Vostroyan Order lets a unit shoot their weapons at a unit they are in combat with.

Valhallan Order lets a unit shoot their weapons at a unit that is in combat.

If squad A is in combat then Squad B can't shoot into the combat with the Vostroyan order (unless B is in the same combat).
With the Valhallan order Squad B can shoot at the enemy unit that is fighting A without being in that combat.

 Ordana wrote:
Vostroyan Order lets a unit shoot their weapons at a unit they are in combat with.

Valhallan Order lets a unit shoot their weapons at a unit that is in combat.

If squad A is in combat then Squad B can't shoot into the combat with the Vostroyan order (unless B is in the same combat).
With the Valhallan order Squad B can shoot at the enemy unit that is fighting A without being in that combat.

So for Voystoryan, my unit A is in melee with genestealers. I can shoot them with unit A even though its in combat, then fight it with unit A. If I had another nearby unit, that unit would NOT be able to shoot those genestealers.

Valhallan, unit a A in combat with Genestealers, and another unit B can shoot into that combat and possibly kill my own guys from unit A. But unit A would not be able to shoot the genestealers.

 Dynas wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
Vostroyan Order lets a unit shoot their weapons at a unit they are in combat with.

Valhallan Order lets a unit shoot their weapons at a unit that is in combat.

If squad A is in combat then Squad B can't shoot into the combat with the Vostroyan order (unless B is in the same combat).
With the Valhallan order Squad B can shoot at the enemy unit that is fighting A without being in that combat.

So for Voystoryan, my unit A is in melee with genestealers. I can shoot them with unit A even though its in combat, then fight it with unit A. If I had another nearby unit, that unit would NOT be able to shoot those genestealers.

Valhallan, unit a A in combat with Genestealers, and another unit B can shoot into that combat and possibly kill my own guys from unit A. But unit A would not be able to shoot the genestealers.

Correct, tho I believe if you Valhallan Ordered units A it would also be able to shoot (since the genestealers are within 1" of a friendly unit (themselves) tho they could kill themselves on 1's)

I believe the Valhallans order specifically must choose a different unit as a target as it does not allow you to fire while you are in combat either. There is a trade off, although personally I would much rather have Valhallans order.

Valhallans can bail out their tanks or other units and can use it on fresh units to bail out weakened ones.. The Vostroyans usually only get to use the order on units that have already been chewed up in combat and therefore won't do much.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I believe the Valhallans order specifically must choose a different unit as a target as it does not allow you to fire while you are in combat either. There is a trade off, although personally I would much rather have Valhallans order.

Valhallans can bail out their tanks or other units and can use it on fresh units to bail out weakened ones.. The Vostroyans usually only get to use the order on units that have already been chewed up in combat and therefore won't do much.

Good to know.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I believe the Valhallans order specifically must choose a different unit as a target as it does not allow you to fire while you are in combat either. There is a trade off, although personally I would much rather have Valhallans order.

Valhallans can bail out their tanks or other units and can use it on fresh units to bail out weakened ones.. The Vostroyans usually only get to use the order on units that have already been chewed up in combat and therefore won't do much.

Doh!
yes you are correct. the order overwrites the limitation on targeting units within 1" but doesn't allow you to shoot while within 1" yourself.

Valhallan doctrine would help with those conscripts morale as well, plus you could stick Pietrovs 45 on one of the commanders, making him (far as I'm concerned) the only real commissar we can get anymore


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Off the current topic, but I've got a friendly tournament coming up with my gaming group, 2k, no LoWs (hurray!)

I'm going with a bog standard Catachan brigade - Straken, priest, hellhounds, mortars, etc - and a Cadian spearhead with BT/LC Pask, a BT/LC TC and 3 basilisks.

So far the list is sitting at 1600 even and I'm questioning what to fill the rest in with.

I have/could go with:
MT battalion - prime w/reliquary, psyker, 3x5 scions with plasma - 325

Or move some points around and take:
SM battalion - Smash Cap, jump Libby, 3x5 scouts - 414 (or a few more if I take HBs, ML)

I like scions for precision strikes, but scouts for board control and the marine characters for jumping out of the horde and busting face.

Or I could just take some bullgryns. After watching some of the So Cal open on twitch I'd like to try them, but would have to get/paint them.

This is an all comers list, so I'm trying to take a Swiss army knife approach.
Which do you all think would be my best option?

TankCmdr wrote:
Valhallan doctrine would help with those conscripts morale as well, plus you could stick Pietrovs 45 on one of the commanders, making him (far as I'm concerned) the only real commissar we can get anymore


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Off the current topic, but I've got a friendly tournament coming up with my gaming group, 2k, no LoWs (hurray!)

I'm going with a bog standard Catachan brigade - Straken, priest, hellhounds, mortars, etc - and a Cadian spearhead with BT/LC Pask, a BT/LC TC and 3 basilisks.

So far the list is sitting at 1600 even and I'm questioning what to fill the rest in with.

I have/could go with:
MT battalion - prime w/reliquary, psyker, 3x5 scions with plasma - 325

Or move some points around and take:
SM battalion - Smash Cap, jump Libby, 3x5 scouts - 414 (or a few more if I take HBs, ML)

I like scions for precision strikes, but scouts for board control and the marine characters for jumping out of the horde and busting face.

Or I could just take some bullgryns. After watching some of the So Cal open on twitch I'd like to try them, but would have to get/paint them.

This is an all comers list, so I'm trying to take a Swiss army knife approach.
Which do you all think would be my best option?

Guilliman is 400 points...

Maybe a IK
Otherwise probably the bullgryns after the SO Cal they seemed to do well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

TankCmdr wrote:
Valhallan doctrine would help with those conscripts morale as well, plus you could stick Pietrovs 45 on one of the commanders, making him (far as I'm concerned) the only real commissar we can get anymore


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Off the current topic, but I've got a friendly tournament coming up with my gaming group, 2k, no LoWs (hurray!)

I'm going with a bog standard Catachan brigade - Straken, priest, hellhounds, mortars, etc - and a Cadian spearhead with BT/LC Pask, a BT/LC TC and 3 basilisks.

So far the list is sitting at 1600 even and I'm questioning what to fill the rest in with.

I have/could go with:
MT battalion - prime w/reliquary, psyker, 3x5 scions with plasma - 325

Or move some points around and take:
SM battalion - Smash Cap, jump Libby, 3x5 scouts - 414 (or a few more if I take HBs, ML)

I like scions for precision strikes, but scouts for board control and the marine characters for jumping out of the horde and busting face.

Or I could just take some bullgryns. After watching some of the So Cal open on twitch I'd like to try them, but would have to get/paint them.

This is an all comers list, so I'm trying to take a Swiss army knife approach.
Which do you all think would be my best option?

Guilliman is 400 points...

Maybe a IK
Otherwise probably the bullgryns after the SO Cal they seemed to do well.

No LoWs, as I said, I appreciate the input though!

Yeah I'm leaning towards the bullgryns, but the 5cp for a battalion is tempting too

 Dynas wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
Vostroyan Order lets a unit shoot their weapons at a unit they are in combat with.

Valhallan Order lets a unit shoot their weapons at a unit that is in combat.

If squad A is in combat then Squad B can't shoot into the combat with the Vostroyan order (unless B is in the same combat).
With the Valhallan order Squad B can shoot at the enemy unit that is fighting A without being in that combat.

So for Voystoryan, my unit A is in melee with genestealers. I can shoot them with unit A even though its in combat, then fight it with unit A. If I had another nearby unit, that unit would NOT be able to shoot those genestealers.

Valhallan, unit a A in combat with Genestealers, and another unit B can shoot into that combat and possibly kill my own guys from unit A. But unit A would not be able to shoot the genestealers.

which is why you use flamethrowers. We have somehow ended up at a point where the safest way to kill enemies who are mixed in with a friendly unit is to use flamethrowers, in defiance of all logic. that aside it means valhallan sws's with flamers have a use as backup to normal infantry squads.

The problem with flamers is that they cost as much as a plasma gun, which is beyond insane.

Vostroyan order is made to a unit within 1” of an enemy unit and they fire at the enemy unit within 1”.

Valhallan order is made to any unit and allows them to fire at any enemy unit that is within 1” of a friendly unit.

Take a leman russ in cc for example. The vostroyan order would do no good as a vehicle unit cannot get this order. The valhallan order would allow you to order an infantry squad to shoot at the unit attacking the leman russ.

 gbghg wrote:

 Dynas wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
Vostroyan Order lets a unit shoot their weapons at a unit they are in combat with.

Valhallan Order lets a unit shoot their weapons at a unit that is in combat.

If squad A is in combat then Squad B can't shoot into the combat with the Vostroyan order (unless B is in the same combat).
With the Valhallan order Squad B can shoot at the enemy unit that is fighting A without being in that combat.

So for Voystoryan, my unit A is in melee with genestealers. I can shoot them with unit A even though its in combat, then fight it with unit A. If I had another nearby unit, that unit would NOT be able to shoot those genestealers.

Valhallan, unit a A in combat with Genestealers, and another unit B can shoot into that combat and possibly kill my own guys from unit A. But unit A would not be able to shoot the genestealers.

which is why you use flamethrowers. We have somehow ended up at a point where the safest way to kill enemies who are mixed in with a friendly unit is to use flamethrowers, in defiance of all logic. that aside it means valhallan sws's with flamers have a use as backup to normal infantry squads.

Speaking from experience, flamers are a terrible choice for this job. If you're using the order, it's because the unit you are bailing out either

A. Cannot fall back period

Or B. The unit cannot fall back and shoot.

This is because 9 times out of 10 your infantry are being charged and you can just fall back and "get back in the fight". The order is for the rare exceptions where something got around a screen, or you are truly locked in. It is something to be used in an emergency. An order that maybe gets used every 2-3 games, but when it gets used can win games. So let's think about the context the order would be used.

A. Unit cannot fall back period. This means you're either surrounded (orks, nids, chaos) or you are 'tri locked', which means you did a bad job at casualty removal. Usually in these instances you're facing a horde of weaker models, or a small squad of tough elite infantry. This makes the two ideal weapons regular guardsmen with lasguns, or plasma. Mortar HWS's are also good choices, since they have 6 times the range and can bail out pretty anything in your deployment. Youll often find yourself using the grenade strategem here by the way, as it allows you a sort of poor man's FRFSRF that you normally can't get when firing into combat. Flamers can theoretically do it, but remember you're paying 7pts for 3-4 bolter hits on average, that's two guardsmen who could be putting out more lasgun shots, serve as wounds, or just be a plasma. Which brings me to why the plasma is the better weapon choice. If the squad is locked in with something nasty, you'll want a more powerful weapon. Yes, a 1 will not only kill the Gunner as well as hit a friendly, but these are guardsmen, dying is what they do, and you don't have to overcharge. In some instances you WANT to hit your own models, as you can intentionally kill your own unit to remove the enemy assault unit's protection from being shot. Plasma and lasguns can both pull that duty well for different reasons. Flamers don't give you that option.

B. Something has charged a unit that cannot fall back and shoot, aka you have a tank in combat. Again, if it's a chaff kind of unit, lasguns will do more than the equivalent points you'd spend on a flamer equipped guardsman. If it's a hard target (enemy character, elite infantry, emprah help you a monster/enemy vehicle) then you need plasma to drop the target in question. Again, there is a risk here, but think of the trade off. Which is going to have more firepower in the long run? A few plasma guardsmen, or a leman Russ battletank? And keep in mind, your tanks degrade slower, and I'd imagine to some degree the trait was designed with this strategy in mind. I've had Russe's take a couple of plasma shots to the face to "save" them from combat more times than I care to count, it's worth it to get them back in the fight that turn. If you can shoot them out of combat, they never fell back, and now they can shoot too.

And keep in mind, the order says "friendly units locked in combat." Not friendly <regiment> or <Astra militarum> units, just friendly units. This order actually interacts with any friendly Imperium allied unit. This means you can pull some really creative combos that opponents do not expect. Primarily this let's you bail out fire support units that cannot fall back, like space marine or admech tanks, but every so often you'll find yourself in these bizarre, 1 in a million instances where being able to fire into combat let's you clear an objective, or free an Armiger Warglaive to make a melta shot into an enemy tank nearby and then charge it, etc. It's a hard thing to quantify, but you'll know it when you see it.

It comes up way less these days with all the nerfs to turn 1 alpha charges, but you'll still see games where genestealers hit your lines turn 1 or eldar jetbikes just hop over your screen and then multicharge a tank line. When things go south, it's a nice bit of utility to have. Plus it just feels right as IG, being able to say "it's their only hope" and firing into combat, willingly sacrificing a few men to friendly fire to save the rest from a far worse fate, or risking damage to your own tank because to not do so would doom the whole army to being overrun next turn.

The Vostroyans order on the other hand doesn't really do anything special. Most of the time you would just fall back and Get Back In the Fight anyways, and if you've been locked in combat no squad is going to have the firepower it needs to bail itself out. If the order worked on tanks it'd be amazing and would do something truly unique and useful, but alas it doesn't. I get what it's meant to represent, the Vostroyans experience in urban combat, it just doesn't accomplish much mechanically.

 Dynas wrote:

Stratgems
Stratagem for T1 Cover save if go 2nd
Firstborn Pride Every turn
Take Cover (does this stack with the new Stratagem that is army wide cover, i think not.)
Fight to the Death if needed for morale
Genadiers and Vengenace for cadia for overwatch
Consodliate Squads
Aeriel SPotter each turn for Basilisk
Crush them on Hellhounds each turn

The take cover strategem does not actually give you cover, just +1 to saves(including invul saves). So it does stack with new first turn cover strategem as they get cover bonus for +1 and take cover bonus for another +1

Ecdain wrote:

 Dynas wrote:

Stratgems
Stratagem for T1 Cover save if go 2nd
Firstborn Pride Every turn
Take Cover (does this stack with the new Stratagem that is army wide cover, i think not.)
Fight to the Death if needed for morale
Genadiers and Vengenace for cadia for overwatch
Consodliate Squads
Aeriel SPotter each turn for Basilisk
Crush them on Hellhounds each turn

The take cover strategem does not actually give you cover, just +1 to saves(including invul saves). So it does stack with new first turn cover strategem as they get cover bonus for +1 and take cover bonus for another +1

Please read the updated faq. Take Cover no longer applies to invul saves.

Hi all. Doing an escalation league at my local GW, starting with start collecting boxes. I decided to go with guard, and I'm trying to figure out what variant to build the russ as. I wanted to do a punisher, but didn't realize the kits are separated out the way they are. So I'm trying to decide the better "take all comers" approach and I'm feeling like it's between the battle cannon and the exterminator autocannon. And I think the sponsons will probably be built to supplement whatever the turret is, if battle cannon then probably plasma cannons, if autocannon then probably heavy bolters plus heavy bolter hull weapon. Does that sound right? Or should I just go for plasma cannons no matter what?

Battle tank all the way, the exterminator (the autocannon variant) is awful and I believe it costs more too. The regular tank cannon can handle just about anything to some degree, especially at lower pts levels. The only other tanks that quite match it are the punisher and the executioner, but they both have far reduced range.

What regiment are you looking at running? Certain regiments make certain loadouts better or worse. For example, a Catachan tank would get more mileage out of a battle cannon than a punisher cannon, while a Cadian tank can run plasma more safely, while a Tallarn tank can be far more mobile with 0 penalties, encouraging shorter range guns and sponsons.

Catachan is optimised with plasma but requires harker as a tax

U02dah4 wrote:
Catachan is optimised with plasma but requires harker as a tax

Yeah but since he gives that to your whole army it's not a big loss, plus he has a souped up heavy bolter of his own.

Alternatively run the tank as a tank commander and then you have your reroll baked in

I haven't decided on a regiment yet, honestly. Was kinda defaulting to cadian for now

Has anyone done a full analysis of these tournament-winning Bullgryns? I haven't run down the Twitch footage yet and I know others have. I have three and would love more (they're so great to build and paint, some of my favorite sculpts of late), but they are missing their buddy Celestine since the last FAQ and I'd love to build some extra punch back into them.

 MacPhail wrote:
Has anyone done a full analysis of these tournament-winning Bullgryns? I haven't run down the Twitch footage yet and I know others have. I have three and would love more (they're so great to build and paint, some of my favorite sculpts of late), but they are missing their buddy Celestine since the last FAQ and I'd love to build some extra punch back into them.

I've been experimenting with them a lot lately, trying different things and tweaking/optimizing their loadout.

I've pinned down what works best (at least for me) and I'm having a LOT of success with them. Here are some things I've found:

-Unit size
You need to take a good sized unit. I would say a minimum of 6 and I personally have been taking a max squad of 9. If you take less, buffs and stratagems start to become a lot less efficient on them and once you start taking a casualty or two, their effectiveness just plummets into disappointment.

-Loadout
Power Mauls all the way, without doubt. This is what makes them do work. No other weapon is an option. For shields, I find a mix is best. Originally I was doing half-and-half slabshields/brute shields. But now I have found that overall the slabshield is more useful. You START OUT with a 2+ armor save, but in practice its actually a 1+ or 0+ save (or even -1+ !!!) because you will be buffing them with Prepared Positions, Take Cover!, and/or Psychic Barrier. This means that if you get alpha-struck, weapons with -1 or -2 AP still give you a 2+ save, AP -3 gives you a 3+ save and it takes AP -4 to get you to a 4+ save which is what the brute shield would have provided. The Brute shields only come into play if you get hit with ridiculous -5 AP guns or -3/-4 AP close combat weapons. So I am now taking a ratio of 2:1 Slabshields to Bruteshields. A unit of 6 would have 4 slab shields / 2 brute shields and 9 would be 6 and 3.

-Support
At bare minimum, a Priest and one Psyker with Psychic Barrier are needed to get good effectiveness out of the Bulls. If you go all-out like me, you'll want 3 Primaris Psykers who also get extra Force Stave attacks from the Priest as well as Nightshroud and Mental Fortitude. These buffs put their killing power and durability through the roof and they can literally take on anything in close combat, including Knight Gallants, Primarchs, Bloodletter Bombs, etc.


-The Rest of the Army
The Bullgryns work best as a counter-charge unit who can start advancing to take over the mid-field once they have thoroughly beat down any in-your-face threats. They are footsloggers and thus kind of slow. What this means is, the other 1600 points of your army needs to be packing some extreme firepower to the point where you can outshoot most other armies. Because you should be able to outshoot your opponent, this will force him into a very difficult decision. He only really has 3 options; 1) try to shoot back at you, which he will lose since you can outshoot him, 2) advance on you and try to assault and lock you up, which entails getting stuck in with the bullgryn deathstar, or 3) don't try to fight at all and just hide and stay away, which means you can continue to pound away with firepower and the Bullgryns can move out and advance on him.


That's really what the BullgrynStar is really all about, putting your opponent into a very difficult position where his available options are not ideal and can easily lead to defeat. The Bullgryns take up about a quarter of your army and represent a nigh-unkillable close combat threat, and the other three-quarters of your army is extreme firepower that can't easily be outshot.

They are the definition of "Come at me Bro"

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

U02dah4 wrote:
Catachan is optimised with plasma but requires harker as a tax

Yeah but since he gives that to your whole army it's not a big loss, plus he has a souped up heavy bolter of his own.

Alternatively run the tank as a tank commander and then you have your reroll baked in

LOL harker is not a tax. 50 points to fill an elite slot is a bargin. What do you get for it? A good shooter that buffs your army? He's auto include.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Question for you guys.

What are your preferred load-outs for tarox primes?
Punisher cannon and autocannons?
or
Punisher cannon and hotshot volley?

Jacksmiles wrote:
I haven't decided on a regiment yet, honestly. Was kinda defaulting to cadian for now

Magnatize the main gun and sponsons. Youtube it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MacPhail wrote:
Has anyone done a full analysis of these tournament-winning Bullgryns? I haven't run down the Twitch footage yet and I know others have. I have three and would love more (they're so great to build and paint, some of my favorite sculpts of late), but they are missing their buddy Celestine since the last FAQ and I'd love to build some extra punch back into them.

If you are referring to Brandon Grants SoCal list then yeah.

Basically he ran 9 of them all with mauls 5 slab, 4 brute shields. Priest for attack buff, primaris pysker for +1 save or -1 to hit buff. Act as a hammer unit for countercharges and generally used them to hold the middle of the board.

Best regiment is Catachan, by far.

Not only those infamous S4 A3 LD8 guardsmen, but also reroll attacks artilery and tanks. And they have Harker.

Catachans are the reason so many people cry very loudly to nerf the infantry squad and the imperial guard in general. Dont blame them, because the infantry man for 4 points really is a joke, even with the added cost of straken and priest.

Sadly the other regiments now never make it to the top tournament positions. Not counting the heroic 32 mortar cadia for command points...

So, if you are looking for strong regiment, catachans is the best choice.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

U02dah4 wrote:
Catachan is optimised with plasma but requires harker as a tax

Yeah but since he gives that to your whole army it's not a big loss, plus he has a souped up heavy bolter of his own.

Alternatively run the tank as a tank commander and then you have your reroll baked in

LOL harker is not a tax. 50 points to fill an elite slot is a bargin. What do you get for it? A good shooter that buffs your army? He's auto include.

To be fair, filling an Elite slot is only valuable if you're running a Vanguard or Brigade. Otherwise, it's nothing special. Now, if he was a Troop or HQ...

And I'd hardly consider a single Heavy Bolter to be a "good shooter"-it's not bad, but it's rarely, if ever, gonna tip the scales in your favor compared to other shooting.

The ONLY reason Harker is such a good take is reroll 1s in shooting. Which is definitely great-but for 50 points... How many points is a Space Marine Captain?

A SM cpt has much more impact and is more survivable. Take 1 tank harker isnt worth it but 3 and hes good.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

U02dah4 wrote:
Catachan is optimised with plasma but requires harker as a tax

Yeah but since he gives that to your whole army it's not a big loss, plus he has a souped up heavy bolter of his own.

Alternatively run the tank as a tank commander and then you have your reroll baked in

LOL harker is not a tax. 50 points to fill an elite slot is a bargin. What do you get for it? A good shooter that buffs your army? He's auto include.

To be fair, filling an Elite slot is only valuable if you're running a Vanguard or Brigade. Otherwise, it's nothing special. Now, if he was a Troop or HQ...

And I'd hardly consider a single Heavy Bolter to be a "good shooter"-it's not bad, but it's rarely, if ever, gonna tip the scales in your favor compared to other shooting.

The ONLY reason Harker is such a good take is reroll 1s in shooting. Which is definitely great-but for 50 points... How many points is a Space Marine Captain?

It's an Ap-2 HB though with BS2+ reroll 1's. It's not amazing but it's basically free when you consider his buff.

True - filling elite in most armies is useless but in an army like IG where filling out brigades is not only viable but optimal - it has a lot of value.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

U02dah4 wrote:
Catachan is optimised with plasma but requires harker as a tax

Yeah but since he gives that to your whole army it's not a big loss, plus he has a souped up heavy bolter of his own.

Alternatively run the tank as a tank commander and then you have your reroll baked in

LOL harker is not a tax. 50 points to fill an elite slot is a bargin. What do you get for it? A good shooter that buffs your army? He's auto include.

To be fair, filling an Elite slot is only valuable if you're running a Vanguard or Brigade. Otherwise, it's nothing special. Now, if he was a Troop or HQ...

And I'd hardly consider a single Heavy Bolter to be a "good shooter"-it's not bad, but it's rarely, if ever, gonna tip the scales in your favor compared to other shooting.

The ONLY reason Harker is such a good take is reroll 1s in shooting. Which is definitely great-but for 50 points... How many points is a Space Marine Captain?

It's an Ap-2 HB though with BS2+ reroll 1's. It's not amazing but it's basically free when you consider his buff.

True - filling elite in most armies is useless but in an army like IG where filling out brigades is not only viable but optimal - it has a lot of value.

Forgot it had AP-2.

But he's NOT BS 2+. He's only 3+.

And the point I'm making is that, for over half the points, you get someone who's only, at best, half as durable as a captain, with a worse buff, similar melee, and better shooting.

Have you tried SWS ? I can't find a good reason to use them. Except with flamers, but they would still be 6 T3 5+ guys with short ranged weapons...
And I was thinking about a priest + 6 crusaders as a little "counter assault" force in my lines.

 godardc wrote:
Have you tried SWS ? I can't find a good reason to use them. Except with flamers, but they would still be 6 T3 5+ guys with short ranged weapons...
And I was thinking about a priest + 6 crusaders as a little "counter assault" force in my lines.

The only uses I've seen is Elysians dropping in plasma, and Valhallans storing them in chimeras and then popping them out to fire into combat. For most other regiments it's better to just deepstrike in Stormtroopers if you want a lot of plasma in one spot.

Considering souping up my Catachan CP Battery to handle Orcs and Tyranids a bit better. I am thinking Company Commander, Straken, Ministorum Priest, and 4x10 Guardsmen with the Sergeants carrying Bolters.

Questions:
1) Is the lone Mortar team worth taking still? (I lose 2 attacks with this setup.)
2) What is up with the Ministorum Priest rules? Does the AM Codex really just let me take a Priest with Laspistol, Autogun, Chainsword, and K&F?

How you lose 2 attacks?

Two Guardsmen become one model. So instead of two models with 3 attacks each, it becomes one model with 4 attacks.

 godardc wrote:
Have you tried SWS ? I can't find a good reason to use them. Except with flamers, but they would still be 6 T3 5+ guys with short ranged weapons...
And I was thinking about a priest + 6 crusaders as a little "counter assault" force in my lines.

I've used a few SWS recently and I either dropped them out of a Valk or popped them out of a Chimera. I like to use a command squad with 4 meltas and a SWS with all demo charges with an officer to let them reroll to hit. Using the grenade stratagem is the only viable way for multiple demo charges to work, though. The benefit of dropping them out of a Valk should be pretty obvious. There aren't too many things that can handle 3d3 demo charges and 4 BS3+ meltas all rerolling 1s to hit ... I use this to strike at my enemy's heart and decimate something they thought was fairly safe or out of LoS of my firebase. Then I just charge the Chimera and SWS into a vehicle or anything to tie stuff up. I run my Catachans with usually at least 3 or 4 Chimeras/Taurox and a hefty squad of Bullgryn so often times even my command squad will find itself surviving due to all of my infantry and Bullgryn smashing into their lines at the same time with tons of support characters.

I thought only one of them could take a demo charge ?

Anyone have an opinion on the best loadout for a Ministorum Priest?

I am leaning toward Laspistol+Autogun+Chainsword. But what about Bolt Pistol+Bolter?

godardc wrote:I thought only one of them could take a demo charge ?

You can take up to 3 per SWS, but due to grenade rules can only throw one at a time without a strategem.

Suzuteo wrote:Anyone have an opinion on the best loadout for a Ministorum Priest?

I am leaning toward Laspistol+Autogun+Chainsword. But what about Bolt Pistol+Bolter?

Why would you bother with a bolter/bolt pistol? What I mean is what kind of actual benefit does that provide?

If you want better shooting you want plasma pistol/plasma gun. You don't even need to overcharge it. If you want cheap effective shooting the shotgun/autogun do about the same.

But he's a character designed purely for CQC and buffing units in CQC. He shouldn't be shooting, he should be busting heads, or just behind people busting heads so he's not killed too early. I'd say best bet is probably something like a power maul, power axe, or just keep him with a chainsword.

Suzuteo wrote:
Considering souping up my Catachan CP Battery to handle Orcs and Tyranids a bit better. I am thinking Company Commander, Straken, Ministorum Priest, and 4x10 Guardsmen with the Sergeants carrying Bolters.

Questions:
1) Is the lone Mortar team worth taking still? (I lose 2 attacks with this setup.)
2) What is up with the Ministorum Priest rules? Does the AM Codex really just let me take a Priest with Laspistol, Autogun, Chainsword, and K&F?

Catachans run best as a naked squad - I do give the sarg a boltgun though. You could also go for a plasma pistol if you have extra points. No reason to take a HWT though.

Suzuteo wrote:
Anyone have an opinion on the best loadout for a Ministorum Priest?

I am leaning toward Laspistol+Autogun+Chainsword. But what about Bolt Pistol+Bolter?

I usually just throw his krak or frag grenade if he's not in combat. And I've tried out the one relic on mine recently, the blade of conquest. I normally give a CC the Mamorph Tuskblade and Straken does his thing. Those 3 combined can wreck anything without low invuln saves or toughness greater than 6.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

godardc wrote:I thought only one of them could take a demo charge ?

You can take up to 3 per SWS, but due to grenade rules can only throw one at a time without a strategem.

Wow, I was so blind, thank you !
If I am not mistaking it, demo charges have to be taken from index ?

 Colonel Cross wrote:

Suzuteo wrote:
Anyone have an opinion on the best loadout for a Ministorum Priest?

I am leaning toward Laspistol+Autogun+Chainsword. But what about Bolt Pistol+Bolter?

I usually just throw his krak or frag grenade if he's not in combat. And I've tried out the one relic on mine recently, the blade of conquest. I normally give a CC the Mamorph Tuskblade and Straken does his thing. Those 3 combined can wreck anything without low invuln saves or toughness greater than 6.

Interesting. So are you taking both Power Sword relics? While really cool, I worry about the impact these models would actually have. The biggest threats by and far are still enemies with powerful shooting like Castellans or durability and mobility like Wave Serpents.

Has anyone had any success with Nork Deddog?

They're not very good since they're still just Guardsmen. The problem with them becomes very apparent when they don't kill what they were launched at. They'll die to just about anything and in melee the characters are extremely vulnerable. It's still fun though. With lower amounts of CPs now, it's definitely not worth it.

Question about scions.

To feild scion command squad I have to take 1x tempestor prime per? Does taurox prime have any restriction?

If that is the case scion troop squads are actually better.

What is best build for taurox prime? Gat/auto/storm bolter?

Suzuteo wrote:

 Colonel Cross wrote:

Suzuteo wrote:
Anyone have an opinion on the best loadout for a Ministorum Priest?

I am leaning toward Laspistol+Autogun+Chainsword. But what about Bolt Pistol+Bolter?

I usually just throw his krak or frag grenade if he's not in combat. And I've tried out the one relic on mine recently, the blade of conquest. I normally give a CC the Mamorph Tuskblade and Straken does his thing. Those 3 combined can wreck anything without low invuln saves or toughness greater than 6.

Interesting. So are you taking both Power Sword relics? While really cool, I worry about the impact these models would actually have. The biggest threats by and far are still enemies with powerful shooting like Castellans or durability and mobility like Wave Serpent

I'd like to throw in my 2 cents regarding this topic. I have quite a bit of playtesting experience with these relic swords.

I'm running a Catachan Brigade with Straken and 2 Company Commanders as my 3 HQs, each wielding a relic sword. (and of course a Priest in my Elites)

After the last Big FAQ where command point regeneration was changed, I stopped taking Kurov's Aquila as my free Relic and started taking Blade of Conquest, and spend 1 CP for an extra Relic, the Tuskblade.

With this setup, Straken has SIX attacks at Str 7 -1 D2, and the CCs have 5 attacks each at Str 6, one at -4 Dd3, the other at -3 D2.

For less than 200 points, they cover my mandatory HQs to fill out a brigade, provide 6 Orders for my mandatory 6 Troops choices, and are a miniature close combat deathstar.

The key to getting effectiveness out of them is to use them defensively. They are for counter-charging. As I stated above, their damage output is quite ferocious due to the extra attacks and relics, so you need to make sure they actually get to attack. This means being the one to make the charge and not receive the charge.

I have found the best way to do this is hang these characters back behind the front line. Let some Infantry Squads take the initial charge and either get wiped out or locked in combat. Either way, the close combat threat will now be standing in front of Straken and the CCs. In your following turn, you move them up and charge in to save the remnants of the Infantry Squads.

I frequently go against Ynnari with Shining Spears that fly 44 inches across the table and first-turn charging me. Their assault gets absorbed by the Infantry, and then this little trio of Commanders have single-handedly wiped out the full 9 Shining Spears squad in one devastating counter-charge.

Again, the key is getting the charge off. These guys' offensive output is much stronger than their defenses. If they receive a charge, they can easily die before having a chance to attack. But if you pull it off correctly, they can do extreme damage. They punch much much higher than their weight and points cost would suggest and are well worth it!

 Xenomancers wrote:
Question about scions.

To feild scion command squad I have to take 1x tempestor prime per? Does taurox prime have any restriction?

If that is the case scion troop squads are actually better.

What is best build for taurox prime? Gat/auto/storm bolter?

Taurox has no such limitations.
yes you need to have 1 Tempestor Prime per Scion Command Squad you bring.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Question about scions.

To feild scion command squad I have to take 1x tempestor prime per? Does taurox prime have any restriction?

If that is the case scion troop squads are actually better.

What is best build for taurox prime? Gat/auto/storm bolter?

Taurox Prime follows transport rules, so you can take as many as you have non-transport units. For example, if you have one Scion squad, you can take one Taurox Prime, if you have two Scion squads, you can take two Taurox Primes.

Taurox Primes are gun platforms, as well. The missile launcher is too expensive now. Just like with Scion squads, you want to specialize Taurox Primes. Storm Bolters, Galtling cannons, and hot-shot volley guns for chaff chewing shots. Battle Cannon, autocannons and Heavy Bolter for MEQ/vehicles.

I've got a small Death Korps army, and it really bothers me that the Krieg get no benefits whatsoever to their artillery.

To rectify this I've been thinking of playing all of my infantry as Krieg, but run my Earthshakers and Cyclops as Catachans.

The best way to do that seems to be a Spearhead, but then that requires me to take an HQ choice. I'd rather not use a Company Commander, since that gets messy with it not being a Krieg unit, but I'm not sure what else would be appropriate. I'd rather not use a named character like Yarrick.

Are the Lord Commissar or Primaris Psyker of any use to a Krieg army? Are there any other ways to make this work that I'm missing?

 Apple Peel wrote:


Taurox Prime follows transport rules, so you can take as many as you have non-transport units. For example, if you have one Scion squad, you can take one Taurox Prime, if you have two Scion squads, you can take two Taurox Primes.

Well technically you don't need any Scions to take a Taurox Prime, just any other unit (including tanks and HQ's). Of course only MT guys can be transported in it, but you don't need them to be able to take one.

If You need single HQ for Catachan spearhead why not use Sly? For 65 points you have really nice deepstriking unit. 8 shots wounding on 2 or almost guaranted charge for 6 attacks.Do not forget to say/yell "AAAAAAAAAAaaAAAAAA" while rolling charge for him.

If you really do not want Sly (why?) then psyker. Psychic Maelstorm or Barrier is great. Nightshroud for bigger units also cool. And of course deny the witch so you can save one of this pesky smites from enemy

catbarf wrote:
I've got a small Death Korps army, and it really bothers me that the Krieg get no benefits whatsoever to their artillery.

To rectify this I've been thinking of playing all of my infantry as Krieg, but run my Earthshakers and Cyclops as Catachans.

The best way to do that seems to be a Spearhead, but then that requires me to take an HQ choice. I'd rather not use a Company Commander, since that gets messy with it not being a Krieg unit, but I'm not sure what else would be appropriate. I'd rather not use a named character like Yarrick.

Are the Lord Commissar or Primaris Psyker of any use to a Krieg army? Are there any other ways to make this work that I'm missing?

Tank commander? DKoK get zero bonuses for their vehicles anyway, so that gives you a useful regimental trait as well as filling the HQ slot.

catbarf wrote:
I've got a small Death Korps army, and it really bothers me that the Krieg get no benefits whatsoever to their artillery.

To rectify this I've been thinking of playing all of my infantry as Krieg, but run my Earthshakers and Cyclops as Catachans.

The best way to do that seems to be a Spearhead, but then that requires me to take an HQ choice. I'd rather not use a Company Commander, since that gets messy with it not being a Krieg unit, but I'm not sure what else would be appropriate. I'd rather not use a named character like Yarrick.

Are the Lord Commissar or Primaris Psyker of any use to a Krieg army? Are there any other ways to make this work that I'm missing?

A Lord Commissar could work. Not as expensive as something like a tank commander. Also, you can kit them out as pretty decent melee fighters, and they can work with dkok fine. I guess they are slightly less useful with dkok because of their morale rules, but still not completely useless.

A primaris psyker is useful in any army really.

 Lothar wrote:
Best regiment is Catachan, by far.

Not only those infamous S4 A3 LD8 guardsmen, but also reroll attacks artilery and tanks. And they have Harker.

Catachans are the reason so many people cry very loudly to nerf the infantry squad and the imperial guard in general. Dont blame them, because the infantry man for 4 points really is a joke, even with the added cost of straken and priest.

Sadly the other regiments now never make it to the top tournament positions. Not counting the heroic 32 mortar cadia for command points...

So, if you are looking for strong regiment, catachans is the best choice.

Yeah, the more I research the more I am inclined to agree. Its only ever catachan infantry melee, or the loyal 32 CP Cadian farm.

Maybe they should just make the other regiments better to make it harder to choose, rather than gak on the good stuff.

Valhallan, maybe have them get the old Commissar Conscript rule for morale (pre nerf)
Voystrayans, maybe everyone gets hot shot las guns, since they take better care of equipment.
Tallarn, let them move any unit 6" with an order after shooting.
Tempesuts-bs3+ across all models for all weapons, don't have the increase plasma cost, they can take it at 7 instead of 17 points.
Modrians-overwatch on 5s if it didn't move the prior phase. (basically the Tau tactic)
Armageddon-reroll wound rolls of 1 with rapid fire weapons.
Catachan and Cadian leave as is.

Really dreaming...
Elysians-Deep Strike Turn 1 anywhere on board (including outside deployment zone, more than 9" from enemy, basically old early 8th ed DS rules).
DKoK-Not sure hear, maybe better armor save, or always treat as in cover if the unit did not move. Artillary buffs?

 Dynas wrote:
Its only ever catachan infantry melee, or the loyal 32 CP Cadian farm.

Sounds like someone needs to try JSJ Tallarn tanks on a table with a decent amount of terrain.

Great insights here on Catachans... I've also been looking at some combination of Straken, Harker, Catachan infantry, HW squads, and Bullgryns/Ogryns, probably at the Battalion level based on the models I have. Any advice on how big to go, where to start, relics to add to non-named characters, sweet stratagem synergies, etc.? I'm mostly looking to get some classic models back into play alongside a battalion of Tempestus and/or my main Adepta Sororitas army, both of which struggle in the melee/screening department and the long range AT department. Thanks!

So GSC neophytes were moved to 5 points... So it means that guardsmen are going to 5ppm :(. My question: is this change making veterans more viable assuming they stay at 6ppm? Now it will be 20% more points, not 50% .

I do not know if +1BS make price hike acceptable but possibility to take 2 more special weapons is nice... And better solution to hide HWT inside

Part of me likes the thought of sniper/lascannon veterans in the rear lines. Tougher than ratlings and you don't lose important models from the start.

 Dynas wrote:


Yeah, the more I research the more I am inclined to agree. Its only ever catachan infantry melee, or the loyal 32 CP Cadian farm.

Maybe they should just make the other regiments better to make it harder to choose, rather than gak on the good stuff.

Valhallan, maybe have them get the old Commissar Conscript rule for morale (pre nerf)
Voystrayans, maybe everyone gets hot shot las guns, since they take better care of equipment.
Tallarn, let them move any unit 6" with an order after shooting.
Tempesuts-bs3+ across all models for all weapons, don't have the increase plasma cost, they can take it at 7 instead of 17 points.
Modrians-overwatch on 5s if it didn't move the prior phase. (basically the Tau tactic)
Armageddon-reroll wound rolls of 1 with rapid fire weapons.
Catachan and Cadian leave as is.

Really dreaming...
Elysians-Deep Strike Turn 1 anywhere on board (including outside deployment zone, more than 9" from enemy, basically old early 8th ed DS rules).
DKoK-Not sure hear, maybe better armor save, or always treat as in cover if the unit did not move. Artillary buffs?

The other regiments don't need nearly that level of bonkers changes. The Vostroyans one you proposed would make IG absolutely bonkers, while some of your other changes make a regiment worse, like the mordian one.

The regiments really don't need any changes, I would say they are all playable. The "worst" if I had to pick one would be Armageddon, and even they have some good abilities like the 18" rapid fire. If you are struggling with one of the other regiments I would suggest reading their rules again, they all have moments where they shine, they're just not as readily apparently because many of their bonuses don't really translate into mathhammer like Cadians and Catachans do.

Valhallans have the best morale rules, have tanks that can fight longer, and can shoot into combat.

Vostroyans really benefit tanks like punishers or baneblade with their increased range and +1bs strat, as well as having an increased rapid fire and range for their infantry.

Mordian have +1 ld and better overwatch, with a single tank able to hit on 4+s if played correctly. Their order allows them to snipe characters and their strat allows them to have bonkers levels of firepower, a great hidden gem.

Armageddon has 18" rapid fire, a couple of abilities that allow them to better use transports that would really shine if the vehicles themselves weren't kind of weak, and technically the most durable vehicles we have.

Tallarn is highly mobile, both with their basic traits, their strategem, and their order. They can be very powerful if played correctly and allow you to have a surprisingly mobile tank line.

Stormtroopers still have some very powerful abilities. They are still priced very competitively for what they are, their only really weakness being how they're forced to wait till turn 2. Their regiment trait gives you more shots as long as you aren't running into negative modifiers, and their order allows you to reroll wounds which is situational but a good tool to have. Their strat allows them to counter enemy deepstrike and their relic gives you additional orders without potentially spending CP and they have a good transport option.

None of them are quite as idiot proof as Catachan and cadia, but if you are smart and build your army with your trait in mind they all have merits and reason to exist. I've run all the traits at least once out of curiosity and have yet to see one even remotely as bad as some of the garbage poor codexes like Admech or space marines are forced to put up with.


As for the whole guardsmen going up a point thing, I don't see it being a big issue to IG players. For people just splashing us in for CP it'll be annoying, but even infantry spam players are going to see their list lose what, 100pts? That's maybe a basilisk or something, hardly the end of the world. Yes it sucks but everyone else is getting hit with it so it's not like chaos cultists are going to start outnumbering us and orks already got their price hike as well.

In regards to vets, you now pay 1pt for the privilege of better gear and +1 B's, with 0 survivability bonuses. On top of that you can only take 30. They still have the same issues they always did, they die to a stiff breeze for their price. They will need a transport or terrain to hide, and you'll need to move them into the open to get use from them. That limits them to 2 different roles. Euther a backline fire support unit, where you're probably better off spending points on tanks or specialized units like ratlings. Or you can make them a fire brigade style unit to counter a breakthrough or take advantage of a weakspot in the enemy line, in which case they compete with stormtroopers who can appear wherever you want on turns 2-3. Their biggest advantage is that they can take advantage of regiment abilities, meaning Valhallan ones can fire into combat, mordians can have theirs snipe with plasma and have exploding amount of shots, Vostroyans can hit at logner range on 2's, etc. I dunno, I'm sure there's ways to make them work, but nothing is really jumping out at me as amazing at the moment.

I'm considering 2x Tallarn melta vets with a commander, ambushing on turn 2. Plasma would probably be better, with 6 plasma guns and 3 pistols, but I have already used all of those models in basic infantry squads. You can bring more units with the Dagger of Tu'Sakh or some plasma rough riders if you want, although I try not to overdo reserves. Seems like a nice little force to pressure the backfield. Scions are probably better with obsec, but are more expensive and not as mobile.

Yea, still they will most likely only get to shoot once.
Opponent will most likely just slaughter them. t3 5+ models are really squishy.

I preferred option of sniper/lascannon vets.
For mobile stuff scions are plain better and only 3pts more expensive per model, but able to take more special weapons (2 per 5 plus PP on sgt) more armor and better doctrine for deepstrike/shoot/die stuff

 godardc wrote:
Have you tried SWS ? I can't find a good reason to use them. Except with flamers, but they would still be 6 T3 5+ guys with short ranged weapons...
And I was thinking about a priest + 6 crusaders as a little "counter assault" force in my lines.

The big question is what regiment?

Catachan they can march up with Harker.

I primarily play Canadian and hide them behind los blocking terrain and have them lurk until it's time for a counter assault.

Identify the big ugly scary unit that is going to try to romp and stomp through your guardsmen and place a couple of SWS in it's path.

Wound it with a basilisk or appropriate unit, drop overlapping fields of fire

Triple demo charge or triple plasma it on 3+ to hit.

SWS hit hard and are fragile, but they have a small footprintand are easy to hide.. Their main weakness is other guard players with mortars.

I've had great luck with plasma SWS running Valhallans. Usually hide them behind tanks/terrain or keep them in transports till needed. They're there mainly there to bail me out of combat, but as every guard player knows you can never have enough plasma.

With them no longer being troops they lost a lot of their utility. Used to be I took a sniper sws with every platoon to sit on objectives, but now I'd rather just take a CCS with snipers instead, or ratlings.

If melta goes down in price/plasma goes up a bit like I'm kind of wondering might happen in CA, melta SWS could be a thing for some regiments. 2 of them fit in a Valkyrie/chimera, and they're far cheaper than CCS or vets. That or outflank them with Tallarn. The issue quickly becomes that while your SWS is cheap, the price to get them where they can fire means you're probably just better off buying (you guessed it) fire support tanks or stormtroopers armed with melta

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I've had great luck with plasma SWS running Valhallans. Usually hide them behind tanks/terrain or keep them in transports till needed. They're there mainly there to bail me out of combat, but as every guard player knows you can never have enough plasma.

With them no longer being troops they lost a lot of their utility. Used to be I took a sniper sws with every platoon to sit on objectives, but now I'd rather just take a CCS with snipers instead, or ratlings.

If melta goes down in price/plasma goes up a bit like I'm kind of wondering might happen in CA, melta SWS could be a thing for some regiments. 2 of them fit in a Valkyrie/chimera, and they're far cheaper than CCS or vets. That or outflank them with Tallarn. The issue quickly becomes that while your SWS is cheap, the price to get them where they can fire means you're probably just better off buying (you guessed it) fire support tanks or stormtroopers armed with melta

The best SWS is still Elysian. They can still deep strike 2 squads, 6 plasma, and a CC at 9". The main reason I take them however is because their mortar squads have a different data sheet allowing me to take another 3 HWS and I spent a lot of time building 6 of them.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Dynas wrote:
Its only ever catachan infantry melee, or the loyal 32 CP Cadian farm.

Sounds like someone needs to try JSJ Tallarn tanks on a table with a decent amount of terrain.

Can you explain this. I am assuming you mean move, shoot, then move again. The issue I find is that even with terrain, tanks are quite large targets and still able to be shot. Any other tips for Tallarn. I really like the fluff of these guys and the idea of having a mobile blitzkrieg style attack force seems cool. What about using chimeras or tauroxs as transports for dismont/shoot, move shenningans?

If there isn't enough terrain to block LOS to a tank then you need more terrain on the table.

 Peregrine wrote:
If there isn't enough terrain to block LOS to a tank then you need more terrain on the table.

Well, a Castellan can draw LOS through second floor windows, so if your tank is over 3" tall, that might happen.

Trying to choose regiments for my new Guard force. Could use some help, feels like I'm missing something.

I have a bunch of tanks and infantry. Was thinking of creating 2 detachments, Tallarn (for tanks) and Cadia (for Infantry.) But I know orders only apply to a single Regiment and there may be other synergies I'm losing.

Any advice on the best way to mix regiments (or should it be done?) If it helps, my Guard will mostly be played as allies to other forces.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Trying to choose regiments for my new Guard force. Could use some help, feels like I'm missing something.

I have a bunch of tanks and infantry. Was thinking of creating 2 detachments, Tallarn (for tanks) and Cadia (for Infantry.) But I know orders only apply to a single Regiment and there may be other synergies I'm losing.

Any advice on the best way to mix regiments (or should it be done?) If it helps, my Guard will mostly be played as allies to other forces.

Usually if I'm going to mix regiments I do it as a "pure" IG army, or at least with minimal allies. Then I try to keep them to a certain unit type, partially for fluff, partially because it makes the most sense list wise. It'd be an odd idea to take half your infantry as Tallarn and half as Cadian for example, since they can't order each other or benefit from each other's strats/relics.

So usually all my infantry are one force, and all my tanks another. Cadian and tallarns not a bad combo the way you word it. Catahan and cadians can also make good tank companies by the way. Don't forget if you go pure Cadian you can better use overlapping fields of fire and the relic of cadia, but Catachan and Tallarn tanks can be more mobile without losing their bonuses so it all boils down to what you want to do.

As anyone can, I'd welcome feedback on a 2-tier development plan for a little side Guard.

First, I'd bring in and test a Catachan battalion: Straken, Lord Commissar with Maul and Dagger of Tu'Sakh, 3x Infantry, Bullgryns with Mauls, and 2x Priests for somewhere just over 400 points.

If that works well enough, I'd bring in Harker, a Mortar HWS, a Lascannon HWS, and a Hydra Battery (just for fun, and I have a cool one). That takes it to around 660 points.

I'd run Straken and a wall of bodies with Priest up the middle, send the Lord Commissar and Bullgryns around to enemy's deployment zone, and use Harker and the big guns to supplement anti-infantry, anti-tank, and anti-air for the Sororitas army this one will flank.

This may not be super competitive, but it seems fun, and I have some fun classic models to pull it off with. Comments welcome!

Lascannon HWS dies in an instant. Providing that it is only AT in your list it will die turn one and leave you vulnerable for enemy armour.
Put LC in IS or add some LRBTs

Gnollu wrote:
Lascannon HWS dies in an instant. Providing that it is only AT in your list it will die turn one and leave you vulnerable for enemy armour.
Put LC in IS or add some LRBTs

I have okay AT from the Sororitas force, but long ranged AT is non-existent. I was thinking of these guys as finishers... if a Seraphim or Dominion squad leaves a few wounds on something big, 48" should allow me to reach out and finish the job.

Do full guard players bring more HWS to offset the squishiness, or just leave them at home?

LCs go in infantry squads or LRBTs, HWS get mortars and hide out of LOS. The issue is that LC HWTs are expensive, very threatening, and also very fragile. Turn 1 they die unless your opponent is a hopeless newbie.

came back to say the title of this thread is still really funny

Many thanks, Gnollu and Peregrin. Point well taken on the LC HWS vulnerability and the preference for Mortars.

Has anyone crunched the numbers on Harker + Hydra?

On cadianshock blog there was very good series of articles considerig our artillery. Every single piece was calculated including various buffs

Chapter approved rumors

Infantry squads going up to 5PPM. That's at least 30 points per battalion/60 points per brigade

Army wide -1 to hit outside 12" changed to +1 armor saves. That's potential great news for IG and other armies that don't have it.

 schadenfreude wrote:
Infantry squads going up to 5PPM. That's at least 30 points per battalion/60 points per brigade

What's your source on that? Only seen it as wishlisting and such. Not that I think it unlikely, I just want a source.

Well, the bad news if Guardsmen go up in points is that I'll have overbought guardsmen for my new army, because I'll have to cut 2 squads to make up the difference. The good news is that I'll have to paint 20 less guardsmen, so there's that I guess.

schadenfreude wrote:
Chapter approved rumors

Infantry squads going up to 5PPM. That's at least 30 points per battalion/60 points per brigade

Army wide -1 to hit outside 12" changed to +1 armor saves. That's potential great news for IG and other armies that don't have it.

Once again, people will freak out saying we're ruined without realizing we're getting a stealth buff I'll gladly pay a pt per guardsman to get rid of army wide -1 to hit abilities. Even pure guard will be paying at most maybe a 150pts for a straight up 16% increase in accuracy against many of our most difficult matchups. Cover we can deal with through application of plasma and high AP weapons, at least we can hit them now.

Trickstick wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:
Infantry squads going up to 5PPM. That's at least 30 points per battalion/60 points per brigade

What's your source on that? Only seen it as wishlisting and such. Not that I think it unlikely, I just want a source.

It's all but confirmed by GW themselves. Cultists are up to 5ppm, that alone proves it, since guardsmen are better than cultists. If that wasn't enough for you, GW outright stated that units that pop up in tournament lists more than they like will get increases. Considering infantry squads are probably the most taken unit in the game for every army but ironically pure IG, you'd be insane to have any doubts we're going to 5ppm.

No, GW has not put it in writing explicitly as "guardsmen are 5ppm" but everything theyve said and the pt increases on Boyz and cultists proves it. We need to accept that this is 100% happening and go ahead and start planning accordingly.

What I'm more concerned about are other potential changes. I would definitely expect a plasma price increase across the board, or other weapons to get major drops. Plasma interacts with the most regiments and even without regiment abilities is more consistently useful than all our other special weapons combined. I also wouldn't be surprised if mortars or HWS went up in price somehow since they've been slammed a lot as well. Odds are HWS would go to being 30pts base before weapons to go alongside the regular infantry Nerf and that will be plenty in GW eyes.

I'm also going to bet on a Company Commander price hike. I think it's safe to say at this point that company commanders could realistically get a 5-10 pts increase in an attempt to curb the annoying 32 without just nerfing guardsmen into Oblivion. GW will need to be careful though. Between the IG nerfs and rumored admech buffs, we could soon see the rise of the Omnissiah's efficient 17 instead for CP batteries.

Regardless of the nerfs/buffs we receive we can at least console ourselves with the fact we're getting 5 formations in the vigilus campaign book. Given the number and seeming variety of formations we're getting there's decent odds we get at least one or two useful formations.Personally I'm hoping that that Assault company does something for chimera's, I'd like to be able to field them without feeling like i'm gimping myself.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
t's all but confirmed by GW themselves. Cultists are up to 5ppm, that alone proves it, since guardsmen are better than cultists. If that wasn't enough for you, GW outright stated that units that pop up in tournament lists more than they like will get increases. Considering infantry squads are probably the most taken unit in the game for every army but ironically pure IG, you'd be insane to have any doubts we're going to 5ppm.

I'm sure they probably will go to 5 ppm, but I have yet to see it in any of the leak and rumour sources that have been available. It just seems a bit odd that sure a large change has been omitted from leaks, as you would have thought it would be something that people would look up if they had the chance. I was mainly wondering if there was some leak source that I had missed.

I would like 5pt Guard as it would give conscripts a reason to exist again. Being the same cost makes them mostly pointless.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm looking forward to using different detachments as different regiment types. An infantry brigade and an armoured spearhead would be thematic but also get some extra rules.

 MacPhail wrote:
As anyone can, I'd welcome feedback on a 2-tier development plan for a little side Guard.

First, I'd bring in and test a Catachan battalion: Straken, Lord Commissar with Maul and Dagger of Tu'Sakh, 3x Infantry, Bullgryns with Mauls, and 2x Priests for somewhere just over 400 points.

If that works well enough, I'd bring in Harker, a Mortar HWS, a Lascannon HWS, and a Hydra Battery (just for fun, and I have a cool one). That takes it to around 660 points.

I'd run Straken and a wall of bodies with Priest up the middle, send the Lord Commissar and Bullgryns around to enemy's deployment zone, and use Harker and the big guns to supplement anti-infantry, anti-tank, and anti-air for the Sororitas army this one will flank.

This may not be super competitive, but it seems fun, and I have some fun classic models to pull it off with. Comments welcome!

Dagger of Tu'sakh cannot be taken on a commissar
faq Page 138 – The Dagger of Tu’Sakh
Add the following sentence at the start of the rules text:
‘Infantry Officer model only.

also only ever use a powersword in a commissar its better

the second priest is overkill in only a battallion and while they stack with straken they dont stack with each other

 Trickstick wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
t's all but confirmed by GW themselves. Cultists are up to 5ppm, that alone proves it, since guardsmen are better than cultists. If that wasn't enough for you, GW outright stated that units that pop up in tournament lists more than they like will get increases. Considering infantry squads are probably the most taken unit in the game for every army but ironically pure IG, you'd be insane to have any doubts we're going to 5ppm.

I'm sure they probably will go to 5 ppm, but I have yet to see it in any of the leak and rumour sources that have been available. It just seems a bit odd that sure a large change has been omitted from leaks, as you would have thought it would be something that people would look up if they had the chance. I was mainly wondering if there was some leak source that I had missed.

I would like 5pt Guard as it would give conscripts a reason to exist again. Being the same cost makes them mostly pointless.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm looking forward to using different detachments as different regiment types. An infantry brigade and an armoured spearhead would be thematic but also get some extra rules.

Conscripts will stay pretty bad regardless of how much regular infantry cost at this point. The quadruple nerf to Commissars, Conscript unit size, the order nerf, and being pushed up 4ppm has made them so impotent that the only time I would ever consider taking them is if I ran the Valhallan doctrine with the Pietrov's Mk45 relic so that they can be bubblewrap for tanks, and nothing else.

At present I've just been using the 3 infantry squads I have to take for the troop tax as make-shift bubblewrap. That's all they're good for anymore, since HWT's are so much less efficient and effective than pooling your firepower into Basilisks/Russes, mechanised is dead, only one of the special weapons is cost-effective for them, and you have to seriously invest pts and think about how to make orders/leadership work to make them formidable.

 Mr.Omega wrote:
Conscripts will stay pretty bad regardless of how much regular infantry cost at this point. The quadruple nerf to Commissars, Conscript unit size, the order nerf, and being pushed up 4ppm has made them so impotent that the only time I would ever consider taking them is if I ran the Valhallan doctrine with the Pietrov's Mk45 relic so that they can be bubblewrap for tanks, and nothing else.

At present I've just been using the 3 infantry squads I have to take for the troop tax as make-shift bubblewrap. That's all they're good for anymore, since HWT's are so much less efficient and effective than pooling your firepower into Basilisks/Russes, mechanised is dead, only one of the special weapons is cost-effective for them, and you have to seriously invest pts and think about how to make orders/leadership work to make them formidable.

You can also take a Draconian Disciplinarian Lord Commissar, which keeps conscripts on the board. Now that you don't need to take grand strategist all the time, it can work.

I quite like taking 6 Tallarn infantry to make a brigade. Give them plas/bolter and they can run around being useful, or screen advancing tanks as necessary. I also don't think mech is as dead as you claim, although I haven't tried it yet. Armageddon seem pretty good with their 18" rapid fire, and their vehicles are pretty tough against the many -1ap weapons out there.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:
Conscripts will stay pretty bad regardless of how much regular infantry cost at this point. The quadruple nerf to Commissars, Conscript unit size, the order nerf, and being pushed up 4ppm has made them so impotent that the only time I would ever consider taking them is if I ran the Valhallan doctrine with the Pietrov's Mk45 relic so that they can be bubblewrap for tanks, and nothing else.

At present I've just been using the 3 infantry squads I have to take for the troop tax as make-shift bubblewrap. That's all they're good for anymore, since HWT's are so much less efficient and effective than pooling your firepower into Basilisks/Russes, mechanised is dead, only one of the special weapons is cost-effective for them, and you have to seriously invest pts and think about how to make orders/leadership work to make them formidable.

You can also take a Draconian Disciplinarian Lord Commissar, which keeps conscripts on the board. Now that you don't need to take grand strategist all the time, it can work.

I quite like taking 6 Tallarn infantry to make a brigade. Give them plas/bolter and they can run around being useful, or screen advancing tanks as necessary. I also don't think mech is as dead as you claim, although I haven't tried it yet. Armageddon seem pretty good with their 18" rapid fire, and their vehicles are pretty tough against the many -1ap weapons out there.

Didn't know about the Draconian Disciplinarian effect. Will have to try that sometime.

Nothing wrong with taking 6 infantry squads for the brigade, I'd say that's worth it for the CP and extra bubblewrap. I've only run a list like that once, my problem with it is more from an enjoyment perspective, in that with each squad being independent I get a headache keeping track of who belongs in each squad. Would have to get some more guardsmen and sort out squad markings, which I don't really have time for at the moment.

Vets and at a stretch maybe Scions are the only things worth mechanizing, but not en masse, just keeping a pair of MechVet or MechScion units in reserve. Transports got better at a bunch of things. Thing is, the high cost of them in an edition where its so important to be capable of timely application of a lot of high strength, high AP firepower against deep strikers and other nasty units means its not really viable to run pure/semi-pure mechanized.

Similarly, I would love to invest in and try a Scion airborne list that uses Valkyrie insertion to take objectives, but my gut instinct is that ultimately the fact that Valkyries offer so little firepower and the fact Scions can't leverage enough on their own is what would cripple that idea.

Transports (other than Valkyries) are definitely dead. They don't give any significant mobility increase, you can't fire out of them and use them as a bunker for your squishy troops, they don't add much firepower at BS 5+, and they cost as much as buying an entire additional squad. You're almost always going to be better off buying that additional squad and bringing a couple extra officers to issue "move, move, move" when you need another 6" of one-shot movement distance.

6 basic plasma infantry chimeras can make a lovely core for a mech list. The thing is that such a mech list has much more manoeuvrability than a standard Guard list, which really is the key to getting it to work. You can get one for under 150 points, which isn't bad compared to most other transport units in the game. Triple bolter chimeras are decent firepower.

You also have the meta-busting aspect. If no one goes mech anymore, going mech becomes more feasible.

Chimeras don't increase your threat range enough to matter though. Before you could move 12 then disembark and rapid fire. Now, you cant disembark after moving, so your infantry threat range isn't increased at all. If you wanna move faster and not shoot, just use move move move and run fast, and use the 100 points you saved on the chimera to buy 2 more infantry squads.

 Horst wrote:
Chimeras don't increase your threat range enough to matter though. Before you could move 12 then disembark and rapid fire. Now, you cant disembark after moving, so your infantry threat range isn't increased at all. If you wanna move faster and not shoot, just use move move move and run fast, and use the 100 points you saved on the chimera to buy 2 more infantry squads.

Exactly. And you can't fire from inside the Chimera either. So you have a choice between:

Move 12+D6", disembark 3", move 6", for a total of 21+D6" (average 24.5").

or

Move 6+D6", move move move 6+D6", move 6", for a total of 18+2D6" (average 25").

You're paying a ton of points to get the same movement distance (with a bit less dice variability) when you could just buy a deep striking storm trooper squad in addition to the infantry squad.

5PPM guardsmen are as official as most of the other rumors. All of the leak sites are reporting it and it would be hugely unpopular to make cultists cost more than guardsman.

I have not seen any rumors of company commanders going up in price. Most players who include guard for cheap CP treat them like a tax and make poor use of orders exc. Plus the rule of 3 already hits them hard

On big mystery is if veterans will get nerfed, I have seen no rumors about it so they may become very viable if they stay at 6 PPM. Going from 5 to 6 PPM isn't bad for 3+ BS and crack grenades. The BS3 cost of plasma and melta can make them really expensive, but they don't have to buy them. Lascannon and sniper rifles cost the same at bs3, and a squad of 9 flashlights with krak grenades may actually see play

U02dah4 wrote:

 MacPhail wrote:
As anyone can, I'd welcome feedback on a 2-tier development plan for a little side Guard.

First, I'd bring in and test a Catachan battalion: Straken, Lord Commissar with Maul and Dagger of Tu'Sakh, 3x Infantry, Bullgryns with Mauls, and 2x Priests for somewhere just over 400 points.

If that works well enough, I'd bring in Harker, a Mortar HWS, a Lascannon HWS, and a Hydra Battery (just for fun, and I have a cool one). That takes it to around 660 points.

I'd run Straken and a wall of bodies with Priest up the middle, send the Lord Commissar and Bullgryns around to enemy's deployment zone, and use Harker and the big guns to supplement anti-infantry, anti-tank, and anti-air for the Sororitas army this one will flank.

This may not be super competitive, but it seems fun, and I have some fun classic models to pull it off with. Comments welcome!

Dagger of Tu'sakh cannot be taken on a commissar
faq Page 138 – The Dagger of Tu’Sakh
Add the following sentence at the start of the rules text:
‘Infantry Officer model only.

also only ever use a powersword in a commissar its better

the second priest is overkill in only a battallion and while they stack with straken they dont stack with each other

Cool, thanks... I had missed that FAQ. So a CC as the second HQ then. The extra Priest is meant gallop across the battlefield and try to meet up with the Bullgryn flankers... if he advances he should be able to get within 6" if i can anticipate their target. Still may not be worth the points, though...

Since you can only give the dagger to an officer and the officers can only take regiment units with them to flank. The bullgryns cant flank. (Unless you mean footslogging down the flank)

Not that Guard was tourney succesful apart from the catachan horde with big punch allies, but what do you think can be played in competitive scene in guard lists after the upcoming CHA that will nerf us again and boost some other codices?

Do we even have anything to win on our own without allies? What do you do against knights or orc horde? What about dark eldars or cultist/daemon spellcaster heavy lists? Or even custodes captains that chew through our infantry like it was nothing?

I would like to know what do you think is our best chance to win against competitive lists. Theoryhammer time :-)

 Lothar wrote:
Not that Guard was tourney succesful apart from the catachan horde with big punch allies, but what do you think can be played in competitive scene in guard lists after the upcoming CHA that will nerf us again and boost some other codices?

Do we even have anything to win on our own without allies? What do you do against knights or orc horde? What about dark eldars or cultist/daemon spellcaster heavy lists? Or even custodes captains that chew through our infantry like it was nothing?

I would like to know what do you think is our best chance to win against competitive lists. Theoryhammer time :-)

Army wide -1 to hit was the bane of our existence

Knights get wrecked by the combination of old enemy warlord trait and overlapping fields of fire.

Mortars and FRFSRF kills a lot of orks

Cyclops absolutely wreck smash captains and custodes captains. Flying characters have been nerfed. Cyclops is also great for pulling units out of close combat. It's awesome when someone is clever enough to trap a hellhound in cc only to take a cyclops to the face and then we blow up our own hellhound.

 schadenfreude wrote:
Cyclops absolutely wreck smash captains and custodes captains. Flying characters have been nerfed. Cyclops is also great for pulling units out of close combat. It's awesome when someone is clever enough to trap a hellhound in cc only to take a cyclops to the face and then we blow up our own hellhound.

I am actually tempted to pick some up. With me possibly moving my russes into an Emperor's fist spearhead, I need something to go in the brigade. Cyclops are cheap, and the only thing cheaper are HWSs. Nine mortars may be good but cyclops could be nice too.

 Trickstick wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:
Cyclops absolutely wreck smash captains and custodes captains. Flying characters have been nerfed. Cyclops is also great for pulling units out of close combat. It's awesome when someone is clever enough to trap a hellhound in cc only to take a cyclops to the face and then we blow up our own hellhound.

I am actually tempted to pick some up. With me possibly moving my russes into an Emperor's fist spearhead, I need something to go in the brigade. Cyclops are cheap, and the only thing cheaper are HWSs. Nine mortars may be good but cyclops could be nice too.

9 mortars is only 99 points and necessary against orks. They usually get CP greedy and go with MSU grots to protect their lootas. 5*10 seems like a lot but just split fire shoot each squad with 1 mortar. Wounds them on a 2+ and after 5 squads take a casualty the runt herder will eat 5d3 grots per turn. You should still have a few mortars left to shoot orks with. By turn 3 the grots should be dead and the lootas can be shot.

I run a Catachan spearhead with nothing but a lord commissar and 3 cyclops and the rest of the army is Cadian. When it detonates it makes a separate shooting attack against every unit so the reroll can be used on each one.

So the emperor's fist warlord trait will make mordian russ's pretty hilarious, hitting on 4's rerolling all misses in overwatch with the warlord trait, regimental trait, and defensive gunners stacked on top of each other. You'll lose the offensive output that catachan or cadian would give you but you'd be able to hit harder in overwatch then you would normally.

Should make russ's very scary things to charge, to things that don't deny overwatch at least. That relic is pretty solid as well, definitely worth the CP to stick that on a tank commander.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/12/06/6th-dec-imperial-specialist-detachments-rules-previewgw-homepage-post-4/

 gbghg wrote:
So the emperor's fist warlord trait will make mordian russ's pretty hilarious, hitting on 4's rerolling all misses in overwatch with the warlord trait, regimental trait, and defensive gunners stacked on top of each other. You'll lose the offensive output that catachan or cadian would give you but you'd be able to hit harder in overwatch then you would normally.

Should make russ's very scary things to charge, to things that don't deny overwatch at least. That relic is pretty solid as well, definitely worth the CP to stick that on a tank commander.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/12/06/6th-dec-imperial-specialist-detachments-rules-previewgw-homepage-post-4/

Not to mention that depending on how they word the strat to allow us to fire after advancing, it's entirely possible a tank commander will be able to advance 10+d6", flat out another 10+6", and shoot twice. Need to see how the strat is worded, but we could see leman Russ battle tanks moving 30" and firing twice with the turret if GW isn't careful

I also like the relic tank cannon. Yeah it's not flashy but the amount of 1's I roll on damage I'd use it every game.

U02dah4 wrote:
Since you can only give the dagger to an officer and the officers can only take regiment units with them to flank. The bullgryns cant flank. (Unless you mean footslogging down the flank)

Whoops, that's a big oversight... everyone up the middle then, no dagger. Is a 30-strong blob with overlapping auras going to actually do damage with those extra attacks, or just bog things down? Thanks!

Guard got a lot of price drops. 15pts off a hydra makes me think of taking some in a brigade. 15pt of a chimera makes mech look much better. 5pts off an armoured sentinel is nice too.

Real good.

 Trickstick wrote:
Guard got a lot of price drops. 15pts off a hydra makes me think of taking some in a brigade. 15pt of a chimera makes mech look much better. 5pts off an armoured sentinel is nice too.

Where are you seeing these?

 Horst wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:
Guard got a lot of price drops. 15pts off a hydra makes me think of taking some in a brigade. 15pt of a chimera makes mech look much better. 5pts off an armoured sentinel is nice too.

Where are you seeing these?

Glorious leaks. Edit: better collection.

Guardsmen didn't go up to 5ppm. Brb eating shirt, good Lord, people are going to start witchhunts against us.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Horst wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:
Guard got a lot of price drops. 15pts off a hydra makes me think of taking some in a brigade. 15pt of a chimera makes mech look much better. 5pts off an armoured sentinel is nice too.

Where are you seeing these?

Glorious leaks. Edit: better collection.

Wait, Veterans went down to 5 and regular infantry did not change? I feel some rioting may occur from the Guard haters if that goes live!

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Guardsmen didn't go up to 5ppm. Brb eating shirt, good Lord, people are going to start witchhunts against us.

They didn't go up because everything else went down. Points drops make people happier than point raises.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Horst wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:
Guard got a lot of price drops. 15pts off a hydra makes me think of taking some in a brigade. 15pt of a chimera makes mech look much better. 5pts off an armoured sentinel is nice too.

Where are you seeing these?

Glorious leaks. Edit: better collection.

Thanks. Looks like I picked the right time to start a guard army.... -25 pts on tank commanders is massive, especially since my list has 4 of them already...

 Horst wrote:
Thanks. Looks like I picked the right time to start a guard army.... -25 pts on tank commanders is massive, especially since my list has 4 of them already...

You not play rule of 3?

 Trickstick wrote:

 Horst wrote:
Thanks. Looks like I picked the right time to start a guard army.... -25 pts on tank commanders is massive, especially since my list has 4 of them already...

You not play rule of 3?

.... I'm new to 8th edition and forgot about that. gak. Well, Pask+3 then! Considering 2 of them are executioners with plasma sponsons, it's still like a 100 point reduction to my list.

I'm more excited about the new formation. Was planning on 1 relic tank commander and 3 leman russes. However, the price drop on demolisher cannons has maybe changed a few things. I love demolishers, getting right up and blasting things. A command demolisher is 45 pts cheaper now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tempestus formation.

Stratagem

Seems interesting, although taking many valkyries is expensive. Less so with the price drops I guess. Removal of the d6 dying opens up some crazy drops. +1 to hit on plasma is great.

AIIIIIIIIIIIIIRBORNNNNNNNNNNNNNEEEEEE

+1 to hit also means you can get exploding 6's with volley guns jumping from Valks.

Wyverns that shoot twice, ignore cover and get ap-1 on 6's, sweet jesus, that's ignoring regimental bonuses and other strats and relics that can affect that as well. That's filthy, the amount of GEQ's they'll be able to murder will be hideous.

Bs3+ plasma and melta got price drops as well, down to 11 and 14 respectively.

I don't know if 2cp for an extra shot is worth it. Maybe.

In other news, servo arms are free. 30pt tech priests and 5pt servitors. Plasma cannons are 10, so 15pts for a plasma servitor.

 Cephalobeard wrote:
Real good.

Jesus wept

So theoretically speaking, you could have a Cadian Manticore that in one turn:

Fires 4D6 shots (Pounding Barrage)
Hits on a 3+ (Overlapping fields of Fire)
Ignores cover (Orbital tracker)
Is AP -3 (Lord of Ordnance)
Re-rolls 1's to hit (Cadia/MoO)

If you really wanted to delete one unit in particular.

But otherwise though the warlord trait and relic make my 3 Basilisk list so much more powerful I might feel bad if I use it

 Mr.Omega wrote:

 Cephalobeard wrote:
Real good.

Jesus wept

So theoretically speaking, you could have a Cadian Manticore that in one turn:

Fires 4D6 shots (Pounding Barrage)
Hits on a 3+ (Overlapping fields of Fire)
Ignores cover (Orbital tracker)
Is AP -3 (Lord of Ordnance)
Re-rolls 1's to hit (Cadia/MoO)

If you really wanted to delete one unit in particular.

But otherwise though the warlord trait and relic make my 3 Basilisk list so much more powerful I might feel bad to use it

Manticores are not in the formation. Just hydras, wyverns and basilisks.

1 Wyvern added to a Basic Battery Detachment makes it now 298pts for 3 Mortars and a Wyvern.

Absolute no brainer ally.

AP4 Basilisk's though...

This formation will be very, very nasty against chaos once you start including the relic of lost cadia and vengeance for cadia. Even just the aerial spotters strat.

The tempestus formation doesn't seem that great to me, the trait is solid but deepstriking your warlord like that is a risky business, the relic seems too sitiational to see much use and while the strat is pretty interesting, I'm not sure how usable it is. Valk's can be a big point sink as opposed to deepstriking and you'll only be able to use that start on one unit.


Edit:nevermind, valk's dropped 40 points, they are now significantly less of a point sink. Shadowswords got more expensive by 6 points as well, in case someone is running a tight list with them.

 Trickstick wrote:
I'm more excited about the new formation. Was planning on 1 relic tank commander and 3 leman russes. However, the price drop on demolisher cannons has maybe changed a few things. I love demolishers, getting right up and blasting things. A command demolisher is 45 pts cheaper now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tempestus formation.

Stratagem

Seems interesting, although taking many valkyries is expensive. Less so with the price drops I guess. Removal of the d6 dying opens up some crazy drops. +1 to hit on plasma is great.

Might be suggesting that taking a Valkyrie in a Tempestus Scion detachment does not remove its doctrine, as many believe.

Certainly allows you to essentially drop a bunch of guys in very close range, get off some shots and charge first turn. Meltaguns and the grenadiers stratagem (with Krak) may work well here too.

 gbghg wrote:
...deepstriking your warlord like that is a risky business...

You can use field commander to give the trait to a prime, without him being the true warlord.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kcalehc wrote:
Might be suggesting that taking a Valkyrie in a Tempestus Scion detachment does not remove its doctrine, as many believe.

It literally says right after that bit in the rulebook that auxillia are exceptions. Never understood the problem.

Shadowswords 20+

Is the Demolisher cannon worth it now that its actually cheaper then the BC?

I still wouldn't take it, the 24" range and only D3 shots hurts quite a bit.

Eldar rangers are going from -2 to hit 3+ armor save to -1 to hit 2+ armor save. That's mathematically identical for flashlights and mortars so it's not really much of a change for us.

Emperor's wrath relic denying them cover knocks that down to -1 to hit 4+ armor. Those pointy eared bastards are going to have a bad time.

Ugh. Another round of cool formations/stratagems where GW pretends that half our units don't exist. Is it really that difficult to add Medusas/Minotaurs/etc to the artillery list?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Horst wrote:
I still wouldn't take it, the 24" range and only D3 shots hurts quite a bit.

This is bad math. D3 shots is only against vehicles and such, where having D6 damage offsets D3 shots. Against single-wound models where the damage increase doesn't matter you're almost always getting D6 shots. The demolisher cannon is always better than a battle cannon when it gets to fire, the only drawback is 24" range.

 schadenfreude wrote:

Eldar rangers are going from -2 to hit 3+ armor save to -1 to hit 2+ armor save. That's mathematically identical for flashlights and mortars so it's not really much of a change for us.

Emperor's wrath relic denying them cover knocks that down to -1 to hit 4+ armor. Those pointy eared bastards are going to have a bad time.

Makes plasma cannons better at them though An Executioner Tank Commander with Plasma sponsons and a lascannon is gonna cost what now, like 200 points I think? It will straight up murder things.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:
Ugh. Another round of cool formations/stratagems where GW pretends that half our units don't exist. Is it really that difficult to add Medusas/Minotaurs/etc to the artillery list?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Horst wrote:
I still wouldn't take it, the 24" range and only D3 shots hurts quite a bit.

This is bad math. D3 shots is only against vehicles and such, where having D6 damage offsets D3 shots. Against single-wound models where the damage increase doesn't matter you're almost always getting D6 shots. The demolisher cannon is always better than a battle cannon when it gets to fire, the only drawback is 24" range.

Hmm... good point. The 24" range though is a pretty big drawback still though.

24" isn't so bad if you are trying to close with the enemy. Tallarn demolishers with las/plas are looking nice at 182 pts, 184 with stubber. 204 commander. I'm excited to try out a real tank hammer list.

I just went through all of the changes, my god I can already taste the salt.

Sentinels and armored and scout are both down to 30 points. Plasma and AC is 10. Heavy flamer 14.

Cadian armored with plasma isn't bad. 120 points for the FA to fill out a formation all rerolling 1s on plasma shots.

 schadenfreude wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:
Cyclops absolutely wreck smash captains and custodes captains. Flying characters have been nerfed. Cyclops is also great for pulling units out of close combat. It's awesome when someone is clever enough to trap a hellhound in cc only to take a cyclops to the face and then we blow up our own hellhound.

I am actually tempted to pick some up. With me possibly moving my russes into an Emperor's fist spearhead, I need something to go in the brigade. Cyclops are cheap, and the only thing cheaper are HWSs. Nine mortars may be good but cyclops could be nice too.

9 mortars is only 99 points and necessary against orks. They usually get CP greedy and go with MSU grots to protect their lootas. 5*10 seems like a lot but just split fire shoot each squad with 1 mortar. Wounds them on a 2+ and after 5 squads take a casualty the runt herder will eat 5d3 grots per turn. You should still have a few mortars left to shoot orks with. By turn 3 the grots should be dead and the lootas can be shot.

I run a Catachan spearhead with nothing but a lord commissar and 3 cyclops and the rest of the army is Cadian. When it detonates it makes a separate shooting attack against every unit so the reroll can be used on each one.

Couple issues with that. 1 mortar shoots 3.5 . Kills 1 grot in average. That's 50-50 does unit fail morale or not. So 5d3 is pipe dream without investing more. Even 2 mortar per unit is only 66% morale fail.

Also in competive 40k if you plan on turn 3 to be decisive you are 1-2 turns too late

tneva82 wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:
Cyclops absolutely wreck smash captains and custodes captains. Flying characters have been nerfed. Cyclops is also great for pulling units out of close combat. It's awesome when someone is clever enough to trap a hellhound in cc only to take a cyclops to the face and then we blow up our own hellhound.

I am actually tempted to pick some up. With me possibly moving my russes into an Emperor's fist spearhead, I need something to go in the brigade. Cyclops are cheap, and the only thing cheaper are HWSs. Nine mortars may be good but cyclops could be nice too.

9 mortars is only 99 points and necessary against orks. They usually get CP greedy and go with MSU grots to protect their lootas. 5*10 seems like a lot but just split fire shoot each squad with 1 mortar. Wounds them on a 2+ and after 5 squads take a casualty the runt herder will eat 5d3 grots per turn. You should still have a few mortars left to shoot orks with. By turn 3 the grots should be dead and the lootas can be shot.

I run a Catachan spearhead with nothing but a lord commissar and 3 cyclops and the rest of the army is Cadian. When it detonates it makes a separate shooting attack against every unit so the reroll can be used on each one.

Couple issues with that. 1 mortar shoots 3.5 . Kills 1 grot in average. That's 50-50 does unit fail morale or not. So 5d3 is pipe dream without investing more. Even 2 mortar per unit is only 66% morale fail.

Also in competive 40k if you plan on turn 3 to be decisive you are 1-2 turns too late

3.5*.75 cadian orders*.87=2.28 which goes down to 1.5 if they are in cover
Leadership 4 or auto d3 from runt herders. At 2 casualties they average 1.5 from a morale test and shouldn't use the harder but they still usually do. At 3 casualties it's average of 2.5.

Really glad about the changes as someone playing thematic Cadian lists with some bite:

- Armored Sentinel with plasma Cannons at 40 points are great and finally worth their points
- 3 point Grenade Launchers are actually worth taking now, and 6 point flamers are welcome as well. Now I don't feel like I'm hangstringing by taking them over plasma on my infantry squads
- I like running a cheap Command squad with a Banner and Lascannon team (with 2 vets as fodder), so paying less for them is welcome
- Cheaper tank commanders are always welcome
- I like playing my collection of Kasrkin as Tempestus Scions, so them getting free hot-shots lasguns and HS-pistols going down to 0 points (the latter being very welcome on my two vox-caster Kasrkin who save 2 points each) as well as 14 point melta guns benefits them big time (I got some well painted melta troopers so I dislike just running plasma all the time)

And finally Creed going down to 55 points is massive. I always liked running him anyway, but at that price he is pretty much an autoinclude if you play Cadia.

I'm looking at the new scion formation. How about this:

Tempestor prime: command rod, laurels, new warlord trait, probably as field commander. 45

Scion squad x5: plasma pistol, 2xplasmagun 72
Scion squad x5: plasma pistol, 2xplasmagun 72

Valkyrie: Multilaser, rocket pods, bolters? 137

So a little patrol detachment. Costs 2-3 cp, depending on your other relics. Total cost of 326. Can move up to 45" and pop the stratagem to grav-cute with no risk. Then move within 9" to get extra shots. +1 to hit, so you get doctrine shots on a 5. Seems like a nice little package. Probably some ways to improve it, but i just wanted a minimum cost. I guess you could go up to a battalion easily enough with an extra squad and tempestor, but I wanted to have 1 valks worth for the stratagem.

 Trickstick wrote:

Glorious leaks. Edit: better collection.

Link isn't working?

TankCmdr wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

Glorious leaks. Edit: better collection.

Link isn't working?

Yeah original got nuked. They are everywhere now though, so easy to find.

 Trickstick wrote:

TankCmdr wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

Glorious leaks. Edit: better collection.

Link isn't working?

Yeah original got nuked. They are everywhere now though, so easy to find.

Thanks, did a little hunting, found them.

So, if my math is correct/up to date, artemia hellhounds are now the exact same price as regular ones?

Hmm, that's gonna require some adjustments. Good thing sentinels are so cheap now

TankCmdr wrote:
So, if my math is correct/up to date, artemia hellhounds are now the exact same price as regular ones?

Hmm, that's gonna require some adjustments. Good thing sentinels are so cheap now

Yeah, as they should have been. They forgot that the artemia cannon was free last year. Hellhounds are still great, although cheap sentinels are definitely competing for fast attack slots. Banewolves dropped a few points if the expense is a problem.

 Trickstick wrote:

TankCmdr wrote:
So, if my math is correct/up to date, artemia hellhounds are now the exact same price as regular ones?

Hmm, that's gonna require some adjustments. Good thing sentinels are so cheap now

Yeah, as they should have been. They forgot that the artemia cannon was free last year. Hellhounds are still great, although cheap sentinels are definitely competing for fast attack slots. Banewolves dropped a few points if the expense is a problem.

Yeah it's a fair change. They're still one of my favorite units, so I'll try to cut back elsewhere first. Had them Kamikaze too many big baddies to leave them out entirely.

Anyone think that the pts drop on non-shadowsword variants makes them worth taking now? Part of me wants to bring back the stormsword/demolisher tag team to really ramp up my armoured assault force.

Artema pattern getting nerfed to standard price makes other variants more viable. Catachans for example will probably all shift to standard to maximize the effects of their reroll.

The big reason we will see hell hounds drop off is sentinels being used to fill out a brigade. With as dirt cheap as they are double brigade 27 CP may now be a legitimate option.

 schadenfreude wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:
Cyclops absolutely wreck smash captains and custodes captains. Flying characters have been nerfed. Cyclops is also great for pulling units out of close combat. It's awesome when someone is clever enough to trap a hellhound in cc only to take a cyclops to the face and then we blow up our own hellhound.

I am actually tempted to pick some up. With me possibly moving my russes into an Emperor's fist spearhead, I need something to go in the brigade. Cyclops are cheap, and the only thing cheaper are HWSs. Nine mortars may be good but cyclops could be nice too.

9 mortars is only 99 points and necessary against orks. They usually get CP greedy and go with MSU grots to protect their lootas. 5*10 seems like a lot but just split fire shoot each squad with 1 mortar. Wounds them on a 2+ and after 5 squads take a casualty the runt herder will eat 5d3 grots per turn. You should still have a few mortars left to shoot orks with. By turn 3 the grots should be dead and the lootas can be shot.

I run a Catachan spearhead with nothing but a lord commissar and 3 cyclops and the rest of the army is Cadian. When it detonates it makes a separate shooting attack against every unit so the reroll can be used on each one.

Couple issues with that. 1 mortar shoots 3.5 . Kills 1 grot in average. That's 50-50 does unit fail morale or not. So 5d3 is pipe dream without investing more. Even 2 mortar per unit is only 66% morale fail.

Also in competive 40k if you plan on turn 3 to be decisive you are 1-2 turns too late

3.5*.75 cadian orders*.87=2.28 which goes down to 1.5 if they are in cover
Leadership 4 or auto d3 from runt herders. At 2 casualties they average 1.5 from a morale test and shouldn't use the harder but they still usually do. At 3 casualties it's average of 2.5.

Even with cadiae order to wound is 83 not 87 and they get save even without cover so under 2 per average. Even with 2 casualties they only fail ld 2/3 times so idea of failing it 5 times out of 5 reliably is pipe dream by those who don't know odds.

You do not roll 3+ everytime. Period. And the runtherd btw here reduces morale casualties in the long run. Remember runtherd kills only if morale fails. Orks don't have to choose in advance to kill d3 to ensure failed morale. It goes like this(assuming 2 casualties which isn#t likely for 5 mortar rounds)

1:nothikg
2:nothing
3:d3 dead
4: d3 dead
5: d3 dead
6: d3 dead

So out of 6 4d3 so you average 8/6 more grots from morale. Thus from 5 mortars 6.666. Except you will be looking at one squad with 1 dead grot rather than 2(and 0 isn't that unlikely) and runtherd means extra casualties don't matter as much to morale as less)

And still issue that if you wait for t3 then lootas have already spent all cp and done their job.

tneva82 wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:
Cyclops absolutely wreck smash captains and custodes captains. Flying characters have been nerfed. Cyclops is also great for pulling units out of close combat. It's awesome when someone is clever enough to trap a hellhound in cc only to take a cyclops to the face and then we blow up our own hellhound.

I am actually tempted to pick some up. With me possibly moving my russes into an Emperor's fist spearhead, I need something to go in the brigade. Cyclops are cheap, and the only thing cheaper are HWSs. Nine mortars may be good but cyclops could be nice too.

9 mortars is only 99 points and necessary against orks. They usually get CP greedy and go with MSU grots to protect their lootas. 5*10 seems like a lot but just split fire shoot each squad with 1 mortar. Wounds them on a 2+ and after 5 squads take a casualty the runt herder will eat 5d3 grots per turn. You should still have a few mortars left to shoot orks with. By turn 3 the grots should be dead and the lootas can be shot.

I run a Catachan spearhead with nothing but a lord commissar and 3 cyclops and the rest of the army is Cadian. When it detonates it makes a separate shooting attack against every unit so the reroll can be used on each one.

Couple issues with that. 1 mortar shoots 3.5 . Kills 1 grot in average. That's 50-50 does unit fail morale or not. So 5d3 is pipe dream without investing more. Even 2 mortar per unit is only 66% morale fail.

Also in competive 40k if you plan on turn 3 to be decisive you are 1-2 turns too late

3.5*.75 cadian orders*.87=2.28 which goes down to 1.5 if they are in cover
Leadership 4 or auto d3 from runt herders. At 2 casualties they average 1.5 from a morale test and shouldn't use the harder but they still usually do. At 3 casualties it's average of 2.5.

Even with cadiae order to wound is 83 not 87 and they get save even without cover so under 2 per average. Even with 2 casualties they only fail ld 2/3 times so idea of failing it 5 times out of 5 reliably is pipe dream by those who don't know odds.

You do not roll 3+ everytime. Period. And the runtherd btw here reduces morale casualties in the long run. Remember runtherd kills only if morale fails. Orks don't have to choose in advance to kill d3 to ensure failed morale. It goes like this(assuming 2 casualties which isn#t likely for 5 mortar rounds)

1:nothikg
2:nothing
3:d3 dead
4: d3 dead
5: d3 dead
6: d3 dead

So out of 6 4d3 so you average 8/6 more grots from morale. Thus from 5 mortars 6.666. Except you will be looking at one squad with 1 dead grot rather than 2(and 0 isn't that unlikely) and runtherd means extra casualties don't matter as much to morale as less)

And still issue that if you wait for t3 then lootas have already spent all cp and done their job.

Looks like the runt herder is better than I thought which throws things off.

I think we need some thought towards the long game against orks. To actually kill 40+ grots and the lootas before T3 isn't really feasible when all flashlights are being focused on the boys that are in short range. If anything this has me doubting if I should bother working the grots over a bit before dealing with the boys.

Outside of the Scions formation (I have no air wing), did much change with the Tempestus point list? I know special weapons dropped, but not whether unit costs went up or down.

Hotshot weapons are free, so Scions in general are cheaper.

After seeing the text of the formations in some of the youtube reviews, a couple of things jumped out at me:

- Emperor's conclave is not for me. It's a melee focused formation with lots of fight and charge phase stuff.

- The tank stratagem lets you double shot a tank turret no matter how far you moved. Seems like a really good thing to combine with tallarn ambush, as that was a weakness of outflanking russes.

- Second tank stratagem let's you pick a unit and get d3 mortal wounds on a 4+ for every keyword russ that charges it. I'm thinking my demolisher squad may be having some fun.

- The mechanised formation seems like a great idea if you mech. One stratagem lets you get out after moving, although you can't then move. Trait lets you give orders out of chimera, as if you have a vox. I can see vox armed mech being quite useful.

Do any of the formations benefit infantry?

 vipoid wrote:
Do any of the formations benefit infantry?

Conclave gives loads of melee stuff. Like reroll 1s to hit in melee, 2 dice pick lowest morale, +1 charge rolls when near priest, and slain models fight again. Not really my thing but a catachan melee force could be fun.

I run a Catachan brigade as the backbone to my army. Usually, their melee is a bonus, not a game winner in itself. Gonna try the conclave though, if nothing else it sounds fun.

The artillery Det is what I'm really psyched about though, as my tanks are cadian. Aerial spotter, overlapping fire, and pounding barrage for my basilisks? Holy cow

 Trickstick wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
Do any of the formations benefit infantry?

Conclave gives loads of melee stuff. Like reroll 1s to hit in melee, 2 dice pick lowest morale, +1 charge rolls when near priest, and slain models fight again. Not really my thing but a catachan melee force could be fun.

Interesting. I don't normally play Catachan but I might give them a go with these rules.

Pounding barrage seems situational to me. It's 2cp for a basilisk shot. I would mainly use it when an extra basilisk shot is really going to help, like a unit with a couple of wounds left that needs to be dead.

 Trickstick wrote:
Pounding barrage seems situational to me. It's 2cp for a basilisk shot. I would mainly use it when an extra basilisk shot is really going to help, like a unit with a couple of wounds left that needs to be dead.

It stacks with aerial spotters which will be really good at doing the 1st wound to a knight so that we can trigger overlapping fields of fire.

 schadenfreude wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:
Pounding barrage seems situational to me. It's 2cp for a basilisk shot. I would mainly use it when an extra basilisk shot is really going to help, like a unit with a couple of wounds left that needs to be dead.

It stacks with aerial spotters which will be really good at doing the 1st wound to a knight so that we can trigger overlapping fields of fire.

True. Anything that is a temporary buff will be good, like the Cadia relic.

glad that my chicken walkers got cheaper I love the models and take them every game anyway. Might need to pick up another squad of three

Anyone seen the complete rules for the emperor's fist? I've not been able to find more than was revealed on WC.

 Trickstick wrote:
After seeing the text of the formations in some of the youtube reviews, a couple of things jumped out at me:

- Emperor's conclave is not for me. It's a melee focused formation with lots of fight and charge phase stuff.

- The tank stratagem lets you double shot a tank turret no matter how far you moved. Seems like a really good thing to combine with tallarn ambush, as that was a weakness of outflanking russes.

- Second tank stratagem let's you pick a unit and get d3 mortal wounds on a 4+ for every keyword russ that charges it. I'm thinking my demolisher squad may be having some fun.

- The mechanised formation seems like a great idea if you mech. One stratagem lets you get out after moving, although you can't then move. Trait lets you give orders out of chimera, as if you have a vox. I can see vox armed mech being quite useful.

which review showed the text for the mech formation? with the price drop to chimera's i'm interested in running one and anything to make them better interest me.

 gbghg wrote:
which review showed the text for the mech formation? with the price drop to chimera's i'm interested in running one and anything to make them better interest me.

https://youtu.be/sT0eDbjQTyc?t=1653

The stratagem to get out looks nice, as getting out after moving is a rare ability.

Do you guys think Chimeras might be viable now? Perhaps in Tallarn or Armageddon armies?

 Trickstick wrote:

 gbghg wrote:
which review showed the text for the mech formation? with the price drop to chimera's i'm interested in running one and anything to make them better interest me.

https://youtu.be/sT0eDbjQTyc?t=1653

The stratagem to get out looks nice, as getting out after moving is a rare ability.

That whole formation looks tasty, vets squads being part of it is all I could have hoped for. Trait is solid, relic is eh, 3++ is good but it'll be on a company commander who will be hiding in a chimera anyway. Both strats seem pretty solid, disembarking after moving will be nasty with a vet squad filled with plasma or melta and the fire support strat will be a nasty surprise for anyone who tries to charge them, especially if you take a heavy flamer in the squad and stick them in a double heavy flamer chimera.

 vipoid wrote:
Do you guys think Chimeras might be viable now? Perhaps in Tallarn or Armageddon armies?

Well they were viable before, you just had to use positioning and stuff. Probably better now. I'm not convinced about the overwatch stratagem though. Is it worth it for six shots? Either bolter or multi/bolter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gbghg wrote:
...heavy flamer in the squad and stick them in a double heavy flamer chimera.

I don't think a flamer chimera would really work, as the 8" range would be easy to avoid. Assuming you deploy the infantry forward it'll be easy to charge from outside the range.

 Trickstick wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gbghg wrote:
...heavy flamer in the squad and stick them in a double heavy flamer chimera.

I don't think a flamer chimera would really work, as the 8" range would be easy to avoid. Assuming you deploy the infantry forward it'll be easy to charge from outside the range.

Yeah, range is the biggest issue with that idea, that said having your guardsmen hug the chimera makes it less of an issue and it forces your opponent to make longer more risky charges. Won't be a major impedient to units with rules/strats etc to make charging more reliable but it will discourage from units who lack those.

I'm thinking run a armageddon vet squad loaded with plasma and a platoon commander with mechanised commander in a chimera (weapon loadout is debatable), get within 18" of the unit you wish to tenderise, spend a CP on rapid deploy, pop a CP on the armageddon strat for reroll ones, order bring it down on the vets. Use take cover on the vets if they get shot at and fire support if they get charged to help them survive. If they live have them unload another round of shooting then hop back in the chimera with the armageddon order then go find something else to kill.

Point wise thats a lot better now, will only cost 159pts, but it's a pretty CP heavy playstyle. 2CP to get the formation and trait then a minimum 2CP a turn to a max of 4, probably not worth the return on 3 plasma guns.

I've just had a thought. Melta shotgun veterans and platoon commander inside a chimera, using ambush. You get to move on to 9.1" away from a target, and the 3" disembark will get you within 6". Nice little attack force.

 Trickstick wrote:
I've just had a thought. Melta shotgun veterans and platoon commander inside a chimera, using ambush. You get to move on to 9.1" away from a target, and the 3" disembark will get you within 6". Nice little attack force.

No it won't?

9.1" minus 3" is 6.1".

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:
I've just had a thought. Melta shotgun veterans and platoon commander inside a chimera, using ambush. You get to move on to 9.1" away from a target, and the 3" disembark will get you within 6". Nice little attack force.

No it won't?

9.1" minus 3" is 6.1".

Yeah but they disembark within 3", not "wholly within". This means you get the width of the base as well, spanning that extra bit needed.

Edit: Just saw that the commander can't disembark, so need field commander too. 6cp total cost is a bit crazy.

Is the Demo russ going to become the go to command russ now?

 Xenomancers wrote:
Is the Demo russ going to become the go to command russ now?

Maybe, although I like relic russ.

Plasma sponsons are pretty nice now. 2 pts more than bolters. I guess it depends on your overall anti-horde/elite balance.

I think that all of the turrets are pretty good now (not you vanquisher). Eradicator is cheap enough that it could be worth taking a bit more.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Is the Demo russ going to become the go to command russ now?

Maybe, although I like relic russ.

Plasma sponsons are pretty nice now. 2 pts more than bolters. I guess it depends on your overall anti-horde/elite balance.

I think that all of the turrets are pretty good now (not you vanquisher). Eradicator is cheap enough that it could be worth taking a bit more.

I still feel like the executioner is one of the best sweet spots out there but you'd be crazy not to have at least one tank commander rocking that relic battlecannon. Since the demolisher hits larger units d6 times it may be our go to for if thunderwolf cav become a major thing, which my local SW players seem to think will happen. I just don't like that it cuts it's shots in half as the unit drops. Usually when there's one to two guys left is when I feel I need a full volley the most since I'm trying to stop that last nasty model from hitting my line or something.

I'm torn on leman Russe's, at least when you plan on a full tank company. Part of me wants to take a variety to cover weaknesses and roles, you know, a few LRBT, maybe an Annhilator or two, a couple TC executioners, a punisher, etc. On the other hand, I want to run say one or two types but double down on them, so my opponent can't just pick off the one or two tanks that actually scare him, in which case it'd be mostly the old standby of LRBT's with some exeuctioner TC mixed in. I do feel like if you go with a low variety of tanks sponsons become way more important than if you have a variety of tanks to cover different roles.

A lot of nerfed units in the 2017 chapter approved are MIA in 2018. I'm hearing that the 2017 chapter approved will effectively be shitcanned when 2018 is official so it sounds like the 2017 nerds that fall off will effectively expire.

The 2 big units I don't see are 40 point cyclops and 75 point earthshaker batteries.

Wyvern, Manticore, Primaris, Taurox, and ratlings MIA

 schadenfreude wrote:

A lot of nerfed units in the 2017 chapter approved are MIA in 2018. I'm hearing that the 2017 chapter approved will effectively be shitcanned when 2018 is official so it sounds like the 2017 nerds that fall off will effectively expire.

The 2 big units I don't see are 40 point cyclops and 75 point earthshaker batteries.

Wyvern, Manticore, Primaris, Taurox, and ratlings MIA

You mean to say ignore everything in CA 2017?

 schadenfreude wrote:

A lot of nerfed units in the 2017 chapter approved are MIA in 2018. I'm hearing that the 2017 chapter approved will effectively be shitcanned when 2018 is official so it sounds like the 2017 nerds that fall off will effectively expire.

The 2 big units I don't see are 40 point cyclops and 75 point earthshaker batteries.

Wyvern, Manticore, Primaris, Taurox, and ratlings MIA

What are you talking about, those units are all mentioned in the 2018 book with point costs. Off the top of my head manticore got a 20 ish point discount, taurox got a slight adjustment, and ratlings went up in price

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:

A lot of nerfed units in the 2017 chapter approved are MIA in 2018. I'm hearing that the 2017 chapter approved will effectively be shitcanned when 2018 is official so it sounds like the 2017 nerds that fall off will effectively expire.

The 2 big units I don't see are 40 point cyclops and 75 point earthshaker batteries.

Wyvern, Manticore, Primaris, Taurox, and ratlings MIA

What are you talking about, those units are all mentioned in the 2018 book with point costs. Off the top of my head manticore got a 20 ish point discount, taurox got a slight adjustment, and ratlings went up in price

I was reading off the leaked pages off Faeit 212


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And yes I'm asking if we now ignore 2017

You always use the latest material no matter what. If a unit or whatever isn't in the latest material you use the latest thing it was in.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Is the Demo russ going to become the go to command russ now?

Maybe, although I like relic russ.

Plasma sponsons are pretty nice now. 2 pts more than bolters. I guess it depends on your overall anti-horde/elite balance.

I think that all of the turrets are pretty good now (not you vanquisher). Eradicator is cheap enough that it could be worth taking a bit more.

How much are plasma sponsons now?

Ecdain wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Is the Demo russ going to become the go to command russ now?

Maybe, although I like relic russ.

Plasma sponsons are pretty nice now. 2 pts more than bolters. I guess it depends on your overall anti-horde/elite balance.

I think that all of the turrets are pretty good now (not you vanquisher). Eradicator is cheap enough that it could be worth taking a bit more.

How much are plasma sponsons now?

10 points.

By the way, do you think someone ought to tell GW that Yarrick is also a Commissar?

It's a little depressing that he seems to have been entirely excluded from both the points reduction to Commissars (after their ability was nerfed to hell) and also the general reduction to most special characters in this CA.

 vipoid wrote:
By the way, do you think someone ought to tell GW that Yarrick is also a Commissar?

It's a little depressing that he seems to have been entirely excluded from both the points reduction to Commissars (after their ability was nerfed to hell) and also the general reduction to most special characters in this CA.

He dropped 30 points.

So I'm mucking about with my 2k list, and it looks like I'll be able to fit in Pask, 3 tank commanders, 2 manticores, a shadowsword, a primaris psyker, 3 company commanders, 80 guardsmen, and 2 mortar HWS... I'm really liking this CA update now

Pask gets an Executioner with plasma sponsons + lascannon, one commander gets the same, and the other 2 commanders are in triple heavy bolter russes. I wanna stick with the heavy bolter ones so they can "screen" for the executioners, because as I learned today using defensive gunners and firing overwatch with plasma cannons is suicidal.

How have you organised your detachments? Manage to fit an Emperor's fist in there? That relic battlecannon is nice.

It's gonna be 2 battalions and a supreme command. I am not sure of the rules for the Emperor's Fist... but if it's like other ones I can just apply it to any detachment, so the Supreme Command with Pask and 3 Tank Commanders is definitely getting it, I'll make Pask a field commander (The Shadowsword should guarantee he lives at least a turn or two) and give the Relic to one of the regular russes.

 Trickstick wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
By the way, do you think someone ought to tell GW that Yarrick is also a Commissar?

It's a little depressing that he seems to have been entirely excluded from both the points reduction to Commissars (after their ability was nerfed to hell) and also the general reduction to most special characters in this CA.

He dropped 30 points.

Did he? I completely missed that.

So with the emperor's conclave, I'm now debating the necessity of a bullgryn anchor, just going instead with more pf commanders and infantry. What do you all think?

Possibly. How much coverage can you get from a single 6" trait aura? I would be worried about being out of position.

Depends on the auras wording. If it's squads within 6", you could have quite a huge blob holding the midfield.

I mean, 378 is almost 20% of 2k. That's a lot of other stuff given up for that one unkillable unit. 60 Infantry, a basilisk and a Commander

Yeah it'll probably be fine. The 6" aura is in the fight phase though, which gives additional things to think about.

I was just considering the new marine sniping stratagem. Depending on the popularity, and efficacy, it may be worth thinking about bodyguards. If you have a lynchpin warlord trait, or field command trait, it could be worth putting a few points into protecting it. Both Nork and normal bodyguards went down a bit.

Usually my answer to dead officers is to take more officers, but with the new relics and extra traits I think bodyguards may have a use.

My group has lots of terrain. I've yet to lose a character to snipers in 8th just by being careful about positioning, but it's definitely something to keep in mind.

I'm just excited that my ideal fluff army - half infantry, half tanks, might be semi-viable. Catachan brigade conclave plus emperor's fist supreme command or wrath artillery spearhead sounds too much fun

Where can I find the formation info? I've only found pts so far

The threat of snipers varies a lot depending on regiment and tactics.

Playing Cadian it's little to worry about. My officers don't move around a lot so it's easy to stay out of LOS.

Catachans have the most to worry about. The giant blob of infantry crossing the field will require their officers to cross with them and be exposed to snipers. S8 power fists are not there to camp in the back line. Straken and priests will be the 1st to go. Take a bodyguard.

Ecdain wrote:
Where can I find the formation info? I've only found pts so far

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT0eDbjQTyc&feature=youtu.be&t=1653

Hey not to clued up on how chapter approved works, are changes to forgeworld units included in it or do they have a separate update/get ignored?

ragnorack1 wrote:
Hey not to clued up on how chapter approved works, are changes to forgeworld units included in it or do they have a separate update/get ignored?

All of the current points cost changes are in, including any from last year or other sources. Basically, chapter approved 2018 will include any points change that has been made to the original source. FW stuff is in, although it seems that they haven't been changed too much. Mainly it is fixing things that were broken, such as the Artemia hellhound.

Cheers, was hoping I'd missed something and that there had been reductions on air-craft like the vendetta or FW regiments. Still can't complain with what we got, cheaper tank commanders are tasty and my dkok will enjoy cheaper plasma/ gets hot rerolls now yarrick is more reasonably priced.

Do You know if gryphonne pattern chimera will benefit from specialist detachment? And if it can benefit from mobile command vehicle stratagem?

Gnollu wrote:
Do You know if gryphonne pattern chimera will benefit from specialist detachment? And if it can benefit from mobile command vehicle stratagem?

Nope, that can't. The gryphonne pattern has a different name and keyword, so those things don't apply. Also, they didn't go down in base cost like the codex version. That sucks really.

Are Tallarn Missile Sentinels looking interesting to anyone else, or is it just me?

Sterling191 wrote:
Are Tallarn Missile Sentinels looking interesting to anyone else, or is it just me?

I can see all of the sentinels being somewhat useful, although I guess you need a mathhammer chart to work out which is best. Missile launchers are only 5 points cheaper than lascannons, but maybe that would be worth it in your list. Now that they are not the same price as the lascannon there is a reason to take them, as opposed to them being a pointless option.

Cadian Plasma Cannon Sentinels are looking pretty good to me. 40 points for a T6, 6 wound plasma cannon with a 3+ save? Nice.

With all this stuff about guard, I might actually pick up chapter approved this year...

Also it's interesting reading about how the new rules might make bodyguards far more important.

...and yay! Buffs to sentinels!

 Horst wrote:
Cadian Plasma Cannon Sentinels are looking pretty good to me. 40 points for a T6, 6 wound plasma cannon with a 3+ save? Nice.

I guess if you never plan to move them. I know you get a reroll, but overheating with a 6 wound model just seems horrible to me. So many wounds lost. Similar to how I don't overcharge officers unless the situation is dire.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Horst wrote:
Cadian Plasma Cannon Sentinels are looking pretty good to me. 40 points for a T6, 6 wound plasma cannon with a 3+ save? Nice.

I guess if you never plan to move them. I know you get a reroll, but overheating with a 6 wound model just seems horrible to me. So many wounds lost. Similar to how I don't overcharge officers unless the situation is dire.

Oh gak I didn't realize Sentinels don't have emergency vents like the Russ does.

I'm thinking of sticking with autocannon's on my sentinel's, 40 points for an autocannon platform that is T6 with a 3+ save is very appealing. Tallarn would make them very good harrassers, cadian would give a small damage output and armageddon would force a greater quantity of small arms or dedicated AT fire to remove them.

I'm still of the opinion that autocannon's hit that sweet spot of being able to actually do damage to anything you might face while not painting giant targets on the sentinels like plasma cannon's, missile launchers or lascannons.

 Horst wrote:
Oh gak I didn't realize Sentinels don't have emergency vents like the Russ does.

Well Cadian can manage it if they don't move, so if I was going to take plasma sentinels with anyone it would be them. Or maybe if you have Yarrick or some other reroll aura, you could use another regiment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gbghg wrote:
I'm thinking of sticking with autocannon's on my sentinel's, 40 points for an autocannon platform that is T6 with a 3+ save is very appealing. Tallarn would make them very good harrassers, cadian would give a small damage output and armageddon would force a greater quantity of small arms or dedicated AT fire to remove them.

I'm still of the opinion that autocannon's hit that sweet spot of being able to actually do damage to anything you might face while not painting giant targets on the sentinels like plasma cannon's, missile launchers or lascannons.

I just really hate having non-Tallarn vehicles if I ever plan to do much movement. That hitting on a 5+ is pretty horrible. I can handle it on transports, because they are doing other things, but I would be realy tempted to never move an Armageddon sentinel, for instance.

Cadian armored sentinels make sense to fill a key role: cheap fast attack tax. Personally, I'd look hard at autocannons, plasma cannons, or lascannons to try to trigger OFOF. 150pts buys you three fast attack options that can sit in cover with T6 3+ saves and try to tag Knights or other big guys for OFOF.

The other option is to just go super cheap multilaser scouts, and use them for objective grabbing, not damage.

 Polonius wrote:
Cadian armored sentinels make sense to fill a key role: cheap fast attack tax. Personally, I'd look hard at autocannons, plasma cannons, or lascannons to try to trigger OFOF. 150pts buys you three fast attack options that can sit in cover with T6 3+ saves and try to tag Knights or other big guys for OFOF.

The other option is to just go super cheap multilaser scouts, and use them for objective grabbing, not damage.

I've got Pask in an Executioner to trigger OFOF since he already hits on a 2+ and re-rolls 1's, if anything the Lascannon sentinels would fire afterwards, because 3+ to hit w/ re-rolls on 1's (cadia) would be pretty good.

 Cothonian wrote:
With all this stuff about guard, I might actually pick up chapter approved this year...

Also it's interesting reading about how the new rules might make bodyguards far more important.

...and yay! Buffs to sentinels!

Or, make vox casters more important.

So, a few thoughts on IG post CA:

It's good to be cadia/gunline. I think that while the overall drops in points weren't huge, they were targeted at things that make Cadia better. Cheaper veterans gives us a solid BS3+ lascannon platform, while cheaper armored sentinels and multiple points drops in heavy weapons allows cadia to fill out the fast attack in a brigade for peanuts. Creed is cheaper, and while still almost twice the cost of a CC, he will on average give out more orders with longer range, plus coughs up 2CP if the warlord.

Transports get a lift. If it holds IG, it got cheaper, and while I'm not sure its enough to make them ultra competitive, I think there are some interesting options for transports. Valkyries in particular got a lot cheaper, with drops in base price, the multi-laser, and both wing mounted weapons. As our most durable transport and the only native flyer, the valk does open up a took kit for both air dropping squads and charging scary units to tie them up.

Grenade Launchers are (possibly) wroth it! I've always like grenade launchers in squads, and while they still don't compete with plasma, I think they can compete with keeping the lasgun at three points.

Manticores, for some reason, got cheaper. I'll take those 10 points all the way to the bank. Also 3+ plasma guns? Neat!

Could ogryns actually be playable? I kind of like them at 3W and pretty cheap.

Quick discussion point: what amount of boys-to-toys do you take to effectively screen with? I've been working on a brigade that has ended up at 60 guardsmen + characters screening 4 russes and a hydra. Additional things include aircraft, sentinels, scions etc. I'm having concerns that my infantry numbers are pitifully low for an effective screen, and may have to bump them up to 90+ to be effective, or just go all out and make an armoured battle group instead.

So I thought I would gather opinions on how many men people take to screen their tanks, if you have any rules of thumb when building lists.

I've been running a minimum brigade (60 men) for most of 8th, and it's been pretty decent. Infantry squads are really good at two things: high volume shots, and soaking up firepower.

With the changes in deep strike, screening is both trickier and less essential. However, they are so cheap, and the CP benefits are so good, there's no reason not to run at least six.

 Trickstick wrote:
Quick discussion point: what amount of boys-to-toys do you take to effectively screen with? I've been working on a brigade that has ended up at 60 guardsmen + characters screening 4 russes and a hydra. Additional things include aircraft, sentinels, scions etc. I'm having concerns that my infantry numbers are pitifully low for an effective screen, and may have to bump them up to 90+ to be effective, or just go all out and make an armoured battle group instead.

So I thought I would gather opinions on how many men people take to screen their tanks, if you have any rules of thumb when building lists.

I've always heard 80-100 guardsmen if you want to be in the clear.

 Polonius wrote:

Grenade Launchers are (possibly) wroth it! I've always like grenade launchers in squads, and while they still don't compete with plasma, I think they can compete with keeping the lasgun at three points.

Are they worth considering on Veterans, given the increased cost of Plasmaguns on BS3+ models?

Or it is always worth it to just have Plasmaguns on the models with better BS?

Only just realized this when someone mentioned Elysian mortar squads earlier. We can still take NINE squads of mortars using Elysian and death corps variants! The Elysian and death corps versions even come with deep strike and pseudo-fearless respectively and cost cheaper.

For comp lists could run a cheap spearhead with a primaris psyker and 3 Elysian mortar squads and 3 death corps squads for just 230 pts! For 18 extra mortars. Looks like all those teams I built in early 8th will be hitting the table again

I'm very uncertain when it comes to vets.

Cheap BS3+ lascannon looks great on paper, but they will be a bullet magnet.

Krak grenades and 3 grenade launchers is good for forwars board control at 59 points, but they lose obsec.

3 plasma gunners is down 18 points to 83 points. Like the LC squad they should be a bullet magnet but they could try to stay out of LOS initially

Vets have a lot of potential to succeed or fail which makes them a well balanced unit.

I wish they kept them 6ppm and moved them to troops...but gw didnt listen

I am liking vets in a taurox. 3 gls and a ml would make for some good dakka and flexible, mobile unit.

Or we might see the return of meltavets, depending on how things shake out

Vets are still trash. Yeah, your lascannon goes from BS 4+ to BS 3+, but you're paying 25% more points for 33% more firepower on one shot and losing obsec to get it. That's not a good deal on a unit whose primary purpose is going to be sitting on an objective all game. And throwing away money on a transport just makes them worse. "Move move move" gives you more movement distance than a transport unless you're burning CP on the specialist detachment, and you can buy another unit for the cost of the transport. This is especially true for that GL squad, where you're paying a significant amount of points to haul around a unit with bad guns that doesn't even care much about getting up close.

Or, instead of taking mediocre vet squads you could just put command squads in those transports and get four melta/plasma guns vs. three disembarking with your one-shot stratagem. Or you could take deep striking storm troopers with plasma and out-gun the vets 95% of the time.

 Peregrine wrote:
Vets are still trash. Yeah, your lascannon goes from BS 4+ to BS 3+, but you're paying 25% more points for 33% more firepower on one shot and losing obsec to get it. That's not a good deal on a unit whose primary purpose is going to be sitting on an objective all game. And throwing away money on a transport just makes them worse. "Move move move" gives you more movement distance than a transport unless you're burning CP on the specialist detachment, and you can buy another unit for the cost of the transport. This is especially true for that GL squad, where you're paying a significant amount of points to haul around a unit with bad guns that doesn't even care much about getting up close.

Or, instead of taking mediocre vet squads you could just put command squads in those transports and get four melta/plasma guns vs. three disembarking with your one-shot stratagem. Or you could take deep striking storm troopers with plasma and out-gun the vets 95% of the time.

All good points.

Out of interest, how do you think Command Squads compare with Special Weapon Squads?

 Peregrine wrote:
Vets are still trash. Yeah, your lascannon goes from BS 4+ to BS 3+, but you're paying 25% more points for 33% more firepower on one shot and losing obsec to get it. That's not a good deal on a unit whose primary purpose is going to be sitting on an objective all game. And throwing away money on a transport just makes them worse. "Move move move" gives you more movement distance than a transport unless you're burning CP on the specialist detachment, and you can buy another unit for the cost of the transport. This is especially true for that GL squad, where you're paying a significant amount of points to haul around a unit with bad guns that doesn't even care much about getting up close.

Or, instead of taking mediocre vet squads you could just put command squads in those transports and get four melta/plasma guns vs. three disembarking with your one-shot stratagem. Or you could take deep striking storm troopers with plasma and out-gun the vets 95% of the time.

16.7% more in cost depending how you look at it. Squad cost rises from 60 to 70 with the lascannon.

Elysian deep strike is also nice at 51 points for 3 plasma, but it's a suicide squad and not available until turn 2.

 Polonius wrote:
So, a few thoughts on IG post CA:

It's good to be cadia/gunline. I think that while the overall drops in points weren't huge, they were targeted at things that make Cadia better. Cheaper veterans gives us a solid BS3+ lascannon platform, while cheaper armored sentinels and multiple points drops in heavy weapons allows cadia to fill out the fast attack in a brigade for peanuts.

On this point, I've been thinking a lot about sentinels now with the new price drop. They finally feel about right for the first time...ever I think. I think we're going to start seeing these a lot more, I'm pretty enamored of the armoured sentinel with the CA changes. They're not the most firepower efficient of platforms, but they're enough wounds individually to be worth turning real AT guns on, and they've got enough such that point for point they're among some of the most resilient.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
So, a few thoughts on IG post CA:

It's good to be cadia/gunline. I think that while the overall drops in points weren't huge, they were targeted at things that make Cadia better. Cheaper veterans gives us a solid BS3+ lascannon platform, while cheaper armored sentinels and multiple points drops in heavy weapons allows cadia to fill out the fast attack in a brigade for peanuts.

On this point, I've been thinking a lot about sentinels now with the new price drop. They finally feel about right for the first time...ever I think. I think we're going to start seeing these a lot more, I'm pretty enamored of the armoured sentinel with the CA changes. They're not the most firepower efficient of platforms, but they're enough wounds individually to be worth turning real AT guns on, and they've got enough such that point for point they're among some of the most resilient.

Yup. If they draw anti-tank fire then it means my russes aren't getting hit so I'm cool with it. They're tough enough that they'll require some actual anti-tank to put down, and if you ignore them while focusing on heavier targets they'll be able to at least do enough damage to make their points back over a game. I bought 3 myself just now

 Horst wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
So, a few thoughts on IG post CA:

It's good to be cadia/gunline. I think that while the overall drops in points weren't huge, they were targeted at things that make Cadia better. Cheaper veterans gives us a solid BS3+ lascannon platform, while cheaper armored sentinels and multiple points drops in heavy weapons allows cadia to fill out the fast attack in a brigade for peanuts.

On this point, I've been thinking a lot about sentinels now with the new price drop. They finally feel about right for the first time...ever I think. I think we're going to start seeing these a lot more, I'm pretty enamored of the armoured sentinel with the CA changes. They're not the most firepower efficient of platforms, but they're enough wounds individually to be worth turning real AT guns on, and they've got enough such that point for point they're among some of the most resilient.

Yup. If they draw anti-tank fire then it means my russes aren't getting hit so I'm cool with it. They're tough enough that they'll require some actual anti-tank to put down, and if you ignore them while focusing on heavier targets they'll be able to at least do enough damage to make their points back over a game. I bought 3 myself just now

At 45 points with a multi laser they will be ignored and Russ tanks will get shot.

At 50 points with a plasma cannon it's a tough choice where to put the dakka but most players will lean towards the Russ tanks especially if they are tank commanders.

LC ones will be even more likely to draw fire, but not if there is a relic weapon tank commander.

IMO sentinels can easily present a target priority dilemma, unless they have a multi laser or HB then they will be ignored.

 schadenfreude wrote:
At 45 points with a multi laser they will be ignored and Russ tanks will get shot.

At 50 points with a plasma cannon it's a tough choice where to put the dakka but most players will lean towards the Russ tanks especially if they are tank commanders.

LC ones will be even more likely to draw fire, but not if there is a relic weapon tank commander.

IMO sentinels can easily present a target priority dilemma, unless they have a multi laser or HB then they will be ignored.

35 and 40pts for multilaser and plasma, respectively. Basically there is little reason to not bring a brigade now, unless you are doing some sort of armour only or dual doctrine force. Sentinels used to be a brigade tax, now they are cheap enough to be a worthwhile take. I like lascannons myself, although I think that autocannons are interesting. Plasma is a huge risk without emergency vents, so I would only take them on Cadians with their rerolls.

 Trickstick wrote:
Basically there is little reason to not bring a brigade now, unless you are doing some sort of armour only or dual doctrine force.

Or if you're worried about kill points, and don't want to give up even more easy ones. Or if you want to go first. Adding +3 units in the form of fragile and poorly-armed Sentinels is not always a great idea.

Armoured sentinels are a lot more tough than they are killy. Any good tactics we can use to force the opponent to deal with them before turning their attention to squishier (point for point) basilisk and tank commanders?

 DoomMouse wrote:
Armoured sentinels are a lot more tough than they are killy. Any good tactics we can use to force the opponent to deal with them before turning their attention to squishier (point for point) basilisk and tank commanders?

"Hope my opponent is poorly skilled and doesn't understand target priority". Though if you have that strategy working you're probably winning anyway no matter what you do.

 Peregrine wrote:

 DoomMouse wrote:
Armoured sentinels are a lot more tough than they are killy. Any good tactics we can use to force the opponent to deal with them before turning their attention to squishier (point for point) basilisk and tank commanders?

"Hope my opponent is poorly skilled and doesn't understand target priority". Though if you have that strategy working you're probably winning anyway no matter what you do.

Well they work as a screening unit.

 Trickstick wrote:
Well they work as a screening unit.

I'm not sold. Smaller footprint than infantry squads, and no particular abilities that benefit screening beyond what any generic model is capable of.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:
Well they work as a screening unit.

I'm not sold. Smaller footprint than infantry squads, and no particular abilities that benefit screening beyond what any generic model is capable of.

Harder to remove than an infantry squad, unless you fire proper AT guns at them. Those are guns that should be firing at tanks, so that helps. They are effectively a 9" anti-deepstrike aura, and can gain cover fairly easily. When comparing them to infantry squads, they are a very similar cost. However, unlike infantry, they stay at 100% effectiveness until completely dead. Then you have possible brigade CP gains on top. Sometimes the smaller footprint can be beneficial, such as when you want to hide. They are slightly faster than infantry too, although only Tallarn can really take advantage of this.

They have some decent advantages, and with a 10-20% price drop are definitely worth considering.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:
Well they work as a screening unit.

I'm not sold. Smaller footprint than infantry squads, and no particular abilities that benefit screening beyond what any generic model is capable of.

Can't help but agree with this, I really want to like them, but a tough unit that's easily locked up and surrounded can be as much a liability as a benefit. Particularly when they aren't going to contest objectives against infantry. But they want to be on the front line to draw fire and screen for your tanks, - so they're a bit of a random unit.

I really like durable units, so want to find a use for these guys but not seeing it at the moment aside from being a cheap brigade FA filler.

Heavy flamer scout senitnels are only 44 (?) points. They can absolutely be useful in a lot of situations. They can be harassing back field by turn 2, if they are ignored. They can hide out of LoS very easily.

This is in addition to filling out your brigade.

 Horst wrote:
Cadian Plasma Cannon Sentinels are looking pretty good to me. 40 points for a T6, 6 wound plasma cannon with a 3+ save? Nice.

Have it blow up on Turn one and you'll change your mind.

Resipsa131 wrote:

 Horst wrote:
Cadian Plasma Cannon Sentinels are looking pretty good to me. 40 points for a T6, 6 wound plasma cannon with a 3+ save? Nice.

Have it blow up on Turn one and you'll change your mind.

They're re-rolling ones to hit though, so the chance to blow up is 1/36.... That is an acceptable margin of risk to me on a 40 point model.

Reading Overlapping Fields of Fire rule though, and I'm curious now. It says it adds +1 to hit.... so does that mean I can never roll a 1 when firing on a target I used that stratagem on? Or does the "1 always fails" rule come into play here?

 Horst wrote:


Reading Overlapping Fields of Fire rule though, and I'm curious now. It says it adds +1 to hit.... so does that mean I can never roll a 1 when firing on a target I used that stratagem on? Or does the "1 always fails" rule come into play here?

A roll of 1 always fails, but since the end result of the roll with the modifier would be a 2 it wouldnt explode.

 Horst wrote:
They're re-rolling ones to hit though, so the chance to blow up is 1/36.... That is an acceptable margin of risk to me on a 40 point model.

Per shot, which increases the risk. Of course, you should only overcharge when needed. No point in doing it against everything.

 DoomMouse wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:
Well they work as a screening unit.

I'm not sold. Smaller footprint than infantry squads, and no particular abilities that benefit screening beyond what any generic model is capable of.

Can't help but agree with this, I really want to like them, but a tough unit that's easily locked up and surrounded can be as much a liability as a benefit. Particularly when they aren't going to contest objectives against infantry. But they want to be on the front line to draw fire and screen for your tanks, - so they're a bit of a random unit.

I really like durable units, so want to find a use for these guys but not seeing it at the moment aside from being a cheap brigade FA filler.

They could make good cyclops bait.

30 boys with a jump could charge one to tie it up and stay safe in CC.

Roll up a cyclops and bow up your own sentinel plus some boys. Any survivors will no longer be in CC.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Horst wrote:
They're re-rolling ones to hit though, so the chance to blow up is 1/36.... That is an acceptable margin of risk to me on a 40 point model.

Per shot, which increases the risk. Of course, you should only overcharge when needed. No point in doing it against everything.

Apparently since Overlapping Fields of Fire adds +1 to hit, you can never roll a 1, since the minimum you can actually role is 1+1, so the play with Cadian Plasma Cannon Sentinels would be to simply fire at something big and nasty with a Tank Commander, wound it, use Overlapping Fields of Fire, and have all the sentinels unload on it with plasma cannons, re-rolling 1's, hitting on 3+, and no risk of overheating. Sounds nice.

I think the key to making Sentinels work will be taking decent sized units of them. A unit of 3 with plasma cannons is 120pts. While not stellar firepower for that investment, its not awful either. Set them up out front, make them a tempting target that an opponent will want to or have to remove (either because of the PC's or because they want to move through where the sentinels are) and wait for them to chew through 18 wounds worth of Sentinel while hiding your other T6/7 vehicles that only have 10 or 11 wounds and degrade but hit harder.


Doing some theorycrafting, in a 2k brigade you could fit sixty infantry, some characters, ten chimera-hulled tanks, and nine sentinels. That sounds aweseome.

When they were still over costed, I would rock 2 or 3 lascannon armored sentinels in my Catachan army. I would keep 1xTC and a leman russ in the rear with some infantry and Harker. The armored sentinels helped push out deep strikers and managed to soak up a tremendous amount of firepower. T6 with 3+ armor is nearly immune to trivial amounts of firepower. Honestly, if they ever hit with their lascannons they were MVPs.

What does everyone think of the Banesword, now that the gap between it and the Shadowsword has risen to 40 pts with Chapter Approved? Still garbage?

EDIT:
Not in the context of killing other LOWs. The Shadowsword is still the fantastic-est even at 410. I just mean in the context of "regular" 40k, where it may be compelled to deal with other heavies but also has other targets like Defilers, etc.

The Banesword gets ~3.5 hits per turn, wounding vehicles on a 3+, so 2.31 wounds, each doing ~4.5 damage (estimating), so 10.395 damage. So it will seriously damage but not kill many main battle tanks.

The Shadowsword averages 6 shots, or 3 hits, 2 wounds, each doing ~7 damage, for 14 damage. So on average it should kill most main battle tanks.

The Shadowsword then does 34% more damage for 10.8% more cost. I'd still stick with the Shadowsword, because it has additional rules and utility vs superheavies.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
What does everyone think of the Banesword, now that the gap between it and the Shadowsword has risen to 40 pts with Chapter Approved? Still garbage?

I just don't know, it's difficult. I quite like the Banesword for its 3d6 shots, which would make it better at killing heavy infantry. I really want to like the Stormsword, as it used to be my go-to tank. That 10" blast marker was hilarious to use. However, for some reason it went to 2d6 this edition. It just doesn't make sense. If it was 4d6, which you would think a 10" blast would have been, I would take it much more.

The only other alternative is the Banehammer. You get the what is effectively a 3d6 relic battlecannon which halves movement. Add to that a 25 transport capacity and 10 shot firing deck and it is probably the best of the transport versions. 8 Bullgryn and a Priest, or 7 and a host of other characters, is a pretty strong counter charge unit.

 DoomMouse wrote:
Armoured sentinels are a lot more tough than they are killy. Any good tactics we can use to force the opponent to deal with them before turning their attention to squishier (point for point) basilisk and tank commanders?

They're absurdly tough, but they aren't that bad at killing things. If the enemy doesn't want to fight them then you're still pumping out autocannons or lascannons that will seriously threaten vehicles in bulk.

novembermike wrote:

 DoomMouse wrote:
Armoured sentinels are a lot more tough than they are killy. Any good tactics we can use to force the opponent to deal with them before turning their attention to squishier (point for point) basilisk and tank commanders?

They're absurdly tough, but they aren't that bad at killing things. If the enemy doesn't want to fight them then you're still pumping out autocannons or lascannons that will seriously threaten vehicles in bulk.

they also make great hostages for enemy assualt units to declare a multi charge on, kill a unit of infantry and then consolidate around the Sentinel ensuring they can’t get shot in your shooting phase Then they kill the Sentinel in your fight phase and charge something else.

Resipsa131 wrote:
they also make great hostages for enemy assualt units to declare a multi charge on, kill a unit of infantry and then consolidate around the Sentinel ensuring they can’t get shot in your shooting phase Then they kill the Sentinel in your fight phase and charge something else.

Uh.... can't you just fall back with the sentinel and then shoot at the enemy? Sure, the sentinel can't fire, but oh well.

I think the main value in Armored Sentinels will be to sit on either side of my flank, ~8" out from my tanks, to push deepstrikers out. I can put an infantry screen directly in front of the tanks, and not have to worry about wasting infantry on the flanks, because I need them on the frontlines. The sentinels have the range to fire at least somewhat effectively from sitting far back, so I think they'll act as anti-deep strike pickets pretty well.

 Horst wrote:
Uh.... can't you just fall back with the sentinel and then shoot at the enemy? Sure, the sentinel can't fire, but oh well.

"Taking a hostage" describes the practice of surrounding a model in combat, so that it is unable to fall back. That keeps you safe in the enemy's shooting phase. It is definitely a risk with sentinels, but is possible to play around. For example, you use them more to guard flanks from deepstrike, rather than against melee pushes.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Horst wrote:
Uh.... can't you just fall back with the sentinel and then shoot at the enemy? Sure, the sentinel can't fire, but oh well.

"Taking a hostage" describes the practice of surrounding a model in combat, so that it is unable to fall back. That keeps you safe in the enemy's shooting phase. It is definitely a risk with sentinels, but is possible to play around. For example, you use them more to guard flanks from deepstrike, rather than against melee pushes.

OK, so exactly how I was gonna use them anyway

The Guardsman are my front line, the sentinels are just there to hold the flanks against deepstrikers.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Horst wrote:
Uh.... can't you just fall back with the sentinel and then shoot at the enemy? Sure, the sentinel can't fire, but oh well.

"Taking a hostage" describes the practice of surrounding a model in combat, so that it is unable to fall back. That keeps you safe in the enemy's shooting phase. It is definitely a risk with sentinels, but is possible to play around. For example, you use them more to guard flanks from deepstrike, rather than against melee pushes.

Yeah, it's definitely a real thing but if it happens a lot with a 48" range 8" move model then it might be time to examine your decision making.

I'd argue against using sentinels to tank fire for Russe's. For the investment of a few sentinels you're most of the way to another LRBT which does more for you in the long run

novembermike wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

 Horst wrote:
Uh.... can't you just fall back with the sentinel and then shoot at the enemy? Sure, the sentinel can't fire, but oh well.

"Taking a hostage" describes the practice of surrounding a model in combat, so that it is unable to fall back. That keeps you safe in the enemy's shooting phase. It is definitely a risk with sentinels, but is possible to play around. For example, you use them more to guard flanks from deepstrike, rather than against melee pushes.

Yeah, it's definitely a real thing but if it happens a lot with a 48" range 8" move model then it might be time to examine your decision making.

Problem is that if they're just hovering at the back, they'll be last on the target priority list and just ignored all game. Around 10 autocannon hits or 4 lascannon hits for 400pts is pretty bad value firepower. Their strong toughness will not matter if the opponent doesn't have to deal with them. Not saying they're bad at all, but I'd struggle to justify picking them as for support over, say, basilisks, manticores or tank commanders.

 DoomMouse wrote:

novembermike wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

 Horst wrote:
Uh.... can't you just fall back with the sentinel and then shoot at the enemy? Sure, the sentinel can't fire, but oh well.

"Taking a hostage" describes the practice of surrounding a model in combat, so that it is unable to fall back. That keeps you safe in the enemy's shooting phase. It is definitely a risk with sentinels, but is possible to play around. For example, you use them more to guard flanks from deepstrike, rather than against melee pushes.

Yeah, it's definitely a real thing but if it happens a lot with a 48" range 8" move model then it might be time to examine your decision making.

Problem is that if they're just hovering at the back, they'll be last on the target priority list and just ignored all game. Around 10 autocannon hits or 4 lascannon hits for 400pts is pretty bad value firepower. Their strong toughness will not matter if the opponent doesn't have to deal with them. Not saying they're bad at all, but I'd struggle to justify picking them as for support over, say, basilisks, manticores or tank commanders.

3 sentinels is comparable in cost to a basilisk, So ~15 autocannon hits (6 shots per sentinel, 5 turns, 50% hit rate) vs ~10 Basilisk hits (~4 shots per turn, 5 turns, 50% hit rate). Its not THAT much worse firepower wise, and the sentinels are far more durable for receiving shots, and can spread out and claim objectives. Also consider that they are a required choice if doing a Brigade, so you also really get +2 CP by picking it, so I think they're a pretty legit choice.

Also consider that if you're cadian and not moving you can take Plasma Cannons instead, which are more or less as good as Basilisk shots when overcharged, and they just have more firepower by any reasonable measure than a Basilisk.

They also look really cool.

Yeah - also 3 HKM give them some burst damage.

 DoomMouse wrote:


Problem is that if they're just hovering at the back, they'll be last on the target priority list and just ignored all game. Around 10 autocannon hits or 4 lascannon hits for 400pts is pretty bad value firepower. Their strong toughness will not matter if the opponent doesn't have to deal with them. Not saying they're bad at all, but I'd struggle to justify picking them as for support over, say, basilisks, manticores or tank commanders.

It's a little closer to 10.5 autocannon hits for 360 points, assuming they're Cadian and standing still. That's about what Helverins get, although admittedly the Helverin gets an extra point of damage per hit and can fire on the move. The point is less that you get super good shooting though, it's more that you have a bunch of moderately efficient heavy firepower that nobody in their right mind wants to shoot at. A tank commander is a pinata, the enemy has a lot of fun when they shoot it. It's efficient but you can't rely on it being there the second or third turn. Sentinels are a lot less fun to attack.

novembermike wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

 Horst wrote:
Uh.... can't you just fall back with the sentinel and then shoot at the enemy? Sure, the sentinel can't fire, but oh well.

"Taking a hostage" describes the practice of surrounding a model in combat, so that it is unable to fall back. That keeps you safe in the enemy's shooting phase. It is definitely a risk with sentinels, but is possible to play around. For example, you use them more to guard flanks from deepstrike, rather than against melee pushes.

Yeah, it's definitely a real thing but if it happens a lot with a 48" range 8" move model then it might be time to examine your decision making.

48 inches seems like a lot until Kraken genestealers double advance for a 20 inch move, then move again 20 inches with the hive commander ability and then charge because they can advance and charge an average of 8 inches and then pilein 3 inches and consolidate to wrap up your Sentinel for a total of 54inches of moment. Then you can’t shoot them unless you’re Valhallan (which in that case flame on)