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Hey guys,

As a competitive player, I've tried magnus in a lot of different settings. However, I feel like Magnus is very situationnal and he is a warp charge wh** haha

Here is my point

1-Running a thousand son CAD is really expensive and force you to pay for taxes without giving you much WCs...

2-IMO, Magnus is a cool piece however he needs so many WCs to cast his D beam et his D shot that you have to pay for more psykers just to make sure he will be able to cast these since he can't make it by itself.... Which is really pricey for only 1 good piece ? My past games proved me that its only worth it versus few models armies and you will have a hard time versus any MSU...

3-I feel like the best way to run Magnus is with daemons. Obviously, you can get a lot of WCs from herald's anarchic, omniscient oracle or simply a daemon CAD. Giving cursed earth to the big guy feels great on paper ( 2++, re-roll 1's if you get a blessing on itself ), however getting this combo up can be very pricey in pts but also in WCs. Indeed, playing a screamer's star is most likely the best way to get cursed earth on a mobile unit to follow magnus. Unfortunately, this unit cost a lot and it forces you to play fateweaver as well just to make sure you will pass your grimoire so you don't lose the star too early... Don't get me wrong, this is a solid list ! But fateweaver doesn't get any chance to cast and a screamer's star doesn't do much offensively...

Brief, I don't think runnig a 895 + pts thousand son CAD and around 850 pts daemon will change the meta, especially in ITC where the 2++ re-roll 1's is nerfed and Force D is just fine...

4-Versus alpha strike, if you don't have the initative, you have to keep magnus in reserve because 4 centurions can get rid of him in 1 shooting phase if you are on the ground without your buffs.... Keeping Magnus in reserve is just so risky.... Can you imagine having a 650 pts model sleeping in reserve until turn 4 ? Especially when the rest of your list is based on him ? I don't think so...

5-Good point is, Magnus is almost immortal if you fly and you don't miss your blessing... T7 and 3++ re-roll 1's.... In snap fire ? Good luck ! However, if you are flying, you can't score objectives and you won't do much except casting a few powers ( Yeah Force D beam seems really good on paper but if you opponent isn't bad, he will consider your mouvement because you are Flying ( 12-24'', can't turn more then 90 degree ) and he will spread his army to avoid it... ). Magnus is simply a beast in close combat and flying the whole game is a waste IMO.

6-Let's compare Magnus with the Wraithknight and Stormsurge

The Wraithknight comes with GC ( FNP + stomp ) and Magnus is a FMC.

You can have 2 WKs for Magnus' points ( 295 / 650 )

You don't need more psykers to cast 2 Force D shots with the WK, since you have them for free, and you have twice his range.

WK has T8 and Magnus T7.

Magnus comes with a 200-300 pts taxe / WK doesnt come with a taxe

In close combat you can stomp Magnus ? What the f*** haha




Stormsurge has 2x f10 pa2 blast, 4D6 SMS, 2x flamers, 4x Force D and doesnt require more psykers to cast any of this.

Stormsurge is a GC ( FNP / Stompa ) Magnus is a FMC

Magnus has T7 W7 and Stormsurge has T6 W8 and they both rock a 4++

Marker drones gives Stormsurge CT 1 000 000 and ignore cover while Magnus needs to steal WCs from other psykers ( which cost way more )

Stormsurge can also stomps Magnus...

Stormsurge doesnt come with a 200-300 taxe, moreover you can take 2 without penality...




To conclude, all the taxes and the fact that Magnus is a unkillable model who needs way too many WCs to do the same domage as the other huge monsters, I would personally drop it to 500 points. This way, you can have something else than useless psykers with no WCs on the field !


Thanks guys !

Well you can just throw grimoire on him to make him near invincible but the point still stands he doesn't not contribute as much to the game for the price as he should. A lot of the hate for him comes form the over inflated value that StrD gets and the assumption that he automatically is flying with 2++ rerollable because of Blessing of Tzeentch and Cursed Earth following him which is not accurate. Many top competitive players i've talked to all say the same thing which is he is good and playable but not that competitive

This isn't an apples to apples scenario.

Magnus has line of sight to every single unit on the board and doesn't suffer perils. He's a level 5 Psyker so you should be casting a crapfest of spells every damn turn and laughing all the while.

Not to mention his initiative is insane and a 6 in CC means instant death, and he has 6 attacks. Charge with Magnus and the expected value of your instant deaths is nuts.

 Marmatag wrote:
This isn't an apples to apples scenario.

Magnus has line of sight to every single unit on the board and doesn't suffer perils. He's a level 5 Psyker so you should be casting a crapfest of spells every damn turn and laughing all the while.

Not to mention his initiative is insane and a 6 in CC means instant death.

How many warp charges does it take to cast the 5 powers he gets to cast? Even with manifesting on 2+ you still want to roll WCX+1 dice per power. So if he wants to cast his WC5 StrD beam, 3 WC3 powers (Flicker Fire, the 2nd Str D shot, and summon a chariot) and a WC1 he needs 20 warp charges to cast all those powers. Even if you rolled a 6 for the d6 WCs for the turn you still have to have bought 3 more Lvl 3 Psykers as a tax just so he can cast that crapfest of spells.

And yes his combat prowess is good but he has to trade in his ability to cast 12 of his 15 powers (since they are all witch fires) just to engage in close combat. And being on the ground make him prone to weapons that are actually a threat to him such as Force Weapons and Stomps.

You have to look at the big picture

I think Magnus is well costed.
He's not an auto include unless you're building around him and even then deploying him can be risky - as any insanely powerful points dump should be.

Lets not compare Magnus to Wraithknights and Stormsurges, both of them are undercosted, over powered and a slap in the face of proper MC armies. Magnus is a well costed Monstrous Creature where MCs belong.

 Marmatag wrote:
This isn't an apples to apples scenario.

Magnus has line of sight to every single unit on the board and doesn't suffer perils. He's a level 5 Psyker so you should be casting a crapfest of spells every damn turn and laughing all the while.

Not to mention his initiative is insane and a 6 in CC means instant death, and he has 6 attacks. Charge with Magnus and the expected value of your instant deaths is nuts.

Lvl 5 isnt enough for gaze of magnus which is 5 WCs... Spells aren't as good as weapons to inflict wounds... Just compare 2-3 spells with tau's fire power ... With Lvl 5 you won't even cast 2 force D shots while WK will gets 2x force D shots at you... Charging means you are on the ground and it also means to you are vulnerable unless you pay a lot of point to get that 2++ re-roll 1's which is a 2++/4++ in ITC. You also can't take down a Imperial knight neither a GC in close combat....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CrownAxe wrote:
Well you can just throw grimoire on him to make him near invincible but the point still stands he doesn't not contribute as much to the game for the price as he should. A lot of the hate for him comes form the over inflated value that StrD gets and the assumption that he automatically is flying with 2++ rerollable because of Blessing of Tzeentch and Cursed Earth following him which is not accurate. Many top competitive players i've talked to all say the same thing which is he is good and playable but not that competitive

I feel the same...

Thats funny because the two times ive used magnus so far he took one wound and more than made his points back. Cant say it was in tournament but theb lists were not weak by any means. Even his problem of not fitting in a thousand sons force is more of a problem with the thousand sons being way overcosted than magnus being the problem. I also think you are wrong on how hard it is to have cursed earth on him. Its rather easy and cheap as dirt. Keep in mind he is harnessing on 2+. That means you dont need many warp charges over what you are casting. His D beam is safe with 6 or 7 dice depending on how much you gamble. I hate to say this but I do not think people have really learned how to play Magnus yet. I think alot of people put way to much emphasis on his D powers and not enough on all the other things he can manifest, like a chariot per turn and turning centstars into your own gun battery, Syphon is there for a reason. Cast it. The other thing to keep in mind is Magnus is actually nasty in CC. Try setting him up to make a charge on a weakened target after he unleash's his powers.

Magnus, unlike most other LoW choices gets rapidly better the more support he has. He is mostly un-usable in a 1k sons list but that is what Ahriman is for. And once more, thats a problem with 1ksons and not Magnus. So, while Magnus is not the end all be all choice of LoW's but he is competitive and a lot of fun. He wont be sweeping tournaments but once more that has mostly to do with Tau and Eldar being so stanky than Magnus. I find him balanced for his price and have fun using him.

What attracts me to running Magnus isnt the D shots. Its everything else. The D shots are nice to have but they are not always what you should be casting. It takes a different way of playing and heavy micro in the psychic phase but that is to be expected in a army designed to dominate that phase of the game. Its also not everyones cup of tea. But for those of us who have a inner filing clerk screaming to get out, it can be a rewarding experience. Also remember dakka is a echo chamber of hyperbole and tends to only assign value to how good a model is in a meta that is dominated by Tau and Scat bilke spam. This is mostly not the case as I have seen. Most people are not running those ITC dump lists. Ive had to tone down my Magnus list for my local meta. If I ever get to a ITC tourney im sure I will get stuffed by the usual lists but that would be my fault for playing in that meta without a netlist of my own.

Table wrote:
Thats funny because the two times ive used magnus so far he took one wound and more than made his points back. Cant say it was in tournament but theb lists were not weak by any means. Even his problem of not fitting in a thousand sons force is more of a problem with the thousand sons being way overcosted than magnus being the problem. I also think you are wrong on how hard it is to have cursed earth on him. Its rather easy and cheap as dirt. Keep in mind he is harnessing on 2+. That means you dont need many warp charges over what you are casting. His D beam is safe with 6 or 7 dice depending on how much you gamble. I hate to say this but I do not think people have really learned how to play Magnus yet. I think alot of people put way to much emphasis on his D powers and not enough on all the other things he can manifest, like a chariot per turn and turning centstars into your own gun battery, Syphon is there for a reason. Cast it. The other thing to keep in mind is Magnus is actually nasty in CC. Try setting him up to make a charge on a weakened target after he unleash's his powers.

Magnus, unlike most other LoW choices gets rapidly better the more support he has. He is mostly un-usable in a 1k sons list but that is what Ahriman is for. And once more, thats a problem with 1ksons and not Magnus. So, while Magnus is not the end all be all choice of LoW's but he is competitive and a lot of fun. He wont be sweeping tournaments but once more that has mostly to do with Tau and Eldar being so stanky than Magnus. I find him balanced for his price and have fun using him.

Thanks for sharing your opinion, this is what this thread is for IMO harnessing a few mediocre powers do not equivalent the fire power of the actual meta, especially when magnus comes with a 300 pts taxe... but I respect your POV

alex0911 wrote:

Table wrote:
Thats funny because the two times ive used magnus so far he took one wound and more than made his points back. Cant say it was in tournament but theb lists were not weak by any means. Even his problem of not fitting in a thousand sons force is more of a problem with the thousand sons being way overcosted than magnus being the problem. I also think you are wrong on how hard it is to have cursed earth on him. Its rather easy and cheap as dirt. Keep in mind he is harnessing on 2+. That means you dont need many warp charges over what you are casting. His D beam is safe with 6 or 7 dice depending on how much you gamble. I hate to say this but I do not think people have really learned how to play Magnus yet. I think alot of people put way to much emphasis on his D powers and not enough on all the other things he can manifest, like a chariot per turn and turning centstars into your own gun battery, Syphon is there for a reason. Cast it. The other thing to keep in mind is Magnus is actually nasty in CC. Try setting him up to make a charge on a weakened target after he unleash's his powers.

Magnus, unlike most other LoW choices gets rapidly better the more support he has. He is mostly un-usable in a 1k sons list but that is what Ahriman is for. And once more, thats a problem with 1ksons and not Magnus. So, while Magnus is not the end all be all choice of LoW's but he is competitive and a lot of fun. He wont be sweeping tournaments but once more that has mostly to do with Tau and Eldar being so stanky than Magnus. I find him balanced for his price and have fun using him.

Thanks for sharing your opinion, this is what this thread is for IMO harnessing a few mediocre powers do not equivalent the fire power of the actual meta, especially when magnus comes with a 300 pts taxe... but I respect your POV

I appended the post above with additional information to help illustrate my opinion and experiences thus far. Mileage may vary of course.

Table wrote:

alex0911 wrote:

Table wrote:
Thats funny because the two times ive used magnus so far he took one wound and more than made his points back. Cant say it was in tournament but theb lists were not weak by any means. Even his problem of not fitting in a thousand sons force is more of a problem with the thousand sons being way overcosted than magnus being the problem. I also think you are wrong on how hard it is to have cursed earth on him. Its rather easy and cheap as dirt. Keep in mind he is harnessing on 2+. That means you dont need many warp charges over what you are casting. His D beam is safe with 6 or 7 dice depending on how much you gamble. I hate to say this but I do not think people have really learned how to play Magnus yet. I think alot of people put way to much emphasis on his D powers and not enough on all the other things he can manifest, like a chariot per turn and turning centstars into your own gun battery, Syphon is there for a reason. Cast it. The other thing to keep in mind is Magnus is actually nasty in CC. Try setting him up to make a charge on a weakened target after he unleash's his powers.

Magnus, unlike most other LoW choices gets rapidly better the more support he has. He is mostly un-usable in a 1k sons list but that is what Ahriman is for. And once more, thats a problem with 1ksons and not Magnus. So, while Magnus is not the end all be all choice of LoW's but he is competitive and a lot of fun. He wont be sweeping tournaments but once more that has mostly to do with Tau and Eldar being so stanky than Magnus. I find him balanced for his price and have fun using him.

Thanks for sharing your opinion, this is what this thread is for IMO harnessing a few mediocre powers do not equivalent the fire power of the actual meta, especially when magnus comes with a 300 pts taxe... but I respect your POV

I appended the post above with additional information to help illustrate my opinion and experiences thus far. Mileage may vary of course.

Like you said, he has a few really good match up and a burning chariot is no joke. However, unless you are in range of a centurion star ( which is easy to avoid with gate of infinity ) or any other shooting deathstars, this isnt as good as the fire power of competitive armies... Moreover, deathstars dont win tournament anymore, its all about mobility, objective secured and durability ^^ But yes, casting D shots might not be worth it

I dont think Magnus is going to be shifting the tourney meta. But he may get a few lucky placements. But if pressed to say, I would say hes costed well by GW. A shocking display really and the fact it comes ona CSM unit gives me hope for the faction.

He is strong when played well, has a few bad match ups and requires an army be built around him.To bad they messed up his legion so badly.

He's around right. You're comparing him to WK and stormsurges. It's like comparing Huron to ST Celestine. Well, maybe 600.

With no way to get out of tarpits or access to things like biomancy/relics for more cc attacks he's stuck flying. Sure, he's a decent enough gunship, but hardly 650p worth, not even close.

I can agree that his problems are two-fold, since 1ksons is grossly overcosted from the get-go and his price point makes him into another burden to carry, he's a really bad fit for an 1ksons army. Running him in a casual tzeentch daemons army is fine though since you can much more cheaply get the wc needed to make use of him.
I ran a 4k point 1ksons vs DA match last week. It was really painful... treason helped a lot even though he had mostly msu with some plasma/melta scattered about. Grossly out-maneuvered and outmanned, i had all my scarabs/rubrics bogged down in tacs/bikers turn 2 and decided to land magnus turn 3. Bad mistake, he got jumped in a lucky assault and was dead by the end of t4, throwing a DP into the mix didnt help either.. though he made Belial into a spawn which was fun

He's an awkward damon prince. Too pricey and too much survivability for casual play, too pricey, too weak and fragile by far for competitive play.
Though, its not surprising 1ks turned into the weakest legion due to being written by a space wolf player...

Yonasu wrote:
With no way to get out of tarpits or access to things like biomancy/relics for more cc attacks he's stuck flying. Sure, he's a decent enough gunship, but hardly 650p worth, not even close.

I can agree that his problems are two-fold, since 1ksons is grossly overcosted from the get-go and his price point makes him into another burden to carry, he's a really bad fit for an 1ksons army. Running him in a casual tzeentch daemons army is fine though since you can much more cheaply get the wc needed to make use of him.
I ran a 4k point 1ksons vs DA match last week. It was really painful... treason helped a lot even though he had mostly msu with some plasma/melta scattered about. Grossly out-maneuvered and outmanned, i had all my scarabs/rubrics bogged down in tacs/bikers turn 2 and decided to land magnus turn 3. Bad mistake, he got jumped in a lucky assault and was dead by the end of t4, throwing a DP into the mix didnt help either.. though he made Belial into a spawn which was fun

He's an awkward damon prince. Too pricey and too much survivability for casual play, too pricey, too weak and fragile by far for competitive play.
Though, its not surprising 1ks turned into the weakest legion due to being written by a space wolf player...

Indeed, players who actually tried it know that you can't play him effectively in a list who lacks WCs... However, getting those extra WCs up and making the rest of your army a WC's bank is it really worth it to cast tzeentch / change powers ? Don't get me wrong, those spells are great but simply not as good as taus / eldars firepower / mobility IMO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
This isn't an apples to apples scenario.

Magnus has line of sight to every single unit on the board and doesn't suffer perils. He's a level 5 Psyker so you should be casting a crapfest of spells every damn turn and laughing all the while.

Not to mention his initiative is insane and a 6 in CC means instant death.

How many warp charges does it take to cast the 5 powers he gets to cast? Even with manifesting on 2+ you still want to roll WCX+1 dice per power. So if he wants to cast his WC5 StrD beam, 3 WC3 powers (Flicker Fire, the 2nd Str D shot, and summon a chariot) and a WC1 he needs 20 warp charges to cast all those powers. Even if you rolled a 6 for the d6 WCs for the turn you still have to have bought 3 more Lvl 3 Psykers as a tax just so he can cast that crapfest of spells.

And yes his combat prowess is good but he has to trade in his ability to cast 12 of his 15 powers (since they are all witch fires) just to engage in close combat. And being on the ground make him prone to weapons that are actually a threat to him such as Force Weapons and Stomps.

You have to look at the big picture

I think you are right.

Given how well he harnesses and uses powers, his worth amplifies the more psychic dice your generate, and diminishes the less psychic dice you generate. In effect, he is a focus, with other forces channelling the power they pay for through him for added bonus. In this way, it's extremely difficult to quantify his power. Magnus will be more powerful in a 2000 point game than he will in a 1500 point game.

I think an accurate cost for him would be 450 + 25 per psychic level mastery in your army, to a maximum of 800 points. However, I really don't like variable costs like that, so I think sticking him at 650 is more appropriate, as it takes a heavy investment to be worth it, but that investment can backfire spectacularly.

On a side note, the stormsurge needs other units in order to have D weapons. Plus if he fires two blasts he can't stomp and magnus can beat him to pieces even better.

Jorim wrote:
On a side note, the stormsurge needs other units in order to have D weapons. Plus if he fires two blasts he can't stomp and magnus can beat him to pieces even better.

Most of the time, stomping as a Stormsurge isnt needed because most armies are shooting in 40k and Stormsurge excelled at it. The question is, have you ever seen a Stormsurge which stays in his deployment zone being charged ? Since all the Tau's army gets to overwatch you, can use maker drones and the +1 BS while doing it, very few people have ever enjoy it. Some says it is still a legend

Yonasu wrote:

He's an awkward damon prince. Too pricey and too much survivability for casual play, too pricey, too weak and fragile by far for competitive play.
Though, its not surprising 1ks turned into the weakest legion due to being written by a space wolf player...

Uh... What? Yeah, 1ksons are not as strong as the top-tier legions, but they're still pretty good compared to the weaker options. You really think you could get more use out of the Iron Warriors?
1ksons got significantly better with the new book, and they're one of the better legions if you happen to have a lot of MEQ in your area. (Which, incidentally, a lot of players do. MEQ is pretty common, after all.)

Our local iron warrior player got to top tables in a 10 man tourney vs pretty powerful lists.

its a hard one, we have things at both ends of the spectrum, the wraithknight being woefully undercosted, and the GMC greater deamons being woefully over costed, magnus sits in the middle, he should be a GMC, or should be less points, but then we add flght and its gets even more murky what his cost should be.

EW, immune to POTW etc. drive that cost up even more, but based on my own experience with the game, other units, I feel 650 is too much, id put him at the 500-575 mark, but its chaos, so its gonna be overcosted

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
This isn't an apples to apples scenario.

Magnus has line of sight to every single unit on the board and doesn't suffer perils. He's a level 5 Psyker so you should be casting a crapfest of spells every damn turn and laughing all the while.

Not to mention his initiative is insane and a 6 in CC means instant death.

How many warp charges does it take to cast the 5 powers he gets to cast? Even with manifesting on 2+ you still want to roll WCX+1 dice per power. So if he wants to cast his WC5 StrD beam, 3 WC3 powers (Flicker Fire, the 2nd Str D shot, and summon a chariot) and a WC1 he needs 20 warp charges to cast all those powers. Even if you rolled a 6 for the d6 WCs for the turn you still have to have bought 3 more Lvl 3 Psykers as a tax just so he can cast that crapfest of spells.

And yes his combat prowess is good but he has to trade in his ability to cast 12 of his 15 powers (since they are all witch fires) just to engage in close combat. And being on the ground make him prone to weapons that are actually a threat to him such as Force Weapons and Stomps.

You have to look at the big picture

You could make the case that Tzeentch powers leave something to be desired. I don't disagree. If he had a good buff (blessing), that could be applied to other units, that'd be interesting.

But Magnus' individual stats are strong. And if he's the only psyker in your army... I think you're missing the point of bringing something like Magnus.

He can be ignored and costs 650 points. He's not op.

 Jaxler wrote:
He can be ignored and costs 650 points. He's not op.

He's more than 750 because he's an FMC. Pay for your immortality.

Martel732 wrote:
He's more than 750 because he's an FMC. Pay for your immortality.

Flying means no charge, 1 vector strike and a waste of points, thanks but yeah...

I think he's pretty well-costed.

alex0911 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
He's more than 750 because he's an FMC. Pay for your immortality.

Flying means no charge, 1 vector strike and a waste of points, thanks but yeah...

Hard to hit, chief.

I'd like to point out that against 2 WKs, Magnus wins most of the time. He just flies up, D-beams one or both of them, uses one of them to shoot at the other, then D-shots whichever one is left standing. It may take 2 turns, but he will get his points back in this scenario.
Only the WKs going first would shift the balance, but then you just reserve Magnus. Not ideal, but gives you an idea of where Magnus stands against 2 WKs

And as for FMCs being OMG TFG OP, I haven't seen any armies with FMCs winning any major tourneys lately.
Yes many armies struggle against FMCs, but that does mean others can't plink them out of the skies.

Martel732 wrote:

alex0911 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
He's more than 750 because he's an FMC. Pay for your immortality.

Flying means no charge, 1 vector strike and a waste of points, thanks but yeah...

Hard to hit, chief.

Indeed, so having an immortal thing in the air means we should pay 1k point without considering the dommage input and his impact on the game ? Thanks for sharing lol

Can we note what a strange distribution this poll has.

Also, OP, why even ask questions if you don't want answers?