rapid fire him 6 turns in a row and you would have a less than 50% chance of killing him.

Power fists kill Mephiston. Plasma kills mephiston. Lascannons and meltaguns kill Mephiston. Not one power fist, nor one plasma, but several over several turns whittling away at his wounds. Once you can ignore his 2+ armor and his T6, then he isn't all that frightening.

Not Bolters.



That's not to say that you can't get lucky and put a wound on him with a stray bolter shot. It's not to say that you can't get absurdly lucky and actually manage to force enough wounds to kill him.

But if "more dakka" is your response to "how will I kill mephiston", you might as well just give up now. Don't plan for luck. And especially don't plan to be absurdly lucky.

Edit: Oh, and I didn't even account for if Mephiston has FNP. Then it's 4 full tac squads for 10 turns just to get close to a 50% chance of killing him.

[isotope99]

AP2 or less shooting or hidden power fists/klaws etc. are your best bets. If you don't have these then you are in trouble.

[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...

[Connjurus]

I roll over Mephiston with my Chaos Space Marines, but I take Abaddon.

With Daemons, Bloodthirsters with BotBG are hilarious against Mephiston.

[Whoop!]

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...

Now now, I just saw a glaring hole in my army design. It could have been Meph, or it could have been a bunch of Carbifex. Either way I lost fair and square. No whinning here, just wondering what others have done to deal with a high toughness/ CC monster of any kind.

Don't let haters ruin your game, man. IF you want to play specials, do it, and let them suck eggs!:cool:

Oh yeah, **** that guy!;)

[AngelsofDeath]

Now now, I just saw a glaring hole in my army design. It could have been Meph, or it could have been a bunch of Carbifex. Either way I lost fair and square. No whinning here, just wondering what others have done to deal with a high toughness/ CC monster of any kind.

Don't let haters ruin your game, man. IF you want to play specials, do it, and let them suck eggs!:cool:

Oh yeah, **** that guy!;)

I stand corrected.... not this exact post of course. It is just that I hear people complaining about the special characters all the time. A special character makes the person who has taken it feel like they have to do something really great with them to make the point of taking them worth while. And it makes the person they play against feel that they have to eliminate that character to prove a point.

I play BA of course and do not even own a Meph model. Do more with less... a Reclusiarch or regular Librarian will do just fine.

[Connjurus]

I play special characters because I'm a fluff bunny.

[Whoop!]

I have yet to play a single special character. Not because I am against using them, but because I am soooo cheap, I dont even like to spend points! LOL!

I think whiners whine when they are losing, haters try to piss on anything they don't have, and everyone, I mean EVERYONE, likes to have something to complain about.

[Tynskel]

I have yet to play a single special character. Not because I am against using them, but because I am soooo cheap, I dont even like to spend points! LOL!

I think whiners whine when they are losing, haters try to piss on anything they don't have, and everyone, I mean EVERYONE, likes to have something to complain about.

I think you are complaining/whining/and hating too much.

It is soooo annoying!

Makes me hate you!

[Whoop!]

It makes me hate myself!

**** this guy too!

[w7west]

Dark eldar so just kite him around maybe shoot 72 poison shot into him if he try anything funny

[Demonus]

Hehe played against Mephiston this weekend.

Salamanders + Tau vs BA + DE.

So after trashing my Ironclad in 2 rounds with his rerolling to hit every cc phase and str 10, Mephiston made the mistake of blowing up my razorback. No longer in cc, our following turn, I shot him with 6 bolt guns, a flamer, 3 multi meltas, a missile launcher, 4 sniper rifles, a heavy flamer, an assault cannon, and telion. My partner shot him with 24 shots from his tau rifles.

He was still alive with 1 wound left....

I finished him off in turn 4 with my land raider's multi melta.

Next time Im playing Eldar or Space Wolves as without his spells, he's a chump. Speaking of which, can he use his spells in both player turns? Ie, cast 3 powers in his turn, then the one that gives him rerolls again during my turn?

[gcsmith]

yes as turns is player turn unless otherwise specified.

[Skragger]

Well you will only ever get a chance to shoot Mephiston to death before he hits your lines if the controlling player is inexperienced or careless with him.

A good BA player will only expose him to firepower as a decoy.

For example, sometimes I would stick him in the middle of nowhere inviting the opposition to shoot at him when he is next to a stormraven with a priest and libby inside with an honour guard squad and dred.

With FNP and a cover save as well as T6 means shooting at him with small arms is next to pointless. So you can either use those autocannons, lascannons etc on Meph or the two Stormravens full of assault units and dreds.

Either way you are facing the prospect of something really nasty in your lines next turn unless you get amazing luck.




Someone tried something similar to this, it was the happiest day of my life when I rolled that 12 on the Shokk Attakk Gun...

[Azrell]

Mephy is not that much of a terror, considering he costs in as much as a land raider. Crack open a chaos dex and take a look at a demon prince, or better yet flip through you codex space marines dex and field the guy they have that's T6...

Last time i use him a 200 pt squad of ork boyz showed him why I7 doesn't always win combats.

[plawolf]

I guess that means you never played against him. Those two guys you mentioned would be lucky to last one round of combat against old crazy eyes.

Just as any controlling player who think he is invincible will be disappointed, someone who show Mephiston so little understanding and respect is almost certain to come unstuck playing against a decent opponent running Meph.

[Demonus]

yep if you roll a Tzeentch DP against Mephiston, you MIGHT have a chance. Warp Time and the Str 8 Ap1 power to take a wound off, charge, get your 5 attacks (after he goes, assuming you survive hehe) and still need 4s to wound him.

best bet would be to throw a giant mob of stubborn troops into him to quagmire him while you kill the rest of his army....or throw a vortex grenade at him and hope for the best.

[Connjurus]

Just played against my friend's Meph-list with my Daemons. He got zoinked by a Khorne Herals with Unholy Might and BotBG on a Juggernaut. It was amusing.

[slobulous]

For example, sometimes I would stick him in the middle of nowhere inviting the opposition to shoot at him when he is next to a stormraven with a priest and libby inside with an honour guard squad and dred.

With FNP and a cover save as well as T6 means shooting at him with small arms is next to pointless. So you can either use those autocannons, lascannons etc on Meph or the two Stormravens full of assault units and dreds.

Either way you are facing the prospect of something really nasty in your lines next turn unless you get amazing luck.

The best way to counter him is to get a Hood or take stuff like Runes of warding if you can.


Why do you assume that an opposing army has to decide whether to destroy Mephiston or the Stormravens? Have you not yet met an army that has the firepower to destroy both Mephiston AND the Stormravens in the same turn? They definitely exist.

[plawolf]

Why do you assume that an opposing army has to decide whether to destroy Mephiston or the Stormravens? Have you not yet met an army that has the firepower to destroy both Mephiston AND the Stormravens in the same turn? They definitely exist.

Who are all are getting a cover save from a Libby? I haven't played an all takers lists with enough firepower to reliably do that consistently yet.

Sure, the odd gunline list might get lucky, not normally you would not expect that to happen.

What more, with Meph also getting FNP from the priest, he becomes even harder to shift. And I have often found that he can have funny psychological effects on the opponent in that they will get so excited that he is out in the open to be shot that they could not resist shooting him. But once they do, all too often they get fixated by trying to kill him and often end up leaving my storm ravens alone.

Its working less now that people have got wised to it, but as a new strategy, it can be surprisingly effective at drawing fire from other key units.

[Demonus]

most things that wound Mephiston (melta, plasma, dcannon) ignore FnP so it usually is only an issue with a storm of bolter/lasgun shots.

[Sister Rosette Soulknyt]

I used an Excorsist tank against my friends Mephiston, very messy after 4 missiles struck him.

Oh and for the record i call his Mephiston, Edward instead. Really irrates him every time.
So worth the laugh.

[w7west]

Always wound on 4+ does not care how many fanboys you have.. you still have to make 1 save per 3 poison shots I fire. But then again de is pretty stacked against SM, especially it's elite variants.

[Demonus]

yup i refuse to play wraithlords and ctan against dark eldar. your poison weapon wounded my god again!! =)

[Hive Mind]

I'm just getting back into 40k thanks to DoW after more than ten years away so forgive me if this exposes the fact that I'm a noob but...

If you're Space Wolves couldn't you throw a minimum size Blood Claw pack with Lukas included at him? Once M wipes the pack out then Lukas' stasis bomb-heart stands a fair chance of taking M out, right??

M = 275pts
BC+LtT = 215pts

Worth a shot, IMO. Assuming that you're not against taking special characters...

[Maelstorm]

I used Dark Angels Deathwing and TH/SS to pulp him in one turn. Granted, he took out my attached IC in one round, but the return attacks left Mephiston as a fine red paste on the ground... Any Dark Angels Libby shuts down his powers pretty consistantly - making Mephiston even more vulnerable... Very demoralizing for even an experienced BA player. As a bonus - the TH/SS Deep Striking Deathwing are scoring troops!

[Nungunz]

I'm just getting back into 40k thanks to DoW after more than ten years away so forgive me if this exposes the fact that I'm a noob but...

If you're Space Wolves couldn't you throw a minimum size Blood Claw pack with Lukas included at him? Once M wipes the pack out then Lukas' stasis bomb-heart stands a fair chance of taking M out, right??

M = 275pts
BC+LtT = 215pts

Worth a shot, IMO. Assuming that you're not against taking special characters...

Or you could just shoot him with plasma, melta, and lascannons and not have to loose any models.

[Whoop!]

Shooting him is nice, but he is a fleet jump infantry, up to a 24" assualt range is hard to stay out of. He usually ends up eating a couple of my troop units before I can wear away all five of his wounds.

I say again **** that guy!

[Nungunz]

Shooting him is nice, but he is a fleet jump infantry, up to a 24" assualt range is hard to stay out of. He usually ends up eating a couple of my troop units before I can wear away all five of his wounds.

I say again **** that guy!

So then you deploy .0001 inches back off of your line. Let him run forward and sit in front of your army and gun him down. Or feed him a bait unit so he's stuck in the open.

Mephiston is pretty easy to kill if you know what you're doing.

[MC Tic Tac]

I played against Mephiston for the first time ever last night and here's what happened:

My Rune Priests stopped most of his powers, while they got most of theirs off!

Mephiston took 2 wounds from Perials of the Warp

Mephiston only killed 1 Rhino in the entire game

I killed him with real problems and some warp based help :)

[Whoop!]

Mephiston is pretty easy to kill if you know what you're doing.

Sometimes the opponent knows what they are doing as well, and that is where the problem arises.

I usually split wins against my blood angel opponent, but pretty easy to kill is not how I would describe Meph, and if he is then what isn't?

[Nungunz]

Sometimes the opponent knows what they are doing as well, and that is where the problem arises.

Then you get into a fun game of cat and mouse. I really wish I had a decent BA player in my area, I would love to play against someone that uses Mephiston and that army well.

[Whoop!]

He's my fav opponent. Frustrating.
He borrowed the Dark Eldar Codex, so next week I am sure to post another **** that guy thread!

[Shaun]

I used Dark Angels Deathwing and TH/SS to pulp him in one turn. Granted, he took out my attached IC in one round, but the return attacks left Mephiston as a fine red paste on the ground... Any Dark Angels Libby shuts down his powers pretty consistantly - making Mephiston even more vulnerable... Very demoralizing for even an experienced BA player. As a bonus - the TH/SS Deep Striking Deathwing are scoring troops!

How is that? DA librarians are LD9. Mephiston is LD10. There is only one DA named librarian, Ezekiel with LD 10 he is expensive at 175 points, any other SM army has librarian LD 10's as stock at around 100 points but not DA.
I play DA and BA. Mephiston would rip Ezekiels arms off and use the soggy end of one to batter a tac squad to death.
Mephiston can use 3 psychic powers a turn at LD10, good luck shutting that down consistently with LD 9 table wide hoods.

Who is going to run Mephiston carelessly ? only people who think he is a wonder character? he is not, he has no invun or eternal warrior people know you can not expose him to too much sunlight. Come on he has his uses; its tearing up lesser mortals. I won't throw him into your termies he will flit across the board and rip something softer up. He is fast, very fast and very small. You will find Mephiston hanging upside down hidden in the basement of a building out of LOS. That or flying across the board in the middle of his jump pack 4 plus cover save buddies the honour guard who will be carrying a pile of meltaguns and a sang noviate as the CC element of this circus IS Mephiston. Even while he chews up whatever he has in combat the HG are positioning those meltas to cover him.

Mephiston does not like melta, plasma, storm shield thunder hammer combo's or anti psychic tricksters. If you have any 3 of these 4 items he will likely be reduced to prowling and unable to reliably engage you and survive.

[Maelstorm]

[QUOTE=Shaun;135146]How is that? DA librarians are LD9. Mephiston is LD10. There is only one DA named librarian, Ezekiel with LD 10 he is expensive at 175 points, any other SM army has librarian LD 10's as stock at around 100 points but not DA.
I play DA and BA. Mephiston would rip Ezekiels arms off and use the soggy end of one to batter a tac squad to death.
Mephiston can use 3 psychic powers a turn at LD10, good luck shutting that down consistently with LD 9 table wide hoods.QUOTE]

I sat Ezekial on the corner of the board behind terrain - and shut down 50%+ all BA powers across the board! Mephiston never got within 24" of Ezekial. I used Belial with an Apothacary (FNP) in a TH/SS group (Troops) to sit on the center objective. Combined fire from 2 BA Stormravens and a Baal could not move them. Mephiston jumped in, killed Belial and then laid down and died like a good little vampire... it was VERY amusing! The Missile Launcher on the TH/SS group also popped his Blood Talon Dreadnought after it fell from the exploding Stormraven. Multiple Land Speeders with Melta's and Missiles popped the Razorback spam to get to the soft squishy minimum sized Assault Squads inside.

[Shaun]

I have to applaud your tactics Maelstrom ;) you proved my point. Your opponent charged him into TH/SS termies? and you had a LD 10 hood on the table. Mephiston is not the monster people claim, lucky for Ezekiel Mephiston did not visit him :D however Ezekiel is not any DA librarian he is the only LD 10 model and at 175 expensive for what he is.