Okay I've had several games now with the latest PsyCoteaz list against a variety of armies including Hybrid Tau, multiple Imperial Guard, Mech Marines, Mech BA, Jumper BA, Hybrid Wolves and Tyranids. More play-testing to do obviously but this is giving me some good samples on which to base some thoughts and get a feel for the army.
First things first. Passbacks. Meh. My first incarnation of the list had a bunch of these and they have gotten less and less with each passing to the point of no return. I was high on them and dazzled by their S7 and the ability for the army to generate ~50 S7 rending shots. It was crazy but it was also uni-dimensional and the passbacks suffer a lot from weapon destroyed and immobilised results. this means they aren't really as durable as other vehicles and whilst cheap scoring options are nice, I think these guys are best used minimally or not at all. I know there was a ton of discussion about this weeks ago and I went the other direction so I admit to being shown up there by the chatbawks (but not VT2 lol).
Since then I've replaced them with 2x Psybacks and 2xLasPlas. This has given me less midfield presence overall but more ranged firepower to go with the Dreadnoughts. I haven't really found the survivability (or lack there-of) of the henchmen to be an issue. They either die or hide and with the two full GK strike squads, it's not like they are my only scoring. I'm currently running them as 5-6 strong and might experiment with cutting this down somewhat on the LasPlas ones for some points elsewhere (stormbolters on the Psybacks? makes them less mobile though).
With the four Razorbacks and two Psyfledreads I haven't really had an issue dealing with ranged armies. They certainly outgun me (and I always seem to get Spearhead deployment against them) but the list has been able to create enough suppression to let my army advance relatively safely. Combined with Fortitude across the army (perils on vehicles is funny...) and I can generally suppress+kill shooty opponents as much as they can kill me.
The Grey Knight portion of the army otherwise bum-rushses midfield. Four chassis into midfield isn't much so potentially swapping out some of the henchmen RBacks for GK RBacks (need to find quite a few points for that though which would really make you wonder why Coteaz?) though it becomes a trade-off of backfield firepower and midfield presence. All the same, 36MEQ+Coteaz in midfield isn't too easy to dislodge (though I've had four games with a Grey Knight Strike Squad escorted off the board) but is quite vulnerable to tank-shock (no melta we hate you). That being said the firepower of those units is pretty staggering with a ton of psycannon and stormbolter shots and they aren't slouches in combat either.
That being said I haven't had issues dealing with large amounts of infantry or tanks. The lack of AP1 can be painful against AV14 (still need to versus AV14 with scary assault units inside) but the sheer volume of shots against vehicles generates enough hits to at least suppress them which I discussed above. I've also found the number of wounds the list can do in a single turn can turn smaller opposing units to mush and focus firing on super units generates a lot of dice rolls. The lack of invulnerable saves in combat is annoying but with I6 Halberds and force weapons across the midfield part of the list backed up by S8-10 hammers is pretty reliable and can clean-up lots of squads and have minimal difficulty with most units up to scary assault units.
Overall, I'm quite happy with the list so far. Some more tweaking and play-testing different variants is necessary (more or less GK in midfield?) but am certainly enjoying how it plays and the durability of the list (yes, even with the henchmen squads). I enjoy midfield armies so this shouldn't be a surprise but the combination of multiple psycannons, mass stormbolters, supporting firepower and fortitude on 10 vehicles is a very enjoyable. Will hopefully get some more games in against more opponents and can learn some more but so far a positive response IMO.
