I've been perusing the wonderful epic:siege supplement and I was thinking about doing a Mossinian rebels army, but I'm not sure "what the trick" is with their list. I have limited experience with epic, mostly playing IG and chaos. It seems that everything the mossinians have is just a bit crappier than what the IG has, but for the same or even higher cost. Is the list meant to err on the side of underpowered (for an extra challenge to an experienced player), or is there an aspect to the army list that I'm not getting? Thanks.

Fortifications.

Infantry in trenches get a 4+ cover save against everything but Macro and TK, Infantry in bunkers get a 3+ cover save. All the Arty gets a 5+ cover save in Emplacements. Mossinians are a defensive force, they rarely leave their positions. You can spread trenchworks across the centerline, and a second line around the blitz and artillery park. Dislodging the infantry will be difficult; my Baran Siegemasters (nearly identical to the Mossinians) have taken the full firepower of a tank company, and taken only a single stand of casualties, although that's not statistically average.

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

A lot of the kit is actually cheaper, take hellhounds. They can also garrison nearly everything to try and overcome speed problems.

Great, thanks for the pointers. I figured there must be something I was missing and that seems to be it.

You have a point Chrach. The Mossinians definitely have access to a lot less options, vehicles and gear than their IG counterparts, and a lot of what they do get looks worse (just one SH Tank and not a brilliant one, cheaper fighters with lower Damage per point, infantry with stubbers instead of autocannons etc). And as for speed, their land crawler transports are vehicle towers and only potter along at 15cm, they've no access to Warhounds and the only thing that moves faster than 20cm is a Siegfried Light tank that's more of an armoured tractor with an autocannon than what Guard usually call Tanks.

Maybe that's Mossinian battle reports are so rare!

It's possible the Mossinians were really only designed for their narrative campaign and not for GT style gaming but I was considering seeing if somewhere in list there is an army that verges on potentially competitive. Has anyone else tried them out yet?

They have some different options and modified pricing, but they are very similar to Baran, and are able to be competative. I personally don't bring out my Baran often because it takes 45 min to go through the Garrisons. Everything. The last game I got pics from was this one:

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

Hahha well I suppose if you host the game at home, you could set it up before your opponent arrives at your house. That is quite a huge garrison fortification!

The games I've played with fortifications so far were vs Teleport heavy armies, so this sort of deployment would have been unviable, but against a conventional force it looks like you've a good chance at TSNP and DTF. With the artillery for a BTS lol.
Did you find that your opponent managed to clip the ends of the great long trenches (particularly the weaker right side)? Apart from the time spent setting up, any other qualms about this sort of an army?

Even if it were at my house, the trench deployment would be dependent on my opponent's Objective placement, so not a real time saver.

To be honest, I don't remember much about that game aside from beating an Assault Det in CC around the edge of the Ork villiage. I don't even recall who won. Let me dig through my blog and see if there's more there.

OK. It seems that: a) That was a 4k game. b) I lost "due to poor set up on my part", which seems to indicate that I did get rolled in from one end (the left?) It's also likely I lost the BTS to a teleport assault early on.

Baran are hard as nails when in the trenches, and fairly soft at other times. This leads to a very static, defensive play style with a lot of OW, a lot of sustained fire. This means that the game is won or lost before the first activation, for the most part: deploy well, and you're a tough nut to crack. Deploy poorly, and your opponent will steamroll you. The list isn't very tolerant of mistakes.

As you mention, DTF, BTS and TSNP are probably the easiest conditions to obtain, with most of the rest being a denial game. a single Sigfried formation held in reserve until the last few activations can make a dive for a far side objective, denying DTF and TSNP. Your fortified infantry should be able to keep the Blitz and TNH out of your opponents hands.

Like Stompas, the 15cm move Ragnaroks are able to garrison, someting I didn't take advantage of in the pictured game, and which caused my flanks to be softer than they otherwise would be, since I had to rush forwards from the deployment zone to anchor the ends with them.

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

All the Siege Armies have a basic style of play, soak up and counter-attack. This doesn't mean they cannot force the issue, it does mean they have to do it in a different way then most armies.

Rule #1 Artillery: Gotta have it as they are the 'Queens' of these style of armies chess pieces. A Steel Legion can win battles and field only a battery of artillery, a Siege Army MUST field artillery to hammer opponents into presenting a weakness, or suck them into attacking to silence those guns.

Rule #2 Scouts: They perform two vital duties in a Siege Style Army. First: If the enemy has deep strikes to deploy the scouts can go on 'area denial' and keep those deep strikes at arms length from the Queen (Artillery). If no deep strikes are available to the enemy then they can create 'speed bumps' in front of the trenches tripping up enemy attacks and leaving the enemy vulnerable to direct and indirect (Artillery again) attacks. As a side note they are real valuable in screening any counter-attacks you launch.

Rule #3 Patience: A Siege Style Army IS NOT a fast army so you want to wear down an enemy with artillery while WAITING for the moment to launch that vital counter-attack. Here timing is the key because if you launch the attack too early it will be crushed, and if you launch it too late victory will slip away before you can gain achieve it.

Rule #4 Cheap is Better: While on paper the Mossinian Army looks real weak in almost all categories, the really cheap units do have a value all their own. As Stalin said, "Quantity has its own quality", the quality in the Mossinian Army lays in its quantity. Yes you will need to spend some points on the best hard hitting units you have available in the army, for that vital counter-attack that wins the battle, but most of your points should be spent on cheap formations in large numbers.

Hope this helps,
Jaldon

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Tyranid AC

It's a really good idea, but I don't think the rules allow it:

"All of the remaining formations in the players’ armies
must be set up within 15cm of their own side’s table edge
or be kept back ‘in reserve’.
Units kept in reserve must either be aircraft, or be going
to enter play in a transport aircraft or by teleportation."

So no other vehicles or troops can be kept in reserve, which is a shame since otherwise these light tanks would have had a key role.

Anyway, Steve (Onyx) has just confirmed Mossinians are allowed in the campaign we are going to have here in Western Australia, so that's all the incentive I need to take the codex apart and try and build something powerful out of it. Jaldon is correct of course that artillery are the key component in the siege lists (or the 'Queen'), but I think there might be more to Mossinia buried in their primitive weapon load-outs and options.

Why use Mossinians instead of Baran Siegemasters?
The armies are very similar with a lot of overlap, but Mossinians lose some of Baran's fancier tanks, superheavies and toys, and get more primitive aircraft (harder to kill per point spent, but lower damage output). In order to play as Mossinia, you need a good reason and IMHO that reason is a unique combination of Artillery and Assault. Krieg can't get access to so much cheap artillery and Baran can't duplicate Mossinia's assault capabilities.

Assault? Yes I am talking about the Ogryns! This IG list can field 4 Ogryns (rather than 0 for Baran and Krieg and 2 for Steel), and add them to formations 10 - 16 or more infantry. If you play them smart (smarter than ogryns deserve to be played) the infantry should be deployed in cover to take the first shooting hits at 4+ or in Bunkers for 3+. Then in assault get infantry into CC to absorb Macros while the Ogryns bounce standard attacks off their 3+ heads and you'll find it is possible to make some nasty combat squads. Ignore the fact that infantry are only 6+ CC and get at least 4 into base contact as ablative wounds when fighting terminators or similar and this becomes a more resiliant formation.

Then Mossinians get an iterator (budget commissar) for every 300 pts spent. These should be added to ogryns to get the EA MW to hit at 3+, and not to infantry.

The result is my first
Mossinian Artillery Assault List - 3000

RHQ 10 Infantry & 3 Rapiers (plus 1 Iterator) 325
Rapier 25
3 Heavy Mortars 75
The RHQ is always the BTS regardless of cost, so I have kitted this one out with ranged weapons for base defence.

Infantry Platoon (10) 200
4 Ogryns (plus 1 Iterator) 100
Infantry Platoon (10) 200
4 Ogryns (plus 1 Iterator) 100
Infantry Platoon (10) 200
4 Ogryns (plus 1 Iterator) 100
These are actually pretty good assault formations, outnumbering most opponents and having 5x 3+ Macroweapons as well as the 14 standard attacks each. The army has 6 bunkers (capacity 18) and 50cm of trenches, making these tough to remove from range). They are very slow, but the opponent will have no alternative but to come towards them because of the next thing in the list:

3 Howitzers 3 Landcrawlers (plus 1 Iterator) 150
3 Howitzers 3 Landcrawlers (plus 1 Iterator) 150
3 Howitzers 3 Landcrawlers (plus 1 Iterator) 150
3 Howitzers 3 Landcrawlers (plus 1 Iterator) 150

3 Firestrike Missiles plus gun emplacements 225
More resiliant than Death Strikes, usually not quite as good (3D3 is average 6 hits while a DS is 2D6 average 7) but harder to kill and better against Living Metal.

6 Snipers (plus 1 Iterator) 150 - Scouts
6 Light Tanks (plus 1 Iterator) 150 -Objective grabbers.
3 Anti Aircraft guns 3 Landcrawlers (plus 1 Iterator) 125
3 Anti Aircraft guns 3 Landcrawlers (plus 1 Iterator) 125
I pity the fool who tries to land a thunderhawk on the artillery. Well they are still unlikely to be shot down, but at least they will land with blast markers.
Fortifications 100
50cm trenches 50cm Razor, 6 bunkers or gun emplacements - Better than Krieg's equivalent, particularly because of the bunkers

4 PDF Fighters 200 - Not great, but I chose this over a bomber because the opponent will be too spread out for bombs to be effective due to all the artillery.


And now all I need to do is find a victim to try this out against!

Looks good to me - not quite as bad as some of TRC's Siege lists with something like 18+ activations including a ton of artillery whose job was basically to break formations anywhere on the board. He also included 1-2 counter-attack infantry forces for use against teleported or air-assaulting enemy. Indeed he brought this along to one of the E-UK tournaments (and won ), but then upped the cost of stuff to make it a bit more balanced and 'fair'.

As Jaldon says above, the general rule of thumb is you cannot have enough artillery, cannot have too many units, and need to keep some mobile formations available in 'reserve' (though not off-table ) to claim objectives at the end of the game. Much depends upon the placement and use of the fortifications, which in turn dictate the strategy and tactics of both sides. By definition this tends to produce a very one-dimensional kind of battle that does become a little stale after a while (imagine a game between two such armies), though it certainly does add a welcome variation for other players in tournaments.

I was talking about a unit kept out of the fight as a tactical reserve, rather than a reserve in the sense of the rules.

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

Thanks for clarifying. It's still a shame the rules don't allow rolling reserves on late in the game, but never mind.

I tried Mossinian Rebels out at 2000pts against Necrons using a scaled down variation of the list I posted above (so a mere 32 vehicles and 46 stands of infantry lol. The 6 light tanks I took to deliver some speed were a target priority and evaporated in a cloud of steel wool and the rate at which things died made for fast paced play, but the rest held together well enough to take the win.

They lack a lot of the options, speed and punch of my current favourite Guard army (Krieg), but despite the obvious deficiencies at low points sizes they may well be better.



The trick might be to convince your opponent to play a small points size game

I've played some games using the Mossinian Rebels (both wins, woohoo) so I ran off a couple of very similar army lists for 2000pt games to compare them against Baran in more detail.

Baran and Rebel infantry and regimental HQs are identical, with Baran 25pts cheaper per formation.
Baran can take rapiers on all the infantry, Rebels only on the RHQ.
Baran and Rebel AA are identical, with Baran 25pts cheaper per formation
Baran get 2 Deathstrikes where Rebels get 3 Flamestrikes. DS slightly better (2xTKD6 instead of 3xTKD3) and 25pts cheaper per formation.
Baran get 2xThunderbolts for 150, Rebels get 4xPlanet Defence Fighters for 200. Thunderbolts are definitely better, but although they are inferior, 4 fighters are harder to shoot down, so its probably even.
Baran get Shadowswords and BaneBlades where Rebels have an inferior armament version of the Stormhammer with +1attack. The SS and BB are far superior heavy tanks except at firefights.
Mossinians and Baran both have a strategy rating of 1, which has to be factored in as a cost of taking them.

In my lists, the Baran version generally has 150 pts spare (-25pts saved in each of 3 infantry formations, 1 AA and one Deathstrike formation) which is enough to buy an extra infantry formation or some upgrades. Most other common options like artillery, light and heavy tanks is very similar or identical in price and performance.

On the other hand, to their advantage Rebels can add 4 Ogryn to their infantry formations and can buy 6 snipers as an independent formation. If these two things don't appeal to you, you're almost certainly better off using Baran to make your army.