But you do bring them back too full strength. You simply can’t place them all on the table and there for 39 of them dies.
It’s the same if disembarking from a vehicle, if you can’t place your models within 3” of the vehicle and more then 1” from an enemy model your model(s) dies.
Well, disembarking explains that. I took it to mean that if you can't place all the models you can't place the unit. I don't have codex in front of me.
Well that’s true.
It does say full starting strength and nothing about if you can’t place them all...
so RAI it might be only used for friendly cultists but RAW allows enemy cultists too and must be full starting strength...
I love how this ‘bend RAW to absolute breaking point’ rabbit hole has now ended up in minutiae of how this ‘RAW compliant’ pilfering of enemy models would actually work under RAW
Now that the AL stratagem has been nerfed into the ground, what are the thoughts on the best army to run cultists with?
Death Guard would seem to be a strong contender, as they get 18" range on their rapid fire autoguns.
AL still gets the -1 to hit outside of 12", but as cultists need to be within 12" to do anything that leaves them as backfield cannon fodder (which is still a valid use). Being unable to send a 40-man blob into the enemy lines anymore hurts them though.
Tide of Traitors is still good for the 40-man blob, but they might be better off with... hmm, actually word bearers might be stronger than AL now for them. Black Legion too, with the ability to advance and still shoot. Or World Eaters / Renegades if you plan to give them CCW's and charge into melee tarpits.
Lots of options now, which is one good side of losing the infiltrate I guess. Unfortunately instead of making bad options better to create balance, GW decided to make the only good option worse. But thats GW for you I guess!
I still think DG with the 18" rapid fire is pretty strong for them though. And as we just discussed with the quirky wording on the Tide of Traitors stratagem, as long as you unlock the CSM stratagems you can still Tide your cultists!
Keep running them as Alpha Legion. Deploy them on the front line, and pop the strat on them. Best deploy them in easy reach of cover in case you end up going second. If you do go second, move them into cover if possible or out of LOS. If you go first, use the strat to move them up, then do their normal move, then have a Sorcerer cast Warptime on them. You'll still end up in the enemy's grill like before. It's not quite as powerful as it used to be, but can still have uses. I wouldn't do more than 1 unit anymore though, as only 1 gets Warptime per turn.
Eldenfirefly wrote: Tried a sort of anti castellan list and it worked out alot better than I expected. But opponent wasn't expecting it.
Spoiler:
It had :
Abbadon
Jump pack sorceror with wraptime and death hex
3 units of 8 Havocs, 4 lascannons each unit.
3 units of 10 CSM, 2 lascannons and champion combi bolter each unit,
2 units of single Chaos Spawn
1 Auxilliary support detachment of 20 bloodletter with banner, etc.
I was playing against an IG brigade (for mass cp), with blood angels batallion of smash captain, Melfieston, and a IK house Raven Castellan with Cawl's wath and bulkwark for the 4++, upgradable to 3+++
Basically, he didn't expect a certain combo. I got first turn, my sorceror was deployed really far forward. 1st turn, he jump packed move advanced 16 inches, then he warptimed himself for another 12 inches. After that he was within 12 inch range of the enemy castellan. Cast death hex successfully, failed ot deny. So, the invulnerable on his Castellan went poof.
After that, the massed lascannons took the Castellan down to 1 wound. A few lascannons were out of range, and these took out two of his sentinels and one of his heavy support lascannon teams.
On his turn, he used a ton of cps, got his castellan to top tier, activated order of campanions and fired everything at one of my havocs squad. He also fired his siege missile at my Abaddon, but only took two wounds off (cos of Abaddon's special rule). He killed just 5 Havocs with his full salvo, which means that I still had 3 lascannons intact in that squad plus Abaddon made sure it didnt run. His mephiston and flying smash captain charged into my army first turn and killed some CSM, but zero lascannons. He also killed my sorceror (expected).
2nd turn, my massed lascannons finished off his Castellan, his mephiston and his smash captain and that was more of less it. (I forgot about my blood letter bomb and it didn't even need to come in before we called it).
This all infantry list negates one of the Castellan's biggest advantages. There are zero vehicles or titanic units for it to kill with its volcano lance. And there are alot of abalative wounds to get through before you finally reach the lascannon guys. It also has 18 lascannon shots, and with Cacophony, it can have 22 shots per turn. Plus the flying sorceror combo to remove invul shields.
Even if it goes second, it can deploy defensive prepared positions for army wide +1 cover. Now, I know I was lucky enough to get the sorceror's warp time and death hex off and his castellan was in range. But even trading heavy shots, this army has a better chance than other shooty CSM armies I can think of going up against a Castellan. It has some disadvantages of course. Its very stationary other than the blood letter bomb. But it can dish out a lot of hurt.
Just sharing.
Awesome list, very similar to the Black Legion gunline I play. A few points to consider about optimization:
1) You may want to consider swapping havocs for laspreds for the mobility. I know high damage weapons are a problem, but - the Predator's higher toughness means fewer shots get thru. It's usually worth it.
2) You may wish to get some Cultists to screen your firebase. It's very important to keep the units with the lascannons out of combat. If you can screen the whole army with Cultists, you can ensure your opponent doesn't have a way to charge them until turn 3 - at the earliest.
3) You may want to consider getting another beatstick unit. If you are shooting with lascannons, how often can you actually use deathhex? Replace the Sorcerer with a Daemon Prince with wings to jump out of your lines when something gets close.
Now that the AL stratagem has been nerfed into the ground, what are the thoughts on the best army to run cultists with?
Black Legion. Advance and shoot means a lot with 40-man Cultist units. Like you said, they want to be up close.
Before they nerfed ToT, I would sometimes play a Black Legion list with 3 40-man squads. I'd advance them, shoot something up, let my opponent whittle down one unit, then restore it to full strength deep inside his deployment zone to march on an objective. Then do that again each turn until the game ended.
@Niiru Word Bearers, gods bless them, don't help THAT much. ATSKNF isn't so great it's worth investing in. It's better than nothing but I've actually been hurt by rerolling into a higher #. And WB don't have any special characters to gimmick with them.
That's one reason I'm trying a train to Skarbrand.
The Faithless with Lord Akros would be fun.
BL with Abaddon is still a real threat.
Worth noting that AL strat gives a Cultist blob with flamers a minimum threat range of 24”, if you roll 2+ on an Advance that’s a first turn 4D6 on a forwards screen and a really annoying prospect for melee armies
As for best Legion to take them with... I main Word Bearers and I hesitate to jump up and say we’ve got this. World Eaters getting +1A looks better. Death Guard getting to roll twice for advance - or double tap at 18” - looks better. Black Legion firing autoguns on the hoof looks better. Night Lords dropping a massive blob of -1Ld in the backfield looks situationally better than a rough average of losing one fewer to morale. I’m even looking at Iron Warriors and musing on all the times I’ve had bullets bounce off MSU marines in cover.
If there’s anything WB Cultists can shine at, it’s being able to hear a Dark Apostle from farther away when he’s the Warlord. But even that’s marginal when anyone can just conga line.
I always struggled running more than 1 blob of x40 cultists that are not black legion, if you lost 10 models per blob suddenly morale is crushing no matter what you roll almost. And cultists do nothing but die pretty much. Furthermore you are mentally committing to maybe a minimum of 2(?) turns of morale immunity strat to enable a Tide of traitors drop and to keep from losing models to morale. I am more or less on the black legion hype train where you can turn the rapid guns into assault and furthermore make the morale immune and rerolling all hits. Add an exalted champ on the cheap for all wound rolls (in melee). Also the bonus 2 CP helps pay for tide etc.
orkswubwub wrote: I always struggled running more than 1 blob of x40 cultists that are not black legion, if you lost 10 models per blob suddenly morale is crushing no matter what you roll almost. And cultists do nothing but die pretty much. Furthermore you are mentally committing to maybe a minimum of 2(?) turns of morale immunity strat to enable a Tide of traitors drop and to keep from losing models to morale. I am more or less on the black legion hype train where you can turn the rapid guns into assault and furthermore make the morale immune and rerolling all hits. Add an exalted champ on the cheap for all wound rolls (in melee). Also the bonus 2 CP helps pay for tide etc.
Morale immunity is one of the perks, yes, but that means they always need to be near Abaddon.
Dunno if it's just me, but large BL Cultist squads play weird. When I have 3x 40x Cultists on the table, about a fifth of them are always away from the fight, conga lined back to Abaddon. When they get a bad charge roll, I usually find it's better to move most of the models away from the target (so as to tie up other units with the pile in.) Because you have so many bodies, charges are more about wrapping up opponents instead of just beating them over the heads.
There's nothing bad about this. It's just very different from how I would play them as World Eaters, for example.
orkswubwub wrote: I always struggled running more than 1 blob of x40 cultists that are not black legion, if you lost 10 models per blob suddenly morale is crushing no matter what you roll almost. And cultists do nothing but die pretty much. Furthermore you are mentally committing to maybe a minimum of 2(?) turns of morale immunity strat to enable a Tide of traitors drop and to keep from losing models to morale. I am more or less on the black legion hype train where you can turn the rapid guns into assault and furthermore make the morale immune and rerolling all hits. Add an exalted champ on the cheap for all wound rolls (in melee). Also the bonus 2 CP helps pay for tide etc.
Morale immunity is one of the perks, yes, but that means they always need to be near Abaddon.
Dunno if it's just me, but large BL Cultist squads play weird. When I have 3x 40x Cultists on the table, about a fifth of them are always away from the fight, conga lined back to Abaddon. When they get a bad charge roll, I usually find it's better to move most of the models away from the target (so as to tie up other units with the pile in.) Because you have so many bodies, charges are more about wrapping up opponents instead of just beating them over the heads.
There's nothing bad about this. It's just very different from how I would play them as World Eaters, for example.
In my experience, cultists are better off just going 40 autoguns with Abbadon.
orkswubwub wrote: I always struggled running more than 1 blob of x40 cultists that are not black legion, if you lost 10 models per blob suddenly morale is crushing no matter what you roll almost. And cultists do nothing but die pretty much. Furthermore you are mentally committing to maybe a minimum of 2(?) turns of morale immunity strat to enable a Tide of traitors drop and to keep from losing models to morale. I am more or less on the black legion hype train where you can turn the rapid guns into assault and furthermore make the morale immune and rerolling all hits. Add an exalted champ on the cheap for all wound rolls (in melee). Also the bonus 2 CP helps pay for tide etc.
Morale immunity is one of the perks, yes, but that means they always need to be near Abaddon.
Dunno if it's just me, but large BL Cultist squads play weird. When I have 3x 40x Cultists on the table, about a fifth of them are always away from the fight, conga lined back to Abaddon. When they get a bad charge roll, I usually find it's better to move most of the models away from the target (so as to tie up other units with the pile in.) Because you have so many bodies, charges are more about wrapping up opponents instead of just beating them over the heads.
There's nothing bad about this. It's just very different from how I would play them as World Eaters, for example.
Don't forget Iron Warriors can get near the same effect.
However, from my more optimized list I'm all about Abigail teleporting in with Infiltrated Cultists. They'll still get the Fearless and they'll be blocking everything. The Errata stopped that being immediately effective but I think it's still valid.
Iron Warriors vs Black Legion seems to be a pretty close run thing on the morale front. But if you run MSU cultists, Death Guard are probably the better option (maybe).
My list was in need of some MW dealers, so I thought two plaguecasters would fit that role. The cheapest way to add them to my list was an Outrider Detatchment filled with the Gellerpox fast attack vermin...
Now I got the Gellerpox half that I ordered online and what do I see???
Their "Nurgle" Keyword isnt one of the "Faction Kewords"
Does this mean the Gellerpox models can only be fielded with themselves, and not as part of a soup???
Seems like I wasted a bunch of money on models I am not going to use
My list was in need of some MW dealers, so I thought two plaguecasters would fit that role. The cheapest way to add them to my list was an Outrider Detatchment filled with the Gellerpox fast attack vermin...
Now I got the Gellerpox half that I ordered online and what do I see???
Their "Nurgle" Keyword isnt one of the "Faction Kewords"
Does this mean the Gellerpox models can only be fielded with themselves, and not as part of a soup???
Seems like I wasted a bunch of money on models I am not going to use
At least painting them will be fun
It does appear that they can only be fielded in a detachment of their own, and not mixed with other chaos units.
The rogue traders have the same keywords (imperium + starstriders) so they would appear to be in the same situation.
Warhammer Community said the two Rogue Trader teams can only be fielded as-is in their own specific unique detachments, did you get the full GPI mini-Codex in your order? I’d expect that’s where it’d be found
I'm just curious to hear if the GPI are any good, by themselves or otherwise. The models are great, but if the 40k rules for them are cabbage, it'll be a hard pass for me. Same with the Elucidian Starstriders.
ZergSmasher wrote: I'm just curious to hear if the GPI are any good, by themselves or otherwise. The models are great, but if the 40k rules for them are cabbage, it'll be a hard pass for me. Same with the Elucidian Starstriders.
Hard to say without someone doing a bunch of mathammering, but it seems they're not really worth it competitively.
They use up a detachment, and don't give you any CP for it.
They have little to no synergy with any army list, even a nurgle one.
I mean, if you look closely (and this surprised me when I noticed it), none of them are actually Daemons. So you can't even give them +1S from auras, or target them with psychic powers. (Actually the Glitchlings are daemons, but none of the rest are).
ZergSmasher wrote: I'm just curious to hear if the GPI are any good, by themselves or otherwise. The models are great, but if the 40k rules for them are cabbage, it'll be a hard pass for me. Same with the Elucidian Starstriders.
Hard to say without someone doing a bunch of mathammering, but it seems they're not really worth it competitively.
They use up a detachment, and don't give you any CP for it.
They have little to no synergy with any army list, even a nurgle one.
I mean, if you look closely (and this surprised me when I noticed it), none of them are actually Daemons. So you can't even give them +1S from auras, or target them with psychic powers. (Actually the Glitchlings are daemons, but none of the rest are).
Not even any unique abilities/stratagems/weapons to make up for it, huh? That's a damn shame. Guess I'll have to pass on the Rogue Trader box, unless I just decide I really want the models.
ZergSmasher wrote: I'm just curious to hear if the GPI are any good, by themselves or otherwise. The models are great, but if the 40k rules for them are cabbage, it'll be a hard pass for me. Same with the Elucidian Starstriders.
Hard to say without someone doing a bunch of mathammering, but it seems they're not really worth it competitively.
They use up a detachment, and don't give you any CP for it.
They have little to no synergy with any army list, even a nurgle one.
I mean, if you look closely (and this surprised me when I noticed it), none of them are actually Daemons. So you can't even give them +1S from auras, or target them with psychic powers. (Actually the Glitchlings are daemons, but none of the rest are).
Not even any unique abilities/stratagems/weapons to make up for it, huh? That's a damn shame. Guess I'll have to pass on the Rogue Trader box, unless I just decide I really want the models.
You could always do what I would do (if I liked the nurgle aesthetic), which is get them and run them as something else. Glitchlings and Grubs would make some cool nurgling bases, Vulgrar would work as a daemon prince, the others would work as things like nurgle beasts or plaguewalkers. The Hullbreakers would make some cool Mutilators.
I'm considering getting the Starstrider box set for that reason, using them as my cultist leaders and maybe some R&H units, things like that.
What are people doing with Gnarlmaws, these days? The fact that one of them takes up a whole detachment slot is cramping my attempts to build a list with them. I’m trying to squeeze in Warptime, a detachment of Daemons, and Possessed. Wanted the Possessed to be DG so I can have solid DPs (stop it, Slaanesh) and buff the Possessed right up. All workable in friendlies, but it’d have to be over 2K to work as is in a competitive...
...here, can we still summon on T1? If I could pray Epidemius into existence, that’d be something. But I’ve got a horrible feeling that our weakest gambit has now been stamped so far below viability, it’s not even allowed any more...
Didn't realize gnarlmaws took up a whole detachment slot. That doesn't seem great. I painted one up a few weeks ago and it looks fantastic and have been itching to field it.
Seems like the best use is to deep strike it midfield and then use it to advance and charge nurglings/plaguebearers into enemy lines. Good for some midfield area denial and also an amazing spot to teleport Nurgle obliterators, which would still keep a 2+ sv against AP -2 and 3+ save against AP -3 when near a gnarlmaw.
Not even any unique abilities/stratagems/weapons to make up for it, huh? That's a damn shame. Guess I'll have to pass on the Rogue Trader box, unless I just decide I really want the models.
Well the gellerpox guys come with a set of actually interesting stratagems (interesting doesn't mean strong). Furthermore you unlock them by using the thricecursed as your HQ, and not by the usual detatchment way. Sadly this is pointless at the moment, since they cant be mixed with other chaos units.
Also the trice cursed can give you 3 CP that can only be spend on gellerpox stratagems.
I'm just curious to hear if the GPI are any good, by themselves or otherwise. The models are great, but if the 40k rules for them are cabbage, it'll be a hard pass for me. Same with the Elucidian Starstriders
I haven't fielded mine yet, but at least on paper they look REALLY interesting.
The gellerpox are the cheapest units chaos has to offer so far. A lot of the models only cost 3 points, while having a trait that boosts durability like DR or -1 to hit.
The fly swarm looks like it can actually do well, especially taken its super low cost into account. They are fast enough to get into range in time, cheap enough for a distraction gimmick and thanks to their regeneration need to be fully cleared off the table.
I just wish they would make 'nurgle' a faction keyword...
barboggo wrote: Didn't realize gnarlmaws took up a whole detachment slot. That doesn't seem great. I painted one up a few weeks ago and it looks fantastic and have been itching to field it.
Seems like the best use is to deep strike it midfield and then use it to advance and charge nurglings/plaguebearers into enemy lines. Good for some midfield area denial and also an amazing spot to teleport Nurgle obliterators, which would still keep a 2+ sv against AP -2 and 3+ save against AP -3 when near a gnarlmaw.
Hmm. Nurglings don’t really need the help to make contact. The movement rules only apply to units that are within range of the Gnarlmaw at the *start of their turn*, and Horty can only sow them at the end of his movement. It’s not explicitly clear to me if he can do that on the first turn (it doesn’t *say* they’re reinforcements). He *can* drop it 1.1” away from enemies, but none of this is going to enable my advance-Warptime-advance-charge on T1.
Oblits definitely like it, but I’m not sure about bringing them on T2 and investing in Horty instead of deploying them in front of a FG with a 0+ save (yes, I know 1’s always fail, guys) and walking forwards to shoot, and having almost enough pts for a second squad of Oblits.
Honestly, I think the best thing about Horty is dropping FG’s on an objective and swarming it with Plaguebearers and PBC’s. That does avoid using a fortifications network, which in turn means that some CSM Oblits could also come along for the ride. Though this is a very different list to the T1 rushdown I’m musing.
Latro_ wrote: Ok since its all one big 'chaos' faction party was thinking of a thread to discuss chaos now the the nurglings are out of the bag re rules. (not sure there is another thread like this right?)
First thing to kick it off what do we think is a good way to run Chaos space marines daemon princes?
I'v been pondering and, the sword and the axe are a fortune, you might as well scrap em pay the 10pts for maleific talons... boom 7 attacks s7 -2 dm2.
Hear me out, not even bother with wings and make it a 'choose a god except khorne' for psychics
Still has a 8" move, unlike the daemons daemon prince is wounds 8 so can be hidden... keep him near your guys to re-roll 1's and buff units with prescience, also acts as a solid deny the witch on your lines and act as a counter assault unit if anything gets close.
all for 156pts
Not buying the wings is literally the worst piece of advice I've read on this forum. Like, ever. And I remember when someone said that Imperial Guard have a melee deathstar and claimed it was effective.
Friend, the post you’re quoting is from 191 pages ago and predates multiple publications and FAQs that make the information it was based on long out of date.
lindsay40k wrote: Friend, the post you’re quoting is from 191 pages ago and predates multiple publications and FAQs that make the information it was based on long out of date.
lindsay40k wrote: Friend, the post you’re quoting is from 191 pages ago and predates multiple publications and FAQs that make the information it was based on long out of date.
lindsay40k wrote: Friend, the post you’re quoting is from 191 pages ago and predates multiple publications and FAQs that make the information it was based on long out of date.
We're STILL on page 191.
Not sure if joke, but he did say '191 pages ago', because that post was the very first post in this thread. Very, very old. Necro at its finest.
And the reply was stupid too, as there are occasionally reasons to save points on a wingless Prince. Usually if you already have at least one flying one already and you are using the foot Prince as a backfield bully instead of a terminator lord or something (where the Prince is better in every way to a termilord.)
But Yeh usually it's always better to get wings. Glad we cleared that one up after 16 months.
lindsay40k wrote: Friend, the post you’re quoting is from 191 pages ago and predates multiple publications and FAQs that make the information it was based on long out of date.
lindsay40k wrote: Friend, the post you’re quoting is from 191 pages ago and predates multiple publications and FAQs that make the information it was based on long out of date.
That’s dedication to one’s argument. Spoken like someone who loves 10,000 year old Daemon worshipping Marines.
So, we have all heard the recent(ish) success of Blightlord Termis in a tournament, showing that while they're not amazing they're at least not a handicap on the table like most terminators.
Is there a place / loadout for a similarly performing Scarab Occult Terminator squad?
I know they lose out on the feel no pain, so they're less sturdy at default, but getting +1 to saves against 1-damage weapons means they end up with a 1+/4++ against small arms fire which isn't terrible.
On top of this, they get a psyker buff as standard. So Glamour giving the enemy -1 to hit against them, or even Weaver giving them a 4++ (or even a 3++ against 1-damage fire) might help out?
Playing against scarabs a few times I've been underwhelmed by their damage output. They scare me into not letting him drop on my backfield objective campers because they'll threaten my CSM or cultists, but for the points webway tzangor have deadly combo with the void beast and a spell or 2.
Scarabs are pretty annoying to get out of cover on an obj marker. Really annoying. My opponent learned to focus out my 2 dmg weapons early and I don't put objective markers in cover anymore.
Automatically Appended Next Post: One of my regular opponents that is.
Dactylartha wrote: Playing against scarabs a few times I've been underwhelmed by their damage output. They scare me into not letting him drop on my backfield objective campers because they'll threaten my CSM or cultists, but for the points webway tzangor have deadly combo with the void beast and a spell or 2.
Scarabs are pretty annoying to get out of cover on an obj marker. Really annoying. My opponent learned to focus out my 2 dmg weapons early and I don't put objective markers in cover anymore.
Automatically Appended Next Post: One of my regular opponents that is.
Is that any different to Blightlords though? They seem to also be mostly "hard to kill" with little in the way of offensive powers
lindsay40k wrote: Friend, the post you’re quoting is from 191 pages ago and predates multiple publications and FAQs that make the information it was based on long out of date.
That’s dedication to one’s argument. Spoken like someone who loves 10,000 year old Daemon worshipping Marines.
Yeah that was weird. When someone made that comment I went back to the page and that post WAS on there. Come today it wasn't. I haven't a clue how that occured not gonna lie.
Dactylartha wrote: Playing against scarabs a few times I've been underwhelmed by their damage output. They scare me into not letting him drop on my backfield objective campers because they'll threaten my CSM or cultists, but for the points webway tzangor have deadly combo with the void beast and a spell or 2.
Scarabs are pretty annoying to get out of cover on an obj marker. Really annoying. My opponent learned to focus out my 2 dmg weapons early and I don't put objective markers in cover anymore.
Automatically Appended Next Post: One of my regular opponents that is.
Is that any different to Blightlords though? They seem to also be mostly "hard to kill" with little in the way of offensive powers
Blightlords do a lot more damage and are about as hard to kill. My DG friend's Blightlords are fairly easy to screen against thought, because of my 2 friends' lists, the 1KS guy brings more range and more DS attacks.
Dactylartha wrote: Playing against scarabs a few times I've been underwhelmed by their damage output. They scare me into not letting him drop on my backfield objective campers because they'll threaten my CSM or cultists, but for the points webway tzangor have deadly combo with the void beast and a spell or 2.
Scarabs are pretty annoying to get out of cover on an obj marker. Really annoying. My opponent learned to focus out my 2 dmg weapons early and I don't put objective markers in cover anymore.
Automatically Appended Next Post: One of my regular opponents that is.
Is that any different to Blightlords though? They seem to also be mostly "hard to kill" with little in the way of offensive powers
Blightlords do a lot more damage and are about as hard to kill. My DG friend's Blightlords are fairly easy to screen against thought, because of my 2 friends' lists, the 1KS guy brings more range and more DS attacks.
How are the Blights doing more damage? I can only assume because of the Flail in close combat?
Because their best loadouts are both probably all combi-bolters, which are the same shots for both squads but the Scarabs get a better AP.
So last night I was planning on building a Maulerfiend, I started building the thing as according to the booklet, when I found out that I in actuality was building a Forgefiend instead. I found out when it was too late.
So now I have a Gatling cannon Forgefiend.
What would be the best way to use them? Black Legion with Abaddon and Cultists? My main army is Death Guard which as many people know lack proper long range threats as well as most of their strategems being not as great. Would double forgefiends with Abaddon next to them be something that would work in a semi competitive / non WAAC meta?
Niiru wrote: So, we have all heard the recent(ish) success of Blightlord Termis in a tournament, showing that while they're not amazing they're at least not a handicap on the table like most terminators.
Is there a place / loadout for a similarly performing Scarab Occult Terminator squad?
I know they lose out on the feel no pain, so they're less sturdy at default, but getting +1 to saves against 1-damage weapons means they end up with a 1+/4++ against small arms fire which isn't terrible.
On top of this, they get a psyker buff as standard. So Glamour giving the enemy -1 to hit against them, or even Weaver giving them a 4++ (or even a 3++ against 1-damage fire) might help out?
All Is Dust lacks the consistent value of Disgustingly Resilient. It's actually a pretty bad rule on terminators since it does nothing against the 2 damage shots that tend to go into them. Nobody cares about you having a 1+ against bolters.
Couple that with SOT's having significantly weaker wargear that is largely limited to GEQ/MEQ clearing and it's not nearly as strong of a unit as the Blightlords.
Niiru wrote: So, we have all heard the recent(ish) success of Blightlord Termis in a tournament, showing that while they're not amazing they're at least not a handicap on the table like most terminators.
Is there a place / loadout for a similarly performing Scarab Occult Terminator squad?
I know they lose out on the feel no pain, so they're less sturdy at default, but getting +1 to saves against 1-damage weapons means they end up with a 1+/4++ against small arms fire which isn't terrible.
On top of this, they get a psyker buff as standard. So Glamour giving the enemy -1 to hit against them, or even Weaver giving them a 4++ (or even a 3++ against 1-damage fire) might help out?
I’ve been wondering exactly how they compare against low power weapons (and the archetypal Termikiller, Autocannons)
It takes 2/3 x 1/6 x 2W = 18 Heavy Bolter shots to kill a Scarab in the open
It takes 1/2 x 1/3 x 3W = 18 Heavy Bolter shots to kill a Blightlord in the open
(Put them in cover and the BL takes 36)
It takes 1/2 x 1/6 x 2W = 24 Bolter shots to kill a Scarab
It takes 1/3 x 1/6 x 2W = 36 Lasgun shots to kill a Scarab
It takes 1/3 x 1/6 x 3W = 54 Bolter or Lasgun shots to kill a Blightlord
It takes 2/3 x 1/3 x 2W = 2.1 Autocannon shots to kill a Scarab
It takes 2/3 x 1/3 x 3W = 4.2 Autocannon shots to kill a Blightlord
(Put either in cover and it’s doubled)
Scarabs having a psyker is an interesting wildcard, but Blightlords aren’t difficult to tag with Miasma which makes Glamour by the by
Scarabs having a mini Battlecannon and jr asscan and AP Bolters is also interesting, but the 18” double tap and much improved melee weapons are still winning for me as a midfield objective camper
That all these advantages make Blightlords *viable* implies we *might* see a global discount on other Terminators in the next FAQ (if not - Nurgle forbid - a BL nerf, please don’t do this GW). Be advised that this in turn might well make certain SW army builds into terrifying wrecking balls (try surviving a squad of Wolf Guard Terminators with four Thunder Hammer attacks hitting on 3’s).
lindsay40k wrote: Scarabs having a psyker is an interesting wildcard, but Blightlords aren’t difficult to tag with Miasma which makes Glamour by the by
Especially since Miasma is miles better than Glamour (range 18" vs range 12", WC6 vs WC7). I used to always take Glamour on my SOT sorcerer but WC7 is crazy (only 58% chance to cast). It always failed at the worse moment. GW hates Tzeentch and loves Nurgle...
Last week, after weeks of no using them, I dropped 5 of them loaded for bear behind a squad of 5 Grey Knights (Strike Squad) in the open. They killed 3 in the Shooting phase (with VoTL) and failed to kill any in the Fight phase. They got charged by another strike squad and all died... I know that was pure bad luck, but that's not an isolated case.
Anyway, after multiple letdowns, I stopped using Scarab Occult Terminators and honestly think they're trash-tier. The BlighLords 4+ invulnerable save alone is worth the 5pts difference. T5 and DR are just salt to our injuries.
Barnie25 wrote: So last night I was planning on building a Maulerfiend, I started building the thing as according to the booklet, when I found out that I in actuality was building a Forgefiend instead. I found out when it was too late.
So now I have a Gatling cannon Forgefiend.
What would be the best way to use them? Black Legion with Abaddon and Cultists? My main army is Death Guard which as many people know lack proper long range threats as well as most of their strategems being not as great. Would double forgefiends with Abaddon next to them be something that would work in a semi competitive / non WAAC meta?
Regular csm Lord should do honestly.
Ofcourse abby also is a solution, you will need the daemon engine strat.
Dactylartha wrote: Playing against scarabs a few times I've been underwhelmed by their damage output. They scare me into not letting him drop on my backfield objective campers because they'll threaten my CSM or cultists, but for the points webway tzangor have deadly combo with the void beast and a spell or 2.
Scarabs are pretty annoying to get out of cover on an obj marker. Really annoying. My opponent learned to focus out my 2 dmg weapons early and I don't put objective markers in cover anymore.
Automatically Appended Next Post: One of my regular opponents that is.
Is that any different to Blightlords though? They seem to also be mostly "hard to kill" with little in the way of offensive powers
Blightlords do a lot more damage and are about as hard to kill. My DG friend's Blightlords are fairly easy to screen against thought, because of my 2 friends' lists, the 1KS guy brings more range and more DS attacks.
How are the Blights doing more damage? I can only assume because of the Flail in close combat?
Because their best loadouts are both probably all combi-bolters, which are the same shots for both squads but the Scarabs get a better AP.
I haven't use Blightlords much, but when I have, I've taken 4 Combi-plasmas and the flail. 18" Rapid Fire is money on plasma, and even though BL have abysmal movement, they can usually find decent range to something as long as you don't drop them in the corner of the table. They put out a fair amount of damage, and if they can make a charge...
Forgefiend with autocannons is at least the best DPR between the two loadouts for it. And in my experience a chaos lord rerolling 1s is as said above, all thats needed. Its already wounding infantry on 2s as is.
vaklor4 wrote: Forgefiend with autocannons is at least the best DPR between the two loadouts for it. And in my experience a chaos lord rerolling 1s is as said above, all thats needed. Its already wounding infantry on 2s as is.
Yeah you are probably right, Abby would give another 2 CP but also would make it even more expensive. Now finding a good way to use the Ectoplasma cannons that came with the set, might convert a Deredeo dread with them should be cool.
vaklor4 wrote: Forgefiend with autocannons is at least the best DPR between the two loadouts for it. And in my experience a chaos lord rerolling 1s is as said above, all thats needed. Its already wounding infantry on 2s as is.
Yeah you are probably right, Abby would give another 2 CP but also would make it even more expensive. Now finding a good way to use the Ectoplasma cannons that came with the set, might convert a Deredeo dread with them should be cool.
You could consider a small cult of destruction spearhead of iron warriors :
Chaos Lord
vaklor4 wrote: Forgefiend with autocannons is at least the best DPR between the two loadouts for it. And in my experience a chaos lord rerolling 1s is as said above, all thats needed. Its already wounding infantry on 2s as is.
Yeah you are probably right, Abby would give another 2 CP but also would make it even more expensive. Now finding a good way to use the Ectoplasma cannons that came with the set, might convert a Deredeo dread with them should be cool.
You could consider a small cult of destruction spearhead of iron warriors :
Chaos Lord
Forgefiend
1x squad of obliterators
1x squad of havocs
What would the havocs be fielding? I'm assuming stuff like H. Bolters and Lascannons, due to their long range?
vaklor4 wrote: Forgefiend with autocannons is at least the best DPR between the two loadouts for it. And in my experience a chaos lord rerolling 1s is as said above, all thats needed. Its already wounding infantry on 2s as is.
Yeah you are probably right, Abby would give another 2 CP but also would make it even more expensive. Now finding a good way to use the Ectoplasma cannons that came with the set, might convert a Deredeo dread with them should be cool.
You could consider a small cult of destruction spearhead of iron warriors :
Chaos Lord
Forgefiend
1x squad of obliterators
1x squad of havocs
What would the havocs be fielding? I'm assuming stuff like H. Bolters and Lascannons, due to their long range?
Autocannon or heavy bolter I think. I think there will be a need for chaff clearing. Or something to handle multi wound models.
^ Yeah, Ignores Cover is better used on weapons whose ideal targets can more easily get into cover. Lascannons would usually be shooting at things that can’t easily hide.
Dactylartha wrote: Playing against scarabs a few times I've been underwhelmed by their damage output. They scare me into not letting him drop on my backfield objective campers because they'll threaten my CSM or cultists, but for the points webway tzangor have deadly combo with the void beast and a spell or 2.
Scarabs are pretty annoying to get out of cover on an obj marker. Really annoying. My opponent learned to focus out my 2 dmg weapons early and I don't put objective markers in cover anymore.
Automatically Appended Next Post: One of my regular opponents that is.
Is that any different to Blightlords though? They seem to also be mostly "hard to kill" with little in the way of offensive powers
Blightlords do a lot more damage and are about as hard to kill. My DG friend's Blightlords are fairly easy to screen against thought, because of my 2 friends' lists, the 1KS guy brings more range and more DS attacks.
How are the Blights doing more damage? I can only assume because of the Flail in close combat?
Because their best loadouts are both probably all combi-bolters, which are the same shots for both squads but the Scarabs get a better AP.
I haven't use Blightlords much, but when I have, I've taken 4 Combi-plasmas and the flail. 18" Rapid Fire is money on plasma, and even though BL have abysmal movement, they can usually find decent range to something as long as you don't drop them in the corner of the table. They put out a fair amount of damage, and if they can make a charge...
I’ve been musing back and forth on Blightlord Plasma.
I’ve had good results with my Chosen Plasma squad. Thing is, that’s putting Plasma in hands that I don’t mind losing to an overheat. Multiple minuses to hit some MVP unit? I may well take the deaths in exchange for deleting a threat.
A super tough Terminator? That’s a model I’m a lot more reluctant to have play Cadian Roulette. If I get a 1, that’s two DR T5 2+/4++ wounds lost. In a faction that’s got wide access to 18” double tap Plasma in cheap hands that can play dangerously. Plus, no access to Prescience without allying in CSM/TSons.
I’m thinking I can see the appeal of the cheap combi-Bolters. The basic power weapons carried by BLTs have two buffs, and the unit can carry a really nice melee weapon that removes a weapon slot. I’ll maybe give them the S6 poo gun, but otherwise I’m inclined to build them cheap.
lindsay40k wrote: ^ Yeah, Ignores Cover is better used on weapons whose ideal targets can more easily get into cover. Lascannons would usually be shooting at things that can’t easily hide.
Dactylartha wrote: Playing against scarabs a few times I've been underwhelmed by their damage output. They scare me into not letting him drop on my backfield objective campers because they'll threaten my CSM or cultists, but for the points webway tzangor have deadly combo with the void beast and a spell or 2.
Scarabs are pretty annoying to get out of cover on an obj marker. Really annoying. My opponent learned to focus out my 2 dmg weapons early and I don't put objective markers in cover anymore.
Automatically Appended Next Post: One of my regular opponents that is.
Is that any different to Blightlords though? They seem to also be mostly "hard to kill" with little in the way of offensive powers
Blightlords do a lot more damage and are about as hard to kill. My DG friend's Blightlords are fairly easy to screen against thought, because of my 2 friends' lists, the 1KS guy brings more range and more DS attacks.
How are the Blights doing more damage? I can only assume because of the Flail in close combat?
Because their best loadouts are both probably all combi-bolters, which are the same shots for both squads but the Scarabs get a better AP.
I haven't use Blightlords much, but when I have, I've taken 4 Combi-plasmas and the flail. 18" Rapid Fire is money on plasma, and even though BL have abysmal movement, they can usually find decent range to something as long as you don't drop them in the corner of the table. They put out a fair amount of damage, and if they can make a charge...
I’ve been musing back and forth on Blightlord Plasma.
I’ve had good results with my Chosen Plasma squad. Thing is, that’s putting Plasma in hands that I don’t mind losing to an overheat. Multiple minuses to hit some MVP unit? I may well take the deaths in exchange for deleting a threat.
A super tough Terminator? That’s a model I’m a lot more reluctant to have play Cadian Roulette. If I get a 1, that’s two DR T5 2+/4++ wounds lost. In a faction that’s got wide access to 18” double tap Plasma in cheap hands that can play dangerously. Plus, no access to Prescience without allying in CSM/TSons.
I’m thinking I can see the appeal of the cheap combi-Bolters. The basic power weapons carried by BLTs have two buffs, and the unit can carry a really nice melee weapon that removes a weapon slot. I’ll maybe give them the S6 poo gun, but otherwise I’m inclined to build them cheap.
Oh, I can see it both ways, and if you were to run the plasma, you'd definitely want a source of rerolls (Lord, DP) or some allied CSM for Prescience. Keeping them cheap is definitely an option, but your opponent will just kite them if they don't reach melee. It's harder to kite and ignore 18" double-tapping Plasma.
I’ve been musing back and forth on Blightlord Plasma.
I’ve had good results with my Chosen Plasma squad. Thing is, that’s putting Plasma in hands that I don’t mind losing to an overheat. Multiple minuses to hit some MVP unit? I may well take the deaths in exchange for deleting a threat.
A super tough Terminator? That’s a model I’m a lot more reluctant to have play Cadian Roulette. If I get a 1, that’s two DR T5 2+/4++ wounds lost. In a faction that’s got wide access to 18” double tap Plasma in cheap hands that can play dangerously. Plus, no access to Prescience without allying in CSM/TSons.
I’m thinking I can see the appeal of the cheap combi-Bolters. The basic power weapons carried by BLTs have two buffs, and the unit can carry a really nice melee weapon that removes a weapon slot. I’ll maybe give them the S6 poo gun, but otherwise I’m inclined to build them cheap.
When you say that DG has access to cheap handed 18" double-tap plasma... do you mean plague marines? I can't see anything else that can take it that's 'cheap' (I guess they're relatively cheap), but surely it's better to take blight launchers and have 24" 'double tap' shots instead?
I’ve been musing back and forth on Blightlord Plasma.
I’ve had good results with my Chosen Plasma squad. Thing is, that’s putting Plasma in hands that I don’t mind losing to an overheat. Multiple minuses to hit some MVP unit? I may well take the deaths in exchange for deleting a threat.
A super tough Terminator? That’s a model I’m a lot more reluctant to have play Cadian Roulette. If I get a 1, that’s two DR T5 2+/4++ wounds lost. In a faction that’s got wide access to 18” double tap Plasma in cheap hands that can play dangerously. Plus, no access to Prescience without allying in CSM/TSons.
I’m thinking I can see the appeal of the cheap combi-Bolters. The basic power weapons carried by BLTs have two buffs, and the unit can carry a really nice melee weapon that removes a weapon slot. I’ll maybe give them the S6 poo gun, but otherwise I’m inclined to build them cheap.
When you say that DG has access to cheap handed 18" double-tap plasma... do you mean plague marines? I can't see anything else that can take it that's 'cheap' (I guess they're relatively cheap), but surely it's better to take blight launchers and have 24" 'double tap' shots instead?
There's also the definition of cheap when it comes to opportunity cost. For example, you can get 5 Combi-Plasma in a Blightlord squad, but how many points do you need to spend to try and get the same amount of shots with Plague Marines?
vaklor4 wrote: Forgefiend with autocannons is at least the best DPR between the two loadouts for it. And in my experience a chaos lord rerolling 1s is as said above, all thats needed. Its already wounding infantry on 2s as is.
Yeah you are probably right, Abby would give another 2 CP but also would make it even more expensive. Now finding a good way to use the Ectoplasma cannons that came with the set, might convert a Deredeo dread with them should be cool.
You could consider a small cult of destruction spearhead of iron warriors :
Chaos Lord
Forgefiend
1x squad of obliterators
1x squad of havocs
What would the havocs be fielding? I'm assuming stuff like H. Bolters and Lascannons, due to their long range?
Personally i like autocannons, they are flexibel enough, ignore cover helps against cover campers. Alternativly go 10 havocs for a screen. Technically you could also field a predator with autocannon and havoc launcher.
I’ve had good results with my Chosen Plasma squad. Thing is, that’s putting Plasma in hands that I don’t mind losing to an overheat. Multiple minuses to hit some MVP unit? I may well take the deaths in exchange for deleting a threat.
A slight aside on this point, any reason you're going with Chosen for your plasma over Havocs? I'm musing on how to build and outfit my Chosen and keep coming back to the fact that, for four special weapons, Havocs come in cheaper. I mean the Chosen have a better Ld and an extra attack (with the option to take a free chainsword for another one), but if you're shooting for a plasma death squad, they're likely going to be a target, so keeping them cheap and cheerful is what holds me back. Is it because of competition for the heavy slots from things like Obliterators, Predators etc?
I’ve had good results with my Chosen Plasma squad. Thing is, that’s putting Plasma in hands that I don’t mind losing to an overheat. Multiple minuses to hit some MVP unit? I may well take the deaths in exchange for deleting a threat.
A slight aside on this point, any reason you're going with Chosen for your plasma over Havocs? I'm musing on how to build and outfit my Chosen and keep coming back to the fact that, for four special weapons, Havocs come in cheaper. I mean the Chosen have a better Ld and an extra attack (with the option to take a free chainsword for another one), but if you're shooting for a plasma death squad, they're likely going to be a target, so keeping them cheap and cheerful is what holds me back. Is it because of competition for the heavy slots from things like Obliterators, Predators etc?
One reason might be that you can take 6 chosen and have 5x plasmagun and 1x combi-plasma, which I think is the strongest concentration of plasma available outside of terminator squads.
Also they can take a free chainsword and have 3 attacks each, so they're pretty nasty even if they get charged. Which when you're staying at 12" range for rapid fire, you're likely to get charged. Or maybe you prefer to fire plasma at a unit of elites, and then charge some infantry, doing double damage against the enemy in one turn. (Shame DG can't take chosen for 18" rapid fire, but i guess it would be too good).
Havocs are poor in melee, and so I would say are better with longer range weapons like heavy bolters. Just keep pumping bullets into the enemy and trying to stay away from charges.
But that's just what I'm thinking, not sure how correct it is.
I’ve had good results with my Chosen Plasma squad. Thing is, that’s putting Plasma in hands that I don’t mind losing to an overheat. Multiple minuses to hit some MVP unit? I may well take the deaths in exchange for deleting a threat.
A slight aside on this point, any reason you're going with Chosen for your plasma over Havocs? I'm musing on how to build and outfit my Chosen and keep coming back to the fact that, for four special weapons, Havocs come in cheaper. I mean the Chosen have a better Ld and an extra attack (with the option to take a free chainsword for another one), but if you're shooting for a plasma death squad, they're likely going to be a target, so keeping them cheap and cheerful is what holds me back. Is it because of competition for the heavy slots from things like Obliterators, Predators etc?
I have a bunch of plasma guys but I like my combi-plasma minis, I did them us as Breachers and I don't mind the handful of points
Doesn't seem right giving havocs plasma. They always seem like they should be long ranged heavy weapons. Plus chosen feel like they have a little more clout if they do get caught up in melee which suits the role of having them as midfield fire support
Abaddon303 wrote: Doesn't seem right giving havocs plasma. They always seem like they should be long ranged heavy weapons. Plus chosen feel like they have a little more clout if they do get caught up in melee which suits the role of having them as midfield fire support
6 dudes with Combi-Bolters and Chainswords does pretty cool actually.
Abaddon303 wrote: Doesn't seem right giving havocs plasma. They always seem like they should be long ranged heavy weapons. Plus chosen feel like they have a little more clout if they do get caught up in melee which suits the role of having them as midfield fire support
6 dudes with Combi-Bolters and Chainswords does pretty cool actually.
Have to say, running a 6-man combi-bolter squad does have its temptations.
Edit: Shame that the AL infiltrate stratagem is no more, deesptriking cheap combi bolters might have been good. they'd need a transport now.
Abaddon303 wrote: Doesn't seem right giving havocs plasma. They always seem like they should be long ranged heavy weapons. Plus chosen feel like they have a little more clout if they do get caught up in melee which suits the role of having them as midfield fire support
6 dudes with Combi-Bolters and Chainswords does pretty cool actually.
Have to say, running a 6-man combi-bolter squad does have its temptations.
Edit: Shame that the AL infiltrate stratagem is no more, deesptriking cheap combi bolters might have been good. they'd need a transport now.
I think the Termite Drill is the answer to that problem for Chosen. Only issue is for Berserker Marines, but luckily they have that reroll charge banner to rely on.
Abaddon303 wrote: Doesn't seem right giving havocs plasma. They always seem like they should be long ranged heavy weapons. Plus chosen feel like they have a little more clout if they do get caught up in melee which suits the role of having them as midfield fire support
6 dudes with Combi-Bolters and Chainswords does pretty cool actually.
Have to say, running a 6-man combi-bolter squad does have its temptations.
Edit: Shame that the AL infiltrate stratagem is no more, deesptriking cheap combi bolters might have been good. they'd need a transport now.
I think the Termite Drill is the answer to that problem for Chosen. Only issue is for Berserker Marines, but luckily they have that reroll charge banner to rely on.
Even more expensive than a rhino though. Might be worth the points, but I don't like the model and havent come up with a suitable conversion/ counts as yet.
Abaddon303 wrote: Doesn't seem right giving havocs plasma. They always seem like they should be long ranged heavy weapons. Plus chosen feel like they have a little more clout if they do get caught up in melee which suits the role of having them as midfield fire support
6 dudes with Combi-Bolters and Chainswords does pretty cool actually.
Have to say, running a 6-man combi-bolter squad does have its temptations.
Edit: Shame that the AL infiltrate stratagem is no more, deesptriking cheap combi bolters might have been good. they'd need a transport now.
It just says can't move within 9", right? You can still infiltrate turn 1 with them quite close (let's say 16 inches to avoid counter-charges if you go second?) and then blast away with them after moving into rapid fire range.
Abaddon303 wrote: Doesn't seem right giving havocs plasma. They always seem like they should be long ranged heavy weapons. Plus chosen feel like they have a little more clout if they do get caught up in melee which suits the role of having them as midfield fire support
6 dudes with Combi-Bolters and Chainswords does pretty cool actually.
Have to say, running a 6-man combi-bolter squad does have its temptations.
Edit: Shame that the AL infiltrate stratagem is no more, deesptriking cheap combi bolters might have been good. they'd need a transport now.
It just says can't move within 9", right? You can still infiltrate turn 1 with them quite close (let's say 16 inches to avoid counter-charges if you go second?) and then blast away with them after moving into rapid fire range.
What, the AL stratagem? It's totally gone now, it's not an infiltrate. It's a 9" scout move from your deployment, which for 1CP on a fragile infantry unit is a garbage waste of CP.
Abaddon303 wrote: Doesn't seem right giving havocs plasma. They always seem like they should be long ranged heavy weapons. Plus chosen feel like they have a little more clout if they do get caught up in melee which suits the role of having them as midfield fire support
6 dudes with Combi-Bolters and Chainswords does pretty cool actually.
Have to say, running a 6-man combi-bolter squad does have its temptations.
Edit: Shame that the AL infiltrate stratagem is no more, deesptriking cheap combi bolters might have been good. they'd need a transport now.
It just says can't move within 9", right? You can still infiltrate turn 1 with them quite close (let's say 16 inches to avoid counter-charges if you go second?) and then blast away with them after moving into rapid fire range.
What, the AL stratagem? It's totally gone now, it's not an infiltrate. It's a 9" scout move from your deployment, which for 1CP on a fragile infantry unit is a garbage waste of CP.
Weird! Didnt even notice that the few times I read the FAQ.
Remember: Chaos Marines aren't allowed to have anything good stick around for long. Poor people decided they didn't want to learn to defend themselves from Berserker drops.
Abaddon303 wrote: Doesn't seem right giving havocs plasma. They always seem like they should be long ranged heavy weapons. Plus chosen feel like they have a little more clout if they do get caught up in melee which suits the role of having them as midfield fire support
6 dudes with Combi-Bolters and Chainswords does pretty cool actually.
Point of order: a Chosen squad can only have five combi-weapons - four on the squaddies and one on the champion. (An additional squaddie can have a standard special weapon.) So, dropping two squads out a Rhino or Dreadclaw won't mean compromising on double-tap dakka. (Dreadclaw's a bit pricey for such a purpose, though.)
Hobby tip: all those Berzerker pistol arms we threw in our bits boxes? Snip away the guns and switch in bolters - dual wield is WYSIWYG enough, and no need to scrawl through bitz merchants for combi-bolters.
Abaddon303 wrote: Doesn't seem right giving havocs plasma. They always seem like they should be long ranged heavy weapons. Plus chosen feel like they have a little more clout if they do get caught up in melee which suits the role of having them as midfield fire support
6 dudes with Combi-Bolters and Chainswords does pretty cool actually.
Point of order: a Chosen squad can only have five combi-weapons - four on the squaddies and one on the champion. (An additional squaddie can have a standard special weapon.) So, dropping two squads out a Rhino or Dreadclaw won't mean compromising on double-tap dakka. (Dreadclaw's a bit pricey for such a purpose, though.)
Hobby tip: all those Berzerker pistol arms we threw in our bits boxes? Snip away the guns and switch in bolters - dual wield is WYSIWYG enough, and no need to scrawl through bitz merchants for combi-bolters.
Oh dear I've been playing SUPER illegally. Replace with a Flamer I guess but Flamers suck...
Silly me never thought of existing models with combi-plasma. I must admit the idea of a squad with 5 plasma guns and a combi-plasma on the champion with the free chainswords does sound like a tempting idea.
Given the damage output in this edition, I'm super keen to try the cheap and cheerful combi-bolter/chainsword combo though on a squad of 5 - plenty of dakka to clear the chaff (like enemy cultists) whilst maintaining a lot of dice to throw if you're charged/charging the remains. Plus, given that Chosen seem slightly overpriced for how easily they die (although that covers a lot of the Elite slots), I cringe at the idea of putting too much expensive gear on them only to have them shot off the board like common CSMs.
Have to say, running a 6-man combi-bolter squad does have its temptations.
Edit: Shame that the AL infiltrate stratagem is no more, deesptriking cheap combi bolters might have been good. they'd need a transport now.
The problem I have always had with Chosen built around Combi-Bolters is they have to compete with Noise Marines for a role, and Noise Marines have a lot of advantages over the Chosen. Sonic Blasters are arguably better than Combi Bolters, since they are fully effective up to 24 inches, and they ignore cover which can frequently give them better penetration- especially when shooting at infantry. The Noise Champ also can strap on extra guns, and pack a Combi Bolter and a Sonic Blaster and a 10 pt Doom Siren (because reasons). Add to that the Noise Marines also have 2 attacks base, and the Endless Cacophony ability when they die, they are significantly better mid field shooters than Combi Bolter Chosen.
That said, no Noise Marines in a World Eaters detachment, and you may not like them for personal reasons. But Chosen seem like they really need a special weapon (probably plasma) to differentiate from Noise Marines.
Ive used Chosen to pretty great effect with combi/sword combo. 5 of them is 90 points, which is the highest ampunt of bolter shots per point in thr CSM codex. 90 points nets you a total of 20 shots in 12". 100 points of Bikers nets you 18 shots, and 100 points of Noiz Boiz only gets you 15.
vaklor4 wrote: Ive used Chosen to pretty great effect with combi/sword combo. 5 of them is 90 points, which is the highest amount of bolter shots per point in thr CSM codex. 90 points nets you a total of 20 shots in 12". 100 points of Bikers nets you 18 shots, and 100 points of Noiz Boiz only gets you 15.
Yes, but you have to look at the comparative benefits as well.
1) Noiz Boys actually have more shots than that. 4 Guys with Sonic Blasters and a Champ with a Sonic Blaster and a Combi Bolter is 97 points. So they are at 17 shots out to 24, and 19 shots within 12. You also have to keep in mind they are far more effective than the chosen vs targets either outside 12 inches, or against a target in cover as substantially all of their guns ignore cover saves. Lets also not forget that the Noise Marines will likely outpace the chosen in rate of fire as they die off, since they will get to make retaliation shots on death.
2) Bikers offer a lot more in addition to bolter shots, and they still put out a respectable amount of bolter shots. First, Bikers are primarily taken for their mobility, and they are a *lot* faster than Chosen. So they don't really need to work or plan as much to get in range to start shooting. Its also worth noting that most people use bikers to deliver special weapons. this is common in chosen too, but once again the superior speed of bikers (14 inch move and 6 inch run) makes it much easier to bring those weapons to bear against appropriate targets. It also makes bikers better for grabbing objectives, and the Bikers have 8 wounds at toughness 5 compared to the Chosen who have 5 wounds at toughness 4.
If all I cared about was highest amount of bolter shots per point in a vaacum, I could buy it. I'm not saying that Chosen with combi-bolters are bad, I'm just saying they don't really compare favorably to Noise Marines or Bikers due to the superior flexibility those units offer in addition to small arms fire.
Noise Marines also need to be Slaanesh. Now yes, Slaanesh is THE best choice due to the shoot again strat, but ive found that bringing combi-chosen in a Khorne face smash list actually synergizes super well. Against Guard theyve proven to be well worth their points in clearing away some bubblewrap for my Zerkers.
And if you actually make them WE, have fun with those 4 attacks per model on top of the 4 shots per model.
The way i used my chosen so far was with flamers and swords.
Back in the good old days of the alpha legion stratagem I could get them close enough to the enemy lines to deliver a hell lot of dakka and charge something.
Sadly a MSU body is just not strong enough and without first turn they usually bit the dust; as my friends became more competaive i stopped using them.
Sadly even then they are just a gimmick unit. Flamer sword anti horde was the only thing i could think off.
Malathrim wrote: Iron Warriors combi-bolter Chosen ignore Cover like the Noise Marines, though they don't get to shoot when they die. That's a cool rule.
Yes he indeed can.
he can take CPlasma instead of the CBolter to make him a real dakka dealer.
AND
If music of the Apocalypse trigger outside of the shooting phase your dudes can target enemy characters, so feel free to unload all your plasma and nades on them
You could walk your Champion and his companions with a Fabius Bile towards the enemies warlord, then at the end of the opponets movement phase use fabuis to kill your own guys and aim all of the resulting dakka at a character.
(if you compare your units points costs to the target, its usually a bad deal though - as well as being really anal with the rules)
If your units die during the Melee Phase you will even be able to trigger DTTFE with your overcharged plasma shots and nades (though i am not a 100% sure if this works)
Abaddon303 wrote: Wait can a noise champion really take a blaster, siren and a combi bolter? And fire all of them??
Yes, this is absolutely Legal: The only condition for a siren is that the model is a champion.
The Blaster replaces the bolter.
The bolt Pistol can be exchanged for a weapon of the list for champions which include combi bolters.
As a sidenote: why would you run noise marines in an iron warriors list when you allready got the ignore cover benefit? You can achieve similar or better dakka with the right equipped havocs.
Edit:
It seems a distant relative ninjaed me. How rude of you.
I was thinking of whether a mechanized army might work now, again because of the new prepared positions stratagem giving army wise +1 cover save to even vehicles.
So the idea is to have 5 Rhino with double combi bolters and min 5 to 6 man Berserkers inside (champ powerfist). Then have a fire base made up of 3 Predator tanks and a cheap chaos lord to give reroll 1 hit. And finally round it up with a Chaos lord on a bike with burning talisman and some combi bolter bikes.
I would put havoc launchers on all three predators and heavy bolter sponsons too. The idea is to have the triple predator tanks serve as a fire magnet. In any case, if I go second, all the Rhinos, bikes and Predators are at 2+ save.
So, the 5 Rhinos will charge up the board and pop smoke. The predators distract, and the bikes will shoot all those combis into chaff. Second turn, all the berserkers unload, and I will add any remaining combi bolter firing from surviving Rhinos to the bikes and tank fire to clear the chaff so that the Berserkers have the free space to charge into what truly needs to die.
With 5 Rhinos and 3 tanks, I am banking on having so much armor the opponent simply can't clear enough of them before I am upon him. The chaff clearing ability of the army is not to be sniffed at either. Between double combis on all the Rhinos and bikes, the havoc launchers and heavy bolters on the tanks, and the 5 Zerker champions also using a combi bolter, I estimate I can fire 80 to 100 shots at double tap range.
If I go first, I get to use killshot and make my predator tanks really threatening. This alone will probably ensure they get focused over my Rhinos and so I should be able to get a lot of zerkers up the field into battle.
A minimum zerker squad is relatively ok in points. Thats why I put my lord on a bike instead of inside a Rhino, which would just solidify it as a target. All the units including the predators are less than 170 points, so there are no super juicy targets to focus fire on.
What do you think? Given so many zerkers, I would go world eaters army. unless you all have better suggestions.
I would try and use Kharn for the Predators if you can make it work. The full rerolls would really help especially with all the negative modifiers out there.
Eldenfirefly wrote: I was thinking of whether a mechanized army might work now, again because of the new prepared positions stratagem giving army wise +1 cover save to even vehicles.
So the idea is to have 5 Rhino with double combi bolters and min 5 to 6 man Berserkers inside (champ powerfist). Then have a fire base made up of 3 Predator tanks and a cheap chaos lord to give reroll 1 hit. And finally round it up with a Chaos lord on a bike with burning talisman and some combi bolter bikes.
I would put havoc launchers on all three predators and heavy bolter sponsons too. The idea is to have the triple predator tanks serve as a fire magnet. In any case, if I go second, all the Rhinos, bikes and Predators are at 2+ save.
So, the 5 Rhinos will charge up the board and pop smoke. The predators distract, and the bikes will shoot all those combis into chaff. Second turn, all the berserkers unload, and I will add any remaining combi bolter firing from surviving Rhinos to the bikes and tank fire to clear the chaff so that the Berserkers have the free space to charge into what truly needs to die.
With 5 Rhinos and 3 tanks, I am banking on having so much armor the opponent simply can't clear enough of them before I am upon him. The chaff clearing ability of the army is not to be sniffed at either. Between double combis on all the Rhinos and bikes, the havoc launchers and heavy bolters on the tanks, and the 5 Zerker champions also using a combi bolter, I estimate I can fire 80 to 100 shots at double tap range.
If I go first, I get to use killshot and make my predator tanks really threatening. This alone will probably ensure they get focused over my Rhinos and so I should be able to get a lot of zerkers up the field into battle.
A minimum zerker squad is relatively ok in points. Thats why I put my lord on a bike instead of inside a Rhino, which would just solidify it as a target. All the units including the predators are less than 170 points, so there are no super juicy targets to focus fire on.
What do you think? Given so many zerkers, I would go world eaters army. unless you all have better suggestions.
First off;if you want so many zerkers you need to be WE, so there's not even a competition.
Secondly: 5 Rhinos certainly will split the fire well but still are over 400pts alone for metal bawkses with combi bolters. Granted they will be tougher T1 but everything after will be very much lucky. Additionally if someone wants you dead turn 1 he will still be able to do this.
Minimum Zerkers are not bad, but glasscanonny, they clear out most infantry with sheere volume of attacks , especially WE ones, but afterwards they will die like flies.
Predators are, how to put it, not my cup of tea. On the other hand they got cheaper in CA, well the cannon atleast, but i still feel they are quite expensive for what they can and can't do, aswell as certainly not tough.
Bikers are, well decent, so long people don't start climbing buildings and if you don't go overboard on them since they are quite pts intensive. Also Chaos Biker Lords are a Index only unit that means only INdex Equipment and rules avilable, so i am unsure if you are allowed to give him a Talisman.
Also World Eaters are honestly bad outside their Deny stratagem. The only Legion worse for them is Black Legion, and to be honest with Abigail that would basically even out.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Also World Eaters are honestly bad outside their Deny stratagem. The only Legion worse for them is Black Legion, and to be honest with Abigail that would basically even out.
Wait what? +1 attack in melee is bad? The reason you don't see more WE is that transports are too expensive, not because the trait is bad. (well that and the weak 3+save in combination with a marine + price that leads to a relatively glasscannonlike unit)
Additionally the worst csm trait is WB followed by failbaddon "the (h)-armless's" bunch.
WE Berzerkers are kinda weird because unless you're trying to punch out a knight or something the extra attack is kinda overkill. Which, to be fair, might be valid, but still I think in most cases you'd rather have the superior mobility from an Undivided legion.
Arachnofiend wrote: WE Berzerkers are kinda weird because unless you're trying to punch out a knight or something the extra attack is kinda overkill. Which, to be fair, might be valid, but still I think in most cases you'd rather have the superior mobility from an Undivided legion.
Not if you intend to go msu. Infact i imagine if you throw down enough msu squads you could make that list work atleast against some enemies.
Arachnofiend wrote: WE Berzerkers are kinda weird because unless you're trying to punch out a knight or something the extra attack is kinda overkill. Which, to be fair, might be valid, but still I think in most cases you'd rather have the superior mobility from an Undivided legion.
Not if you intend to go msu. Infact i imagine if you throw down enough msu squads you could make that list work atleast against some enemies.
Planning to run 3-5 squads in my next game, will let people know how it goes.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Also World Eaters are honestly bad outside their Deny stratagem. The only Legion worse for them is Black Legion, and to be honest with Abigail that would basically even out.
Wait what? +1 attack in melee is bad? The reason you don't see more WE is that transports are too expensive, not because the trait is bad. (well that and the weak 3+save in combination with a marine + price that leads to a relatively glasscannonlike unit)
Additionally the worst csm trait is WB followed by failbaddon "the (h)-armless's" bunch.
+1 ONLY if you charge first. Berserker Marines already have 2 S6 attacks and 1 S5 attack without attacking twice in the first place. I think you'll be fine.
Word Bearers are merely mediocre (your larger squads not running off is kinda nice) and Black Legion gives you the armless failure (granted that, without him, the whole Legion is a bad choice that's correct), and you aren't forced into not using Sorcerers.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Also World Eaters are honestly bad outside their Deny stratagem. The only Legion worse for them is Black Legion, and to be honest with Abigail that would basically even out.
Wait what? +1 attack in melee is bad? The reason you don't see more WE is that transports are too expensive, not because the trait is bad. (well that and the weak 3+save in combination with a marine + price that leads to a relatively glasscannonlike unit)
Additionally the worst csm trait is WB followed by failbaddon "the (h)-armless's" bunch.
+1 ONLY if you charge first. Berserker Marines already have 2 S6 attacks and 1 S5 attack without attacking twice in the first place. I think you'll be fine.
Word Bearers are merely mediocre (your larger squads not running off is kinda nice) and Black Legion gives you the armless failure (granted that, without him, the whole Legion is a bad choice that's correct), and you aren't forced into not using Sorcerers.
How often do you run such squads?
Because cultists you run 1 probably at max size, the rest you run msu. But their morale is so terrible that it won't matter.
Sorceres can be allied in, detachments need to be pure, not the whole army. So basically there is no disadvantage that can be circumvented for WE.
World Eaters are EASILY in the top half of the CSM legions. Iron Warriors, Word Bearers and Night Lords are all inferior, because they're usually things you have to build around to make them work. For WE, you just bring close combat units and send them in. Even cultists with WE are hilarious at times, being able to rock 3 attacks per model on a charge. Who wouldn't want to get 120 attacks off a full 40 cultists?
Iron warriors have cold and bitter slaaneshi cultists that ignore cover with a 6 up fnp for one cp, tho. Also double butcher cannon leviathan dreadnoughts that ignore cover.
vaklor4 wrote: World Eaters are EASILY in the top half of the CSM legions. Iron Warriors, Word Bearers and Night Lords are all inferior, because they're usually things you have to build around to make them work. For WE, you just bring close combat units and send them in. Even cultists with WE are hilarious at times, being able to rock 3 attacks per model on a charge. Who wouldn't want to get 120 attacks off a full 40 cultists?
The fact you just said Iron Warriors are inferior makes me think you haven't read the codex. At all.
More than a legion trait decides how powerful a legion is. Yes the black legion trait isn't mind blowing, but black legion cultists backed by abaddon is one of the most solid things we have.
Likewise iron warriors cultists blobs are very good as well.
The worst two legions are emperor's children and word bearers imo. The EC legion trait hardly ever comes in handy, and in the rare moments when it does, you have a stratagem that does the exact same thing. The only thing EC has going for them is noise marines as troops, which is nice...but not a game changer. Also lucius sucks.
+1 attack makes a huge difference, 60 or 80 attacks completely change things, sometimes is overkill but when you multi charge units (a thing you easily want to do with berserker) you need extra attacks.
For a doubles tournament I am teaming up with a necron player. Both a 1000 points. I am bringing Ahriman on Disk, cultists and renegade knights. The necron player will spam Tomb Blades and Destroyers.
I need to provide the AT. The Daemon Prince is a good anti tank tool in combat. What would then be better?
-a Renegade Knight with either double gatling gun
-3 Helverines.
The Gaze of Faith power gives me a free reroll each turn, this would improve the thermal cannon quite a bit I think. Double Gatling is more general ofcourse however also more expensive. The 3 Helverines have strong shooting but can be locked in combat and have no melee as well as T7 instead of T8.
As a Word Bearer player, I was very disappointed that we didn't end up with a better legion or warlord trait in this codex. I feel that the Iron Warriors warlord trait is better suited to a Word Bearers army, but what can you do? I am lucky that I just play for the sheer thrill of chucking dice around and yelling at models. Morale is such a non-starter these days - you either have a big blob of cultists in which the re-roll is only affecting HOW MANY of them fall off the table at the end of the turn, or you just don't need to take morale because you're using reasonably sized squads that will be entirely wiped out before they'd be able to fail a morale test on anything other than a 6...
Barnie25 wrote: For a doubles tournament I am teaming up with a necron player. Both a 1000 points. I am bringing Ahriman on Disk, cultists and renegade knights. The necron player will spam Tomb Blades and Destroyers.
I need to provide the AT. The Daemon Prince is a good anti tank tool in combat. What would then be better?
-a Renegade Knight with either double gatling gun
-3 Helverines.
The Gaze of Faith power gives me a free reroll each turn, this would improve the thermal cannon quite a bit I think. Double Gatling is more general ofcourse however also more expensive. The 3 Helverines have strong shooting but can be locked in combat and have no melee as well as T7 instead of T8.
What would you guys advice?
i would go for a double gatling, with the re roll stratagem it delivers a crazy amount of bullets, or you can use two rapid fire battlecannons, 2x thermal cannon are just 2d6 shots bit too few for my taste, double gatling has just str 6 but 24 re rollable hits ap -2 d 2 is enough to handle average tanks, then if you afraid to meet IK then yes go for 2x thermal cannons and stormspear rocket pod, the double gatling+double flamer makes IK hard to charge, light units can get lot of wounds before get into base contact. Helverins are a nice support for IK but ap-1 is an handicap and lack of melee power another.
Raichase wrote: As a Word Bearer player, I was very disappointed that we didn't end up with a better legion or warlord trait in this codex. I feel that the Iron Warriors warlord trait is better suited to a Word Bearers army, but what can you do? I am lucky that I just play for the sheer thrill of chucking dice around and yelling at models. Morale is such a non-starter these days - you either have a big blob of cultists in which the re-roll is only affecting HOW MANY of them fall off the table at the end of the turn, or you just don't need to take morale because you're using reasonably sized squads that will be entirely wiped out before they'd be able to fail a morale test on anything other than a 6...
I do agree that the legion trait is sorta ass, and so is their stratagem, but I particularly enjoy their warlord trait quite a bit. Can make for some funny combos.
vaklor4 wrote: World Eaters are EASILY in the top half of the CSM legions. Iron Warriors, Word Bearers and Night Lords are all inferior, because they're usually things you have to build around to make them work. For WE, you just bring close combat units and send them in. Even cultists with WE are hilarious at times, being able to rock 3 attacks per model on a charge. Who wouldn't want to get 120 attacks off a full 40 cultists?
Yeah, I agree. (sort of). I think Iron warriors are good too. But night lords, world bearers are inferior unless you really try and build a trait around their legion trait.
In any case, an important thing to remember is that the World Eaters legion trait combined with berzerkers means that the zerker sergeant with a powerfist has 8 powerfist attacks on the charge. That is more than most characters and as good as a daemon prince, and with a better AP too. The rest of the 4 zerkers in the Rhino are just abalative wounds and good for weight of additional attacks. (So, even a 5 man zerker unit can take on most things).
So, if you have 5 squads in Rhinos, that's 5 zerker captains running around each with 8 power fist attacks, and are obsec. Thats pretty good to me.
Has anyone got experience running a Khorne Lord of Skulls? I was thinking of converting one to go with a khornate daemon army (skullreaver DP, bloodletters, maybe some skull cannons...).
It was hilariously bad last edition but seems much improved in 8th. Combined with the daemon forge strategem, it looks like both the shooting and the melee are very powerful, plus it's fairly resilient on paper. I guess it's a comparable price to an IK valliant or castellan, with similar resilience (no rotate shields/WT for 4++ but a permanent 5++ and regen), far superior melee (especially when in the middle or bottom wounds degredation) but inferior shooting. I haven't seen many people either endorse the lord of skulls or denounce it, so am curious.
Barnie25 wrote: For a doubles tournament I am teaming up with a necron player. Both a 1000 points. I am bringing Ahriman on Disk, cultists and renegade knights. The necron player will spam Tomb Blades and Destroyers.
I need to provide the AT. The Daemon Prince is a good anti tank tool in combat. What would then be better?
-a Renegade Knight with either double gatling gun
-3 Helverines.
The Gaze of Faith power gives me a free reroll each turn, this would improve the thermal cannon quite a bit I think. Double Gatling is more general ofcourse however also more expensive. The 3 Helverines have strong shooting but can be locked in combat and have no melee as well as T7 instead of T8.
What would you guys advice?
i would go for a double gatling, with the re roll stratagem it delivers a crazy amount of bullets, or you can use two rapid fire battlecannons, 2x thermal cannon are just 2d6 shots bit too few for my taste, double gatling has just str 6 but 24 re rollable hits ap -2 d 2 is enough to handle average tanks, then if you afraid to meet IK then yes go for 2x thermal cannons and stormspear rocket pod, the double gatling+double flamer makes IK hard to charge, light units can get lot of wounds before get into base contact. Helverins are a nice support for IK but ap-1 is an handicap and lack of melee power another.
I think I will go for a setup with a Thermal Cannon, Gatling Cannon and Stormspear rocket pod. I will only have 5 CP for the game so I will onlt be reliably using the reroll strat once. This way I have good dedicated antitank while still having enough dakka overal.
ArikTaranis wrote: Has anyone got experience running a Khorne Lord of Skulls? I was thinking of converting one to go with a khornate daemon army (skullreaver DP, bloodletters, maybe some skull cannons...).
It was hilariously bad last edition but seems much improved in 8th. Combined with the daemon forge strategem, it looks like both the shooting and the melee are very powerful, plus it's fairly resilient on paper. I guess it's a comparable price to an IK valliant or castellan, with similar resilience (no rotate shields/WT for 4++ but a permanent 5++ and regen), far superior melee (especially when in the middle or bottom wounds degredation) but inferior shooting. I haven't seen many people either endorse the lord of skulls or denounce it, so am curious.
It's better than it was in 7th. This is true.
I've run it in maybe 5 games. The positive was, man, it can take a lot of shooting. The negative was, man, it attracts a lot of shooting.
Only got it into melee once. It did very well in that battle.
Raichase wrote: As a Word Bearer player, I was very disappointed that we didn't end up with a better legion or warlord trait in this codex. I feel that the Iron Warriors warlord trait is better suited to a Word Bearers army, but what can you do? I am lucky that I just play for the sheer thrill of chucking dice around and yelling at models. Morale is such a non-starter these days - you either have a big blob of cultists in which the re-roll is only affecting HOW MANY of them fall off the table at the end of the turn, or you just don't need to take morale because you're using reasonably sized squads that will be entirely wiped out before they'd be able to fail a morale test on anything other than a 6...
I do agree that the legion trait is sorta ass, and so is their stratagem, but I particularly enjoy their warlord trait quite a bit. Can make for some funny combos.
The WB warlord trait actually is fairly usefull. If you make it a gunline, doubleing the 6" radius to a 12 " is fairly usefull, especially if you intend to footslog, problem is what good longrange dakka options do we have? (dakkafieds are expensive, Havocs are good but i'd rather ignore cover then get a morale buff or get the -1 to hit trait, preds are still too expensive, Dakka brutes are the same as Havocs, LR's are terrible to put it mildly, regular CSM are like any tac marine and wannabee tac marine ovepriced by around 2 pts, Cultmarines would profit from it though, bunch of noise marines could do really well but so could they with virtually all other traits then the EC trait, etc.)
Nightlords, though, that trait is to put it bluntly, too specific. Basically you try to make the enemy lose through morale and the units that do that allready are too expensive pts wise and you don't even get obsec on them, because F you and take an assasin to the head. Granted you can make nightlords work, with a gak ton of fast units (biker msu, lords with jumppacks or on bikes, etc.) but even if you fully focus on their fast nature you can at most field 9 (10 if you count 1 max blob suprise cultists) really fast units with bikes, talons and raptors. On the other hand their -1 to hit strategem is good and CP can be farmed vie soup or via cheap battalionfiller cultists. Basically they have one build with one gimmick which can work but is hold back via the pricing on Warptalons, bikers and especially Raptors. (Actually, will we ever get Raptors with bolters?)
ArikTaranis wrote: Has anyone got experience running a Khorne Lord of Skulls? I was thinking of converting one to go with a khornate daemon army (skullreaver DP, bloodletters, maybe some skull cannons...).
It was hilariously bad last edition but seems much improved in 8th. Combined with the daemon forge strategem, it looks like both the shooting and the melee are very powerful, plus it's fairly resilient on paper. I guess it's a comparable price to an IK valliant or castellan, with similar resilience (no rotate shields/WT for 4++ but a permanent 5++ and regen), far superior melee (especially when in the middle or bottom wounds degredation) but inferior shooting. I haven't seen many people either endorse the lord of skulls or denounce it, so am curious.
Ive played it at least a dozen times and I can safely say always go Gatling Cannon. The Lord of Skulls is Primaris's worst nightmare, as all of its guns are 2 damage 8 strength (as far as I know.)
But yes, it is far better than any knight in melee, is suprisingly hard to kill and attracts a tooon of fire. Be ready to lose ot by turn 2 if your opponent builds around it, but that also means they will have to ignore the rest of your army. At best its unstoppable in shooting and melee. At worst, its a massively durable distraction.
ArikTaranis wrote: Has anyone got experience running a Khorne Lord of Skulls? I was thinking of converting one to go with a khornate daemon army (skullreaver DP, bloodletters, maybe some skull cannons...).
It was hilariously bad last edition but seems much improved in 8th. Combined with the daemon forge strategem, it looks like both the shooting and the melee are very powerful, plus it's fairly resilient on paper. I guess it's a comparable price to an IK valliant or castellan, with similar resilience (no rotate shields/WT for 4++ but a permanent 5++ and regen), far superior melee (especially when in the middle or bottom wounds degredation) but inferior shooting. I haven't seen many people either endorse the lord of skulls or denounce it, so am curious.
Ive played it at least a dozen times and I can safely say always go Gatling Cannon. The Lord of Skulls is Primaris's worst nightmare, as all of its guns are 2 damage 8 strength (as far as I know.)
But yes, it is far better than any knight in melee, is suprisingly hard to kill and attracts a tooon of fire. Be ready to lose ot by turn 2 if your opponent builds around it, but that also means they will have to ignore the rest of your army. At best its unstoppable in shooting and melee. At worst, its a massively durable distraction.
Have you seen the Kytan in action? It is roughly 130 points cheaper and just as killy in close combat. Would make a nice partner with Magnus to build around together and smash face.
Summa sumarum, still the best legion trait. The strategem is now only really worth it if you want to squeeze in that first turn charge with certain fast units or bikerlords with talismans. Bascially a reduction to another chaos gunline, except this time more durable, with the potential of some shock attacks which however require fast movement.
ArikTaranis wrote: Has anyone got experience running a Khorne Lord of Skulls? I was thinking of converting one to go with a khornate daemon army (skullreaver DP, bloodletters, maybe some skull cannons...).
It was hilariously bad last edition but seems much improved in 8th. Combined with the daemon forge strategem, it looks like both the shooting and the melee are very powerful, plus it's fairly resilient on paper. I guess it's a comparable price to an IK valliant or castellan, with similar resilience (no rotate shields/WT for 4++ but a permanent 5++ and regen), far superior melee (especially when in the middle or bottom wounds degredation) but inferior shooting. I haven't seen many people either endorse the lord of skulls or denounce it, so am curious.
Ive played it at least a dozen times and I can safely say always go Gatling Cannon. The Lord of Skulls is Primaris's worst nightmare, as all of its guns are 2 damage 8 strength (as far as I know.)
But yes, it is far better than any knight in melee, is suprisingly hard to kill and attracts a tooon of fire. Be ready to lose ot by turn 2 if your opponent builds around it, but that also means they will have to ignore the rest of your army. At best its unstoppable in shooting and melee. At worst, its a massively durable distraction.
Have you seen the Kytan in action? It is roughly 130 points cheaper and just as killy in close combat. Would make a nice partner with Magnus to build around together and smash face.
Dont trust that points drop, the normal LoS is still a bit better. Its roughly the same melee but your ranged firepower is FAR superior.
ArikTaranis wrote: Has anyone got experience running a Khorne Lord of Skulls? I was thinking of converting one to go with a khornate daemon army (skullreaver DP, bloodletters, maybe some skull cannons...).
It was hilariously bad last edition but seems much improved in 8th. Combined with the daemon forge strategem, it looks like both the shooting and the melee are very powerful, plus it's fairly resilient on paper. I guess it's a comparable price to an IK valliant or castellan, with similar resilience (no rotate shields/WT for 4++ but a permanent 5++ and regen), far superior melee (especially when in the middle or bottom wounds degredation) but inferior shooting. I haven't seen many people either endorse the lord of skulls or denounce it, so am curious.
Ive played it at least a dozen times and I can safely say always go Gatling Cannon. The Lord of Skulls is Primaris's worst nightmare, as all of its guns are 2 damage 8 strength (as far as I know.)
But yes, it is far better than any knight in melee, is suprisingly hard to kill and attracts a tooon of fire. Be ready to lose ot by turn 2 if your opponent builds around it, but that also means they will have to ignore the rest of your army. At best its unstoppable in shooting and melee. At worst, its a massively durable distraction.
Have you seen the Kytan in action? It is roughly 130 points cheaper and just as killy in close combat. Would make a nice partner with Magnus to build around together and smash face.
Dont trust that points drop, the normal LoS is still a bit better. Its roughly the same melee but your ranged firepower is FAR superior.
The model is so damn hideous though.. I am probably getting a Kytan so I can mangetize the axe with a Thermal Cannon so I can run it as a knight as well. Will probably run it as a counts as Lord of Skulls at local events as well. I am not getting the regular base model, haha. I am going to remove the Khorne emblem from the helmet and convert it a little anyways.
Raichase wrote: As a Word Bearer player, I was very disappointed that we didn't end up with a better legion or warlord trait in this codex. I feel that the Iron Warriors warlord trait is better suited to a Word Bearers army, but what can you do? I am lucky that I just play for the sheer thrill of chucking dice around and yelling at models. Morale is such a non-starter these days - you either have a big blob of cultists in which the re-roll is only affecting HOW MANY of them fall off the table at the end of the turn, or you just don't need to take morale because you're using reasonably sized squads that will be entirely wiped out before they'd be able to fail a morale test on anything other than a 6...
I do agree that the legion trait is sorta ass, and so is their stratagem, but I particularly enjoy their warlord trait quite a bit. Can make for some funny combos.
The WB warlord trait actually is fairly usefull. If you make it a gunline, doubleing the 6" radius to a 12 " is fairly usefull, especially if you intend to footslog, problem is what good longrange dakka options do we have? (dakkafieds are expensive, Havocs are good but i'd rather ignore cover then get a morale buff or get the -1 to hit trait, preds are still too expensive, Dakka brutes are the same as Havocs, LR's are terrible to put it mildly, regular CSM are like any tac marine and wannabee tac marine ovepriced by around 2 pts, Cultmarines would profit from it though, bunch of noise marines could do really well but so could they with virtually all other traits then the EC trait, etc.
Point of order - WB Warlord Trait gives auras +3”, not x2”.
Barnie25 wrote: For a doubles tournament I am teaming up with a necron player. Both a 1000 points. I am bringing Ahriman on Disk, cultists and renegade knights. The necron player will spam Tomb Blades and Destroyers.
I need to provide the AT. The Daemon Prince is a good anti tank tool in combat. What would then be better?
-a Renegade Knight with either double gatling gun
-3 Helverines.
The Gaze of Faith power gives me a free reroll each turn, this would improve the thermal cannon quite a bit I think. Double Gatling is more general ofcourse however also more expensive. The 3 Helverines have strong shooting but can be locked in combat and have no melee as well as T7 instead of T8.
What would you guys advice?
i would go for a double gatling, with the re roll stratagem it delivers a crazy amount of bullets, or you can use two rapid fire battlecannons, 2x thermal cannon are just 2d6 shots bit too few for my taste, double gatling has just str 6 but 24 re rollable hits ap -2 d 2 is enough to handle average tanks, then if you afraid to meet IK then yes go for 2x thermal cannons and stormspear rocket pod, the double gatling+double flamer makes IK hard to charge, light units can get lot of wounds before get into base contact. Helverins are a nice support for IK but ap-1 is an handicap and lack of melee power another.
I think I will go for a setup with a Thermal Cannon, Gatling Cannon and Stormspear rocket pod. I will only have 5 CP for the game so I will onlt be reliably using the reroll strat once. This way I have good dedicated antitank while still having enough dakka overal.
usually is not a good idea mix weapons like that, btw your choice.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Anyone not choosing a Lord for that Warlord Trait is wrong about everything.
Wouldn't a Dark Apostle also be pretty nice for that 9" morale boost? Giving everything in a wide area 9 morale is pretty handy.
I've been thinking of running it on a Dark Apostle if I use it at all to be honest. On one hand, Morale is such a non-issue in this edition (in my experience anyway) because if they're going to smash apart Cultists, you're just rolling to see how many of them shirk off the battlefield in the morale phase, and most of our other units are small enough that if they're in a position to fail a morale test, they're likely neutered anyway or have been wiped out. That being said, he's giving Cultists +3 (or even +4 if the Champ is dead) to morale, which might help keep that single cultist on the field to use Tide of Traitors next turn.
I'm more interested in the re-rolls in the fight phase to be honest, giving it a range of 9" means he can realistically affect two combats (or more if you're lucky) in a single fight phase.
I'd be far happier if the Dark Apostle just made everyone within 6" pass morale tests automatically as it's far more in theme for the character and the Word Bearers army, but I suspect this "sharing leadership" ability is a cookie-cutter line from the Space Marine Chaplain entry?
I'm a huge fan of the Word Bearers trilogy by Anthony Reynolds (it's how I'm building my army) and it fits the fluff so nicely to have the Dark Apostle inspiring everyone around him to fight harder and not run away.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Anyone not choosing a Lord for that Warlord Trait is wrong about everything.
Wouldn't a Dark Apostle also be pretty nice for that 9" morale boost? Giving everything in a wide area 9 morale is pretty handy.
I've been thinking of running it on a Dark Apostle if I use it at all to be honest. On one hand, Morale is such a non-issue in this edition (in my experience anyway) because if they're going to smash apart Cultists, you're just rolling to see how many of them shirk off the battlefield in the morale phase, and most of our other units are small enough that if they're in a position to fail a morale test, they're likely neutered anyway or have been wiped out. That being said, he's giving Cultists +3 (or even +4 if the Champ is dead) to morale, which might help keep that single cultist on the field to use Tide of Traitors next turn.
I'm more interested in the re-rolls in the fight phase to be honest, giving it a range of 9" means he can realistically affect two combats (or more if you're lucky) in a single fight phase.
I'd be far happier if the Dark Apostle just made everyone within 6" pass morale tests automatically as it's far more in theme for the character and the Word Bearers army, but I suspect this "sharing leadership" ability is a cookie-cutter line from the Space Marine Chaplain entry?
I'm a huge fan of the Word Bearers trilogy by Anthony Reynolds (it's how I'm building my army) and it fits the fluff so nicely to have the Dark Apostle inspiring everyone around him to fight harder and not run away.
You only have to care about that if you bring 30-40 cultists. But if you bring 10 cultists for MSUCP farming, it makes them almost immune to morale. Heck, even 20 man units of Cultists become quite good at passing with low losses on a 9+ LD. They'd have to lose half their unit to even get auto-failure.
vaklor4 wrote: Which in some cases is still better. It makes Warpsmiths pretty wild with how far away they can heal, for instance.
Anyone not choosing a Lord for that Warlord Trait is wrong about everything.
Wouldn't a Dark Apostle also be pretty nice for that 9" morale boost? Giving everything in a wide area 9 morale is pretty handy.
LD is high enough on the good units and Word Bearers already have reroll for it. It seems more nice for the rerolls for everything in melee but you'll get more a balance from a Lord, and he's got more options too.
vaklor4 wrote: Which in some cases is still better. It makes Warpsmiths pretty wild with how far away they can heal, for instance.
Anyone not choosing a Lord for that Warlord Trait is wrong about everything.
Wouldn't a Dark Apostle also be pretty nice for that 9" morale boost? Giving everything in a wide area 9 morale is pretty handy.
LD is high enough on the good units and Word Bearers already have reroll for it. It seems more nice for the rerolls for everything in melee but you'll get more a balance from a Lord, and he's got more options too.
It all depends on what ya bring tbh. If you bring lots of stuff with lower-end hit rolls (cultists, daemon engines, power fists, etc.) then rerolling EVERYTHING is way better. Rerolling 1s globally is nice, but only edges them out if you go heavy into shooting. In my experience, a dark apostle usually holds his weight far more obviously than a chaos lord. It's also weirdly deceptively tough to take down, with a wicked 4++ invuln save, just like the Lord.
ArikTaranis wrote: Has anyone got experience running a Khorne Lord of Skulls? I was thinking of converting one to go with a khornate daemon army (skullreaver DP, bloodletters, maybe some skull cannons...).
It was hilariously bad last edition but seems much improved in 8th. Combined with the daemon forge strategem, it looks like both the shooting and the melee are very powerful, plus it's fairly resilient on paper. I guess it's a comparable price to an IK valliant or castellan, with similar resilience (no rotate shields/WT for 4++ but a permanent 5++ and regen), far superior melee (especially when in the middle or bottom wounds degredation) but inferior shooting. I haven't seen many people either endorse the lord of skulls or denounce it, so am curious.
Ive played it at least a dozen times and I can safely say always go Gatling Cannon. The Lord of Skulls is Primaris's worst nightmare, as all of its guns are 2 damage 8 strength (as far as I know.)
But yes, it is far better than any knight in melee, is suprisingly hard to kill and attracts a tooon of fire. Be ready to lose ot by turn 2 if your opponent builds around it, but that also means they will have to ignore the rest of your army. At best its unstoppable in shooting and melee. At worst, its a massively durable distraction.
Have you seen the Kytan in action? It is roughly 130 points cheaper and just as killy in close combat. Would make a nice partner with Magnus to build around together and smash face.
Kytan is worse for a few reasons.
1. It has 6 less wounds. This is massive.
2. It has less gun
3. It gets worse as it gets hurt whereas the LoS gets better in combat.
4. Probably the single most important difference, the LoS lacks a base meaning you measure all melee range from it's hull, this means it can actually charge and kill sh*t on the upper floors of ruins, or heck, even standing on a pile of crates. The Kytan gets absolutely games because of this and he has less guns, making him IMHO terrible. I\d take a renegade knight over the kytan every single time. LoS on the other hand fills all the hole I just pointed out.
It's biggest drawback is the same with all super heavies, it's a lot of eggs in one basket and has issues moving around terrain dense tables.
ArikTaranis wrote: Has anyone got experience running a Khorne Lord of Skulls? I was thinking of converting one to go with a khornate daemon army (skullreaver DP, bloodletters, maybe some skull cannons...).
It was hilariously bad last edition but seems much improved in 8th. Combined with the daemon forge strategem, it looks like both the shooting and the melee are very powerful, plus it's fairly resilient on paper. I guess it's a comparable price to an IK valliant or castellan, with similar resilience (no rotate shields/WT for 4++ but a permanent 5++ and regen), far superior melee (especially when in the middle or bottom wounds degredation) but inferior shooting. I haven't seen many people either endorse the lord of skulls or denounce it, so am curious.
Ive played it at least a dozen times and I can safely say always go Gatling Cannon. The Lord of Skulls is Primaris's worst nightmare, as all of its guns are 2 damage 8 strength (as far as I know.)
But yes, it is far better than any knight in melee, is suprisingly hard to kill and attracts a tooon of fire. Be ready to lose ot by turn 2 if your opponent builds around it, but that also means they will have to ignore the rest of your army. At best its unstoppable in shooting and melee. At worst, its a massively durable distraction.
Have you seen the Kytan in action? It is roughly 130 points cheaper and just as killy in close combat. Would make a nice partner with Magnus to build around together and smash face.
Dont trust that points drop, the normal LoS is still a bit better. Its roughly the same melee but your ranged firepower is FAR superior.
The model is so damn hideous though.. I am probably getting a Kytan so I can mangetize the axe with a Thermal Cannon so I can run it as a knight as well. Will probably run it as a counts as Lord of Skulls at local events as well. I am not getting the regular base model, haha. I am going to remove the Khorne emblem from the helmet and convert it a little anyways.
I think the box paintjob lets it down often. I know it's merely a matter of differing taste but I think the Kytan looks WAY sillier. It has some of the weakest spindliest legs ever. There is a reason people always snap photos of it head on, it's legs suck. I like the idea of a tank tracked lower body so much more, it reminds me of bonecrusher from Marvel. Your taste is your taste, but I have never understood how skinny emaciated chicken legs are better then 4 sets of thick aggressive tracks and a train plow to some people.
I think the tracks are fine, it's the dick gun and all the skulls built into the model that look silly to me. We get it, he's the lord of skulls stop beating the horse before it turns to dust.
I have to agree that the LoS is an awful model. To me, it's always looked like a children's toy with a pullback motor, the sort that swings its axe arm up and down as it rattles forward about a foot before running out of energy, hitting a table, or falling over. That's before the rest of it desperately trying to cling to the "big is best" idea that makes it look even more like Khorne Berzerker's First Toy.
But again thats the paint job. Everything in chaos has too much crap on it, you need to tone it down when you paint the model, GW paints everything up to 11 so you can see all the details your purchasing.
Take for example, the raptor kit. That kmit is awesome so long as you don't over do it with the hilighting on the trim. They quickly become silly.
BTW the skull thing you just said is not really fair. Most of the skulls are built into a few armor plates and the plow while the majority of the model lacks skulls. Apart from the plow, the Kytan and LoS have the same amount of skull design.
Of course this is all just difference of opinion, and maybe any level of skulls is silly to you which is fine. For me, a game set in the 41 millennia where one faction makes a possessed tank man with a massive chain cleaver and vomits blood bile on everything needs to be taken lightly anyway. If you play chaos you should already be embracing the metal nature of the army or you will find it uphill when it comes to the models in the first place.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Spoiler:
IDK, I hate the legs on the Kytan so much lol. BTW these paintjobs kit nothing to but praise on the modeling done by the owners of these.
Just throwing shade on the FW legs is all lol.
ArikTaranis wrote: Has anyone got experience running a Khorne Lord of Skulls? I was thinking of converting one to go with a khornate daemon army (skullreaver DP, bloodletters, maybe some skull cannons...).
It was hilariously bad last edition but seems much improved in 8th. Combined with the daemon forge strategem, it looks like both the shooting and the melee are very powerful, plus it's fairly resilient on paper. I guess it's a comparable price to an IK valliant or castellan, with similar resilience (no rotate shields/WT for 4++ but a permanent 5++ and regen), far superior melee (especially when in the middle or bottom wounds degredation) but inferior shooting. I haven't seen many people either endorse the lord of skulls or denounce it, so am curious.
Ive played it at least a dozen times and I can safely say always go Gatling Cannon. The Lord of Skulls is Primaris's worst nightmare, as all of its guns are 2 damage 8 strength (as far as I know.)
But yes, it is far better than any knight in melee, is suprisingly hard to kill and attracts a tooon of fire. Be ready to lose ot by turn 2 if your opponent builds around it, but that also means they will have to ignore the rest of your army. At best its unstoppable in shooting and melee. At worst, its a massively durable distraction.
Have you seen the Kytan in action? It is roughly 130 points cheaper and just as killy in close combat. Would make a nice partner with Magnus to build around together and smash face.
My fifteen hundred list (on paper) is Magnus, a Kytan and Mortarion. Three LoWs for a command point, plus some random stuff to fill in the last few points. Dunno how well it plays, but I threw down the gauntlet to my friends with it. Lol
I personally enjoy the overly crazy style of the Lord of Skulls. I don't play Warhammer 40,000 to have realistic tanks and down to earth design. I want my planes to have zero aerodynamics, and my guns to be the width of my entire torso!
I feel like Renegade Knights are generally better than a Lord of Skulls. Not as much synergy with other CSM stuff, but cheaper, with similar or better firepower, depending on loadout. And a CC Renegade is probably better in combat.
ZergSmasher wrote: I feel like Renegade Knights are generally better than a Lord of Skulls. Not as much synergy with other CSM stuff, but cheaper, with similar or better firepower, depending on loadout. And a CC Renegade is probably better in combat.
Trust me, a CC renegade is not. It has no invuln in combat, while the lord of skull has a general 5++ at all times. Additionally, it costs 1 CP to reroll the hits and wounds for every attack on a LoS, while it takes 2 to just reroll the hits om a knight.
Comparing stats id still say thr LoS is better, but its daemonforged strat puts it FAR beyond a renegade.
I am looking at starting a Chaos army, mix of both CSM and Daemons. I am leaning toward World Eaters because I want to go heavy assault and also really like Khorne.
Here is what I have come up with. Forgive me if it is improper/illegal and if so please point out what is wrong. Unsure on who should be warlord, probably the DP, what trait though?
Spoiler:
CSM battallion - world eaters
HQ Dark apostle, power maul, Khorne
Exatled Champioon, Chainaxe, chainsword, khorne
Troops
36 Cultist with autoguns, khorne
10 Cultist with autoguns, khorne
10 Cultist with autoguns, khorne
Elites
8x Khorne Beszerksers Chainsword and chain axe, icon of wrath
8x Khorne Beszerksers Chainsword and chain axe, icon of wrath
Transport
Rhino w combi bolter
Rhino w combi bolter
Daemon Prince hunts knights. The Decimators are anti tank with mortal wound output. Bloodletters have bomb and if needed buffed by the sorcerer. THe 2 bezerkers squads, the Dark Apostle and Exalted champion go in the rhinos to rush in. Big unit of 36 cultist for tide of traitors, the 2 small 10 man squads are for objective grabbers. The idea of this list is obviously to commit as much to the assault as possible? C&C
Well your taking world eaters so the berserkers are troops not elites. It's in the FAQ for reference. Not sure I'd take a lump of 36 cultists in WE. You can't delightful agony or endless cacophony them and you lack the auto pass moral so you probably burning 2cp for insane courage then 2 cp to tide and the only benefit you get in world eaters in in the assault where your autoguns aren't best suited. Sure you can fight twice if you make it in with any meaningful numbers and verterans of the LW but hot damn thats all your CP's for the entire army basically going into a chaf unit.
If you want to keep the cultists, do your self a favor and change legions since you don't need the berserkers as troops anyway. That way at least you can switch marks up and for example if Iron warriors take cold and bitter for the cultists or in AL you still can redeploy forward and at least have -1 to hit. Heck or be contravercial and go Renegades and advance and charge.
Red Corsair wrote: Well your taking world eaters so the berserkers are troops not elites. It's in the FAQ for reference. Not sure I'd take a lump of 36 cultists in WE. You can't delightful agony or endless cacophony them and you lack the auto pass moral so you probably burning 2cp for insane courage then 2 cp to tide and the only benefit you get in world eaters in in the assault where your autoguns aren't best suited. Sure you can fight twice if you make it in with any meaningful numbers and verterans of the LW but hot damn thats all your CP's for the entire army basically going into a chaf unit.
If you want to keep the cultists, do your self a favor and change legions since you don't need the berserkers as troops anyway. That way at least you can switch marks up and for example if Iron warriors take cold and bitter for the cultists or in AL you still can redeploy forward and at least have -1 to hit. Heck or be contravercial and go Renegades and advance and charge.
I like advance and charge, I main nids and am used to that with my Genestealers. I'll have to look further into the legions. If I don't take 36 since I don't have the fearless, which I can look into, just splitting into 3 equal groups for cheap chaff/objective grabbers may be the way to go. Thoughts on mixing Bloodletter bomb and Bezerkers in the same list, I don't think I have personally ever seen that, normally its one or the other.
It's decent, but not optimal. Your basically holding the bomb back until turn 2 while they can deal with your Berserkers, and then you have the issue of finding room for everything. Remember your own chargers can get in the way of eachother. Biggest issue your going to have is getting the berserkers across the table now that alpha legion took a hit. It isn't THAT bad compared to before but it wasn't a sure bet then. Essentially your getting 9" out your deployment then your moving another 6 which puts you another 9" from their DZ which then requires them being morons for letting you pull a 9" charge. I think now the better option is going in rhinos or a termite and popping smoke and preping for a turn 2 assault. That would sink well with your letters arriving, and assaulting with renegades out of a rhino is actually pretty fast. The issue then become screen removal. Your going to get blocked by anyone with any decent skill so you then need some quad HB rapiers or butcher canons or both. I don't mind blood letter but you generally don't see them and berserkers because they fight for the same job and require additional HQ's as a tax since summoning is not good.
I know there are other more experienced world eater focused guys in here so I'll let them chime in. It's also worth filtering the thread by certain khorne players just to focus on their feedback.
vaklor4
Lindsay40k
come to the top of my mind but I know there are others.
Red Corsair wrote: Well your taking world eaters so the berserkers are troops not elites. It's in the FAQ for reference. Not sure I'd take a lump of 36 cultists in WE. You can't delightful agony or endless cacophony them and you lack the auto pass moral so you probably burning 2cp for insane courage then 2 cp to tide and the only benefit you get in world eaters in in the assault where your autoguns aren't best suited. Sure you can fight twice if you make it in with any meaningful numbers and verterans of the LW but hot damn thats all your CP's for the entire army basically going into a chaf unit.
If you want to keep the cultists, do your self a favor and change legions since you don't need the berserkers as troops anyway. That way at least you can switch marks up and for example if Iron warriors take cold and bitter for the cultists or in AL you still can redeploy forward and at least have -1 to hit. Heck or be contravercial and go Renegades and advance and charge.
I like advance and charge, I main nids and am used to that with my Genestealers. I'll have to look further into the legions. If I don't take 36 since I don't have the fearless, which I can look into, just splitting into 3 equal groups for cheap chaff/objective grabbers may be the way to go. Thoughts on mixing Bloodletter bomb and Bezerkers in the same list, I don't think I have personally ever seen that, normally its one or the other.
Just take more berserkers and forget the cultists.
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, and my plan with a similar list is to take some terminators to teleport in and just be a distraction.
Red Corsair wrote: It's decent, but not optimal. Your basically holding the bomb back until turn 2 while they can deal with your Berserkers, and then you have the issue of finding room for everything. Remember your own chargers can get in the way of eachother. Biggest issue your going to have is getting the berserkers across the table now that alpha legion took a hit. It isn't THAT bad compared to before but it wasn't a sure bet then. Essentially your getting 9" out your deployment then your moving another 6 which puts you another 9" from their DZ which then requires them being morons for letting you pull a 9" charge. I think now the better option is going in rhinos or a termite and popping smoke and preping for a turn 2 assault. That would sink well with your letters arriving, and assaulting with renegades out of a rhino is actually pretty fast. The issue then become screen removal. Your going to get blocked by anyone with any decent skill so you then need some quad HB rapiers or butcher canons or both. I don't mind blood letter but you generally don't see them and berserkers because they fight for the same job and require additional HQ's as a tax since summoning is not good.
I know there are other more experienced world eater focused guys in here so I'll let them chime in. It's also worth filtering the thread by certain khorne players just to focus on their feedback.
vaklor4
Lindsay40k
come to the top of my mind but I know there are others.
Good feedback. I am researching more. Now I am looking at the Rhinos (2) and taking one unit of 10 Bezerkers and 1 unit of 8. They have an exalted champion and dark apostle with them for reroll hits and wounds. Still stay khorne world eaters. if I did the math right it comes out to 72 attacks, 18 with chainsword, 54 with axe, and then do that twice (or even 3 times with the Fury of khorne). I was looking at getting a sorcerer to warp time the rhino which will move and advance, but I could only get one up there then.
For the Bloodletters I planned to take a Khorne DP kitted out and use Dark Pact for the Summoning. This would work well for a turn 2 in strike as you mentioned.
Red Corsair wrote: It's decent, but not optimal. Your basically holding the bomb back until turn 2 while they can deal with your Berserkers, and then you have the issue of finding room for everything. Remember your own chargers can get in the way of eachother. Biggest issue your going to have is getting the berserkers across the table now that alpha legion took a hit. It isn't THAT bad compared to before but it wasn't a sure bet then. Essentially your getting 9" out your deployment then your moving another 6 which puts you another 9" from their DZ which then requires them being morons for letting you pull a 9" charge. I think now the better option is going in rhinos or a termite and popping smoke and preping for a turn 2 assault. That would sink well with your letters arriving, and assaulting with renegades out of a rhino is actually pretty fast. The issue then become screen removal. Your going to get blocked by anyone with any decent skill so you then need some quad HB rapiers or butcher canons or both. I don't mind blood letter but you generally don't see them and berserkers because they fight for the same job and require additional HQ's as a tax since summoning is not good.
I know there are other more experienced world eater focused guys in here so I'll let them chime in. It's also worth filtering the thread by certain khorne players just to focus on their feedback.
vaklor4
Lindsay40k
come to the top of my mind but I know there are others.
Good feedback. I am researching more. Now I am looking at the Rhinos (2) and taking one unit of 10 Bezerkers and 1 unit of 8. They have an exalted champion and dark apostle with them for reroll hits and wounds. Still stay khorne world eaters. if I did the math right it comes out to 72 attacks, 18 with chainsword, 54 with axe, and then do that twice (or even 3 times with the Fury of khorne). I was looking at getting a sorcerer to warp time the rhino which will move and advance, but I could only get one up there then.
For the Bloodletters I planned to take a Khorne DP kitted out and use Dark Pact for the Summoning. This would work well for a turn 2 in strike as you mentioned.
In my experience, go 9 and 9 instead of 10 and 8. In some situations you'll need to split off your Zerkers into two groups seperate from eachother, and when that happens you're better off with 9 of them each having at least some sort of buff, instead of 10 of your 18 being left bare, and only a smaller amount getting buffed.
Yeah, if you’re running two busses of Berzerkers with DA+EC, don’t give your opponent an easyish chance to take out the transport for both characters. Two squads of nine makes it a lot harder to prevent all of them from making contact. Two squads of eight is not only fluffy but also means that, if one bus pops on the first turn, the character that was in it can jump aboard the other.
Not Online!!! wrote: Welllllllllll, the Talisman relic exists, give it to a jumppack Lord kitted for rip and tear and watch as your Lord removes stuff.
For distraction terminators. Actually why not take multilators?
Tougher, better equiped and msu of 3 with far less pts.
A distraction unit has to actually be a threat, and three models with M4 aren’t that scary.
If you love the unit and want to field them, consider a khorne Daemonkin list. They can teleport in and re-roll failed charges off a Locus. Budget a CP to reroll the lower of a 2-5 or 1-6 and the odds aren’t that bad.
If you want your opponent to prioritise shooting at a unit, present them with one they can’t simply avoid with a brisk stroll.
Automatically Appended Next Post: @Dynas - polytheist list with Khorne melee and Sorcerer support is a good call. I like to have something that can benefit from Warptime every turn, but which does not rely on it to be viable. A blob of Cultists are often a good late game Warptime - Tide of Traitors in the midgame, and rendezvous for a high speed charge late on. So, mobility is really important for a midfield support Sorcerer, I put mine on a Steed of Slaanesh or give them a Jump pack so they can put buffs down and pop cheeky smites where they’re needed. Won one huge game just by killing Herald Deathwolf and a Knight with precision Warptiming and Death Hexing.
I’m still assembling my own dual Rhino Berzerker contingent, and I’m thinking a Daemon Engine will accompany them. A Heldrake, or Warptimed Maulerfiend. Something that’ll really draw attention from the Rhinos from the start and demand a full kill, without costing more than the contents.
I actually love the Lord of Skulls model. And I agree it has far more synergy with a CSM army than a renegade knight. For one thing, its can have legion keyword. This means it can benefit from certain psychic powers and strategems.
Other than Daemon Forge, another key psychic is warptime. Now bubble wrap can of course foil this. But you can't ignore a possibility of a first turn charge with the LOS into enemy lines because wrap time means it has a potential 20 inch reach on the first turn.
Even if it crashes into a bubble wrap. It doesn't matter, the bubble wrap doesn't stop it from firing. And he would probably retreat the bubble wrap from combat (unless it got totally destroyed in combat phase). It nevertheless applies a huge amount of pressure immediately, which is what it is meant to do.
The key thing is whether your opponent brought enough shooting. If he has so much shooting he can take down a LOS in one turn, then sure it won't make back its points. (This is true for any renegade knight unit as well). But if he doesn't have any shooting or devotes his shooting to other targets, then your LOS would be able to rampage through his lines and hopefully make back its cost.
There are other synergies too. For instance, make it black legion and if you run Abbadon beside it, it gets reroll to hit every turn. Make it world eaters and run Kharn beside it, and you get the same effect. Plus a huge LOS is a great shield for Kharn. Its unlikely anyone can target Kharn until they have taken out the LOS. The issue is that with the Hades Gratling gun (which is its best gun), it is rather expensive in points. A Castellan might arguably have greater firepower (even a renegade one). But its far more visually chaos than a castellan, and I love mine. I rejigged the back so that it looks more stream lined.
A distraction unit has to actually be a threat, and three models with M4 aren’t that scary.
If you love the unit and want to field them, consider a khorne Daemonkin list. They can teleport in and re-roll failed charges off a Locus. Budget a CP to reroll the lower of a 2-5 or 1-6 and the odds aren’t that bad.
If you want your opponent to prioritise shooting at a unit, present them with one they can’t simply avoid with a brisk stroll.
A: No they don't need to be dangerous, they just need to be interpreted as dangerous by your opponent.
B: M4 isn't much off a problem if you put them down in a position that is central enough, preferably in a way where your opponent can't really sidestep them.
Do they require more brains to play, yes, but let's not pretend that Terminators are a better option they are not, infact the cheapest possible terminator squad is worse in melee and also just has M5 so the same applies to them. They are also atleast 69 pts more expensive for only 1, ONE,wound more. A toss up really.
Not Online!!! wrote: Welllllllllll, the Talisman relic exists, give it to a jumppack Lord kitted for rip and tear and watch as your Lord removes stuff.
For distraction terminators. Actually why not take multilators?
Tougher, better equiped and msu of 3 with far less pts.
Because I've just bought 10 Chaos terminators and I don't have any mutilators.
From a tactical point of view the mutilators probably do that job better, I agree. I was just suggesting something to drop near your opponent so that they have to make the awkward decision of trying to get rid of them, OR concentrating fire on a couple of Rhino's stuffed full of very angry Berserkers.
My Chaos Lord (also a terminator) is planned to have the Talisman relic and hopefully will be able to remove stuff. Faces mostly.
Not Online!!! wrote: Welllllllllll, the Talisman relic exists, give it to a jumppack Lord kitted for rip and tear and watch as your Lord removes stuff.
For distraction terminators. Actually why not take multilators?
Tougher, better equiped and msu of 3 with far less pts.
Because I've just bought 10 Chaos terminators and I don't have any mutilators.
From a tactical point of view the mutilators probably do that job better, I agree. I was just suggesting something to drop near your opponent so that they have to make the awkward decision of trying to get rid of them, OR concentrating fire on a couple of Rhino's stuffed full of very angry Berserkers.
My Chaos Lord (also a terminator) is planned to have the Talisman relic and hopefully will be able to remove stuff. Faces mostly.
Any way that allows you to get within that nice advance and guaranteed charge range makes the Talisman allready worth it, with the right melee equipment, probably also consider the axe artifact?
Generally the Terminator lord is a good option, not the best out there, (that goes to the 08/15 camper lord sitting near heavy guns) but he can be workable.
I absolutely love CSM terminators, i myself own also 10 but sadly they hardly get stuff done only ever shot at, (went over and made them Nurgle alpha legionaires, rulewise not paintwise, and now use them literally as cheapest possible dakka configuration to soak bullets) . Meanwhile i hate the models mutilators have, but i find the idea behind them interesting and their capabilities atleast as a concept well done, harmed however by their price and movement.
Not Online!!! wrote: Welllllllllll, the Talisman relic exists, give it to a jumppack Lord kitted for rip and tear and watch as your Lord removes stuff.
For distraction terminators. Actually why not take multilators?
Tougher, better equiped and msu of 3 with far less pts.
Because I've just bought 10 Chaos terminators and I don't have any mutilators.
From a tactical point of view the mutilators probably do that job better, I agree. I was just suggesting something to drop near your opponent so that they have to make the awkward decision of trying to get rid of them, OR concentrating fire on a couple of Rhino's stuffed full of very angry Berserkers.
My Chaos Lord (also a terminator) is planned to have the Talisman relic and hopefully will be able to remove stuff. Faces mostly.
Any way that allows you to get within that nice advance and guaranteed charge range makes the Talisman allready worth it, with the right melee equipment, probably also consider the axe artifact?
Generally the Terminator lord is a good option, not the best out there, (that goes to the 08/15 camper lord sitting near heavy guns) but he can be workable.
I absolutely love CSM terminators, i myself own also 10 but sadly they hardly get stuff done only ever shot at, (went over and made them Nurgle alpha legionaires, rulewise not paintwise, and now use them literally as cheapest possible dakka configuration to soak bullets) . Meanwhile i hate the models mutilators have, but i find the idea behind them interesting and their capabilities atleast as a concept well done, harmed however by their price and movement.
Didn't like the idea of my terminator lord hacking his bodyguard to bits with the axe by accident, if he was using a terminator squad as company. I also didn't want to model him with an axe either for reasons I can't remember.
I originally wanted him to have a sword of some description and a single lightning claw, but then I realised he'd look like Abaddon so I went for lightning claw and customised chainfist.
He's the 'fluff' choice for my army leader, and yeah, I love the CSM terminator model and the customisation you can do. But I'm resigning myself to the fact that in a game they would probably just act as bullet magnets.
I haven't decided about the concept of mutilators/obliterators yet (I'm a returning player, last gamed in 2e and they didn't exist then) and the models aren't appealing to me.
Can confirm a distraction unit only needs to APPEAR dangerous. Cant tell you the amount of times people focus fired on my bloodthirster, while rhinos full of Zerekers raced up the board. People tend to forget the stats when they see a stonkin big model. Same can be said for the defiler. Tournament cheese? LORD NO. Doesnt stop everyone and their mother from assuming it is far scarier than it really is.
Anyone try a Hellforged Kharybdis? I plan on using my recently finished kitbashed one this Sunday at a 1500 pointtournament to deliver a 19 man Iron Warriors unit (2 plasma guns, combi-plasma, all bolters) with my Power Fist/combi-melta Lord.
It has some good shooting and is pretty nasty in combat and almost a Land Raider stats. I'm thinking that Iron Within, Iron Without stratagem might come in handy when people try to blast the crap out of it.
But with the new deepstrike rules I'm nervous about having to start it on the table, and nervous about waiting until turn 2 to drop-pod it. In that army I also have a rhino with 10 CSMs, and a blob of 30 Cultists, a Daemon Prince, and 3 Slaanesh Obliterators. I'm taking Delightful Agonies on the Prince too for extra resilience.
I really like Chaos Marines' stratagems options. They seem to have something useful for every phase and for a variety of units. Switching out Smite for Warptime could be very very useful on that Kharybdis.
The tournament Sunday has alternate army list option too, so I will be able to use my Lord of Skulls and las/missile Helbrute army at least once too if the enemy has something big that needs heavier firepower and a big chainsaw to kill.
vaklor4 wrote: Can confirm a distraction unit only needs to APPEAR dangerous. Cant tell you the amount of times people focus fired on my bloodthirster, while rhinos full of Zerekers raced up the board. People tend to forget the stats when they see a stonkin big model. Same can be said for the defiler. Tournament cheese? LORD NO. Doesnt stop everyone and their mother from assuming it is far scarier than it really is.
I'll echo this sentiment. You can't buy much more apparent danger for 170 points than a Defiler these days. Its big, takes up a lot of space, and if you have a CP or 2 for Daemonforge it can cause a shocking amount of damage when it connects in close combat. Opponents definitely want to shot it, and if you can buff him with Weaver / Miasma / Delightful Agonies and/or Smoke, he can take a lot of bullets to put down for good. And with the scourge he hits like a truck in melee until his last breath. The nice thing about the Defiler is as long as he soaks up a decent amount of firepower, you don't even feel bad about losing him.
If you are trying to get a psychological screen for Rhinos moving up field, you can't really do much better than the Defiler. He has roughly the durability of a Greater Daemon, is significantly bigger on the table, and costs a lot less points.
KAC is in a really tricky place. If it drops in, a competent opponent will deny it dinner. If it starts on the table and you have Warptime, you’re praying for first turn. Nobody in their right mind will let that sort of setup survive T1, and it’s got the kind of silhouette that’s very difficult to fully conceal. Get T1 and successfully throw it at your oppnent’s face and it may be game over there and then. Delightful Agonies is outstanding on it, if you take more than one spell.
Fly nerf might not hamstring it so much. The size of the thing meant charge-over-screen acrobatics relied heavily on your opponent making mistakes.
Hmm. The threat of that thing reaching your lines on the first turn is a horrific scarecrow. The sort of thing that frames the deployment of a wise opponent who doesn’t want half their army to eat S8 flamer if they go second. The sort of thing that destroys an opponent who doesn’t realise that it can deploy on the table as they organise their lines and lose first turn. And you can always deploy it in orbit after your opponent has put most of their army in very cautious positions. So I guess its main competitive use is as a psychological tool.
It’s definitely had its day in the sun. Daaaamn, remember those T1 charges killing IKs after dropping off Prescience NMs? I miss the early pages of this thread
vaklor4 wrote: Can confirm a distraction unit only needs to APPEAR dangerous. Cant tell you the amount of times people focus fired on my bloodthirster, while rhinos full of Zerekers raced up the board. People tend to forget the stats when they see a stonkin big model. Same can be said for the defiler. Tournament cheese? LORD NO. Doesnt stop everyone and their mother from assuming it is far scarier than it really is.
I'll echo this sentiment. You can't buy much more apparent danger for 170 points than a Defiler these days.
But I just can't bring myself to even consider buying, building and painting THAT.
However good it is, my guys don't want a tiny-headed spider of Khorne clanking around.
How about a heldrake as distraction? It doesn't do any actual work but people just can't help but shoot at it. It's also handy to absorb overwatch as it's high movement lets you set up a low risk charge. Especially if you charge it in from behind it doesn't get in the way.
God I hope they get a boost in chapter approved or something...
vaklor4 wrote: Can confirm a distraction unit only needs to APPEAR dangerous. Cant tell you the amount of times people focus fired on my bloodthirster, while rhinos full of Zerekers raced up the board. People tend to forget the stats when they see a stonkin big model. Same can be said for the defiler. Tournament cheese? LORD NO. Doesnt stop everyone and their mother from assuming it is far scarier than it really is.
I'll echo this sentiment. You can't buy much more apparent danger for 170 points than a Defiler these days.
But I just can't bring myself to even consider buying, building and painting THAT.
However good it is, my guys don't want a tiny-headed spider of Khorne clanking around.
I share your dislike the ‘pinhead’ aesthetic of the kit as is, but after being given one as a present I’ve got the ‘let’s make this thing look decent’ bug and ended up making it my go-to for hobby challenges. It is a very flexible kit that can be kitbashed into all manner of shapes. I’ve recently done a crab with a turret, and I’m in the final stages of a scorpion.
Could even do a Maulerfiend up as one. Extend the gunmouth as a battle cannon with a bit of tubing or whatever, put whips on one side and Gatling gun on the other, put a smoke launcher on it, maybe extend the fingernails to pass as claws, make sure to explain what it is before each game, job done
vaklor4 wrote: Can confirm a distraction unit only needs to APPEAR dangerous. Cant tell you the amount of times people focus fired on my bloodthirster, while rhinos full of Zerekers raced up the board. People tend to forget the stats when they see a stonkin big model. Same can be said for the defiler. Tournament cheese? LORD NO. Doesnt stop everyone and their mother from assuming it is far scarier than it really is.
I'll echo this sentiment. You can't buy much more apparent danger for 170 points than a Defiler these days.
But I just can't bring myself to even consider buying, building and painting THAT.
However good it is, my guys don't want a tiny-headed spider of Khorne clanking around.
I share your dislike the ‘pinhead’ aesthetic of the kit as is, but after being given one as a present I’ve got the ‘let’s make this thing look decent’ bug and ended up making it my go-to for hobby challenges. It is a very flexible kit that can be kitbashed into all manner of shapes. I’ve recently done a crab with a turret, and I’m in the final stages of a scorpion.
Could even do a Maulerfiend up as one. Extend the gunmouth as a battle cannon with a bit of tubing or whatever, put whips on one side and Gatling gun on the other, put a smoke launcher on it, maybe extend the fingernails to pass as claws, make sure to explain what it is before each game, job done
First off: Great work, me like, i'd like to hire you for a sack of teef.
Secondly: Would there be a possibility to make the Gun/mouth piece itself to be the head of the defiler? Respectively, could one use the Defiler BC and it's mount on a leman Russ?
I might or might not ask since i want to do some conversions for my R&H.
vaklor4 wrote: Can confirm a distraction unit only needs to APPEAR dangerous. Cant tell you the amount of times people focus fired on my bloodthirster, while rhinos full of Zerekers raced up the board. People tend to forget the stats when they see a stonkin big model. Same can be said for the defiler. Tournament cheese? LORD NO. Doesnt stop everyone and their mother from assuming it is far scarier than it really is.
I'll echo this sentiment. You can't buy much more apparent danger for 170 points than a Defiler these days.
But I just can't bring myself to even consider buying, building and painting THAT.
However good it is, my guys don't want a tiny-headed spider of Khorne clanking around.
I share your dislike the ‘pinhead’ aesthetic of the kit as is, but after being given one as a present I’ve got the ‘let’s make this thing look decent’ bug and ended up making it my go-to for hobby challenges. It is a very flexible kit that can be kitbashed into all manner of shapes. I’ve recently done a crab with a turret, and I’m in the final stages of a scorpion.
Could even do a Maulerfiend up as one. Extend the gunmouth as a battle cannon with a bit of tubing or whatever, put whips on one side and Gatling gun on the other, put a smoke launcher on it, maybe extend the fingernails to pass as claws, make sure to explain what it is before each game, job done
Your conversion is ace, that guy looks fething angry!
But I'm not sold on big war machines in 40k in general, and even less so for my particular faction. I'm not 'seriously' gaming yet so for the time being I'll just work on the models I like.
Biggest thing I want (and in fact, I've wanted one of these since I first started a Chaos army in 2e) is a Bloodthirster.
@NotOnline!!! - I’ve done the gunmouth Defiler head conversion myself, just takes a little filing and filling. Using that part to kitbash a Leman Russ should be easily within a confident kitbasher’s ability.
There used to be a supported Brass Scorpion build with the gunmouthhead that required the parts of one and a half Defilers and left that part spare. I was considering it for my own second Defiler, but cash - and space on the Knight bases I use for them - was tight.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, thanks for compliments, fellow followers of the eightfold path
vaklor4 wrote: Big war machines are like, 50% of the reason I love Chaos
Now if only alot of the heavy support daemon engines would not be so, i don't know, weak or just simply outclassed.
Also i am still wanting a predator with hades autocannons.
I mean... you could just take a forgefiend.
They cost a little more, but you get a 5++ save, and an extra wound (or more, could be up to 7 extra wounds in a long game). You can also re-roll all 8 of your (potential) failed hits and wounds for it for 1CP, without needing to buy two other predators.
Honestly in know that, but i still feel the hades autocannons are on too few units. Then there's the problem of bs 4+ and lastly i just would like some more normal tank options with it since neither alpha legion nor IW nor night lords are crazy mutated whilest the dinobot has that peculiar style.
Then again i'd also would like a bigger inferno rocket launcher as a arty piece, basically like a "hwacha ".
vaklor4 wrote: Big war machines are like, 50% of the reason I love Chaos
Just goes to show the variety available through a chaos army.
I'm drawn to chaos by the CSMs. Nasty, bitter angry dudes with a grudge that's lasted 10,000 years.
vaklor4 wrote: Big war machines are like, 50% of the reason I love Chaos
Just goes to show the variety available through a chaos army.
I'm drawn to chaos by the CSMs. Nasty, bitter angry dudes with a grudge that's lasted 10,000 years.
BUT BUT BUT, what about the angy small bitter and marginalized bunch?
What about the works, the mutants and the rogue psykers?
you can't have an army without the small grudge holders like that!
I just bought two knights this weekend. I wanted to flesh out my force a bit more to have more of a punch. The idea behind the list is to have a very resilient force with speed and fire power. I can drop the Plagueburst Crawler in favor of 35 more cultists to have more screening units for my dakka knight. With the current build I have lots of armor, some flamers, melta cannons, galtings cannons. The mixed loadout knight basically acts as the distraction carnifex along side the armiger to shoot at tanks and charge stuff.
Will I struggle versus horde lists? Or what would this struggle against?
They probably forgot to include the rule that prevents you from making Khorne Sorcerers in the Commanders book - play as if it exists, because it obviously should, and expect it to be remedied in an FAQ.
Possibly, though it isn't terribly relevant since GW's idea of what marks should mean has changed over time (we used to have Undivided princes iirc). In 8th edition dogma Khorne does not field Sorcerers so I wouldn't put too much stock into what is almost certainly a copy paste error.
What are the best troop choice we have? If you have space to run a single maxed out unit
Cultists are strong when you got access to tide of the traitor, as well as being the cheapest.
Tzaangors with DMC have the ability to be in your face from turn 1, as well as being quite good in combat for their points.
Plaguebearers with miasma are a the biggest pain to get rid of being -2 to hit, with a 5+ invul and 5+ distustingly resilient.
Nurglings you probably won't max out on but are perhaps the best screening units, being able to position themselves outside of your own deploymen zone.
Which one would you guys pick? The rest would be mostly hard hitting units like Knights, Primarchs, Daemon Princes ect.
It really depends on what you want your troop choice to do. In most cases the best troops are going to be Cultists and Nurgle Daemons.
Cultists have 3 main things going for them. Cheap 1 wound models are good for amassing bodies for screeining your more valuable units, or filling out a battalion or two for command points. They aren't trying to kill things, just take up space, run to objectives, and block enemy deep strikers or prevent enemy chargers from hitting something valuable.
Nurgle Daemons are different. They are just really hard to kill and have a bunch of defensive tech stacked up. This makes them great in Maelstrom or other objective heavy game modes as they are obnoxiously difficult to remove from an objective and thus deny you points.
It depends what your list needs. Do you need more CP, Do you need cheap disposable screens? Probably Cultists. Do you need durable objective holders to give you a lasting presence on objectives- look towards plague bearers.
It's still worth it to bring Nurglings. Always. They lost a little utility now that Alpha Legion, Raven Guard, and Stygies Ad Mech can't infiltrate like before, but they can still keep deep strikers at bay if they survive to turn 2 (so maybe deploy them out of LOS?). Plus, they can hold objectives and if your opponent commits his multi-damage weapons to them (to take advantage of Squishable), those weapons won't be shooting at your good stuff. Against 1-damage weapons, they are REALLY obnoxious despite only being T2.
ZergSmasher wrote: It's still worth it to bring Nurglings. Always. They lost a little utility now that Alpha Legion, Raven Guard, and Stygies Ad Mech can't infiltrate like before, but they can still keep deep strikers at bay if they survive to turn 2 (so maybe deploy them out of LOS?). Plus, they can hold objectives and if your opponent commits his multi-damage weapons to them (to take advantage of Squishable), those weapons won't be shooting at your good stuff. Against 1-damage weapons, they are REALLY obnoxious despite only being T2.
Yeah, definitely. Plus, if you get first turn or they survive a turn, they've got a good chance of charging something without a screen, to tie it up.
T1 Charges are pretty possible with Nurgle. Unfortunately, it requires a Fortification network.
Get a Feculent Gnarlmaw, start it on the board.
Get a Spoilpox Scrivener and some Plague Drones with instruments.
Plague Drones have a 12" move (thanks to the Scrivener), advance 1d6"+1", and charge 2d6"+1".
Average is just barely across the DZ, at 24.5", but a command point or two should make that a lot more possible.
JNAProductions wrote: T1 Charges are pretty possible with Nurgle. Unfortunately, it requires a Fortification network.
Get a Feculent Gnarlmaw, start it on the board.
Get a Spoilpox Scrivener and some Plague Drones with instruments.
Plague Drones have a 12" move (thanks to the Scrivener), advance 1d6"+1", and charge 2d6"+1".
Average is just barely across the DZ, at 24.5", but a command point or two should make that a lot more possible.
I was looking at this, however the Drones’ movement doesn’t benefit from Scrivener as it specifies Infantry.
Still possible, if you use re-rolls on a couple of short rolls. And your opponent deploys as close as possible.
Would still try to Warptime a Defiler or such alongside it.
JNAProductions wrote: T1 Charges are pretty possible with Nurgle. Unfortunately, it requires a Fortification network.
Get a Feculent Gnarlmaw, start it on the board.
Get a Spoilpox Scrivener and some Plague Drones with instruments.
Plague Drones have a 12" move (thanks to the Scrivener), advance 1d6"+1", and charge 2d6"+1".
Average is just barely across the DZ, at 24.5", but a command point or two should make that a lot more possible.
I was looking at this, however the Drones’ movement doesn’t benefit from Scrivener as it specifies Infantry.
Still possible, if you use re-rolls on a couple of short rolls. And your opponent deploys as close as possible.
Would still try to Warptime a Defiler or such alongside it.
Id say Brimstones still have a place in some lists just as pure meatshield (6++ is still better than most other chaff saves) and Bloodletters are top tier for damage dealing troops id say.
Just heard that my upcoming "casual" 2500 pt tourney will allow a secondary detachment after a battalion or brigade. I was taking Skarbrand as an auxiliary, because I want him and will finally not be penalized score for bringing him (point penalty for exceeding escalating PL, this time 18 so I don't expect any LoW unless it's a knight gallant) and because I want his fearless buff. (Casual = no FW, PL cap, detachment limits)
The meta here is a predator or Russ parking lot with very little LoS blocking terrain. I planned on bringing 15 possessed to infiltrate (AL), even after the change to infiltration. I'd like to move Skarbrand into a non-aux detachment, but my options are a supreme command with Karanak and my one prince run as a CD prince instead of an AL prince, or an outrider with 15-20 flesh hounds. I can do either of these giving up some/all the possessed.
I'd appreciate your input. I don't have obliterators or more cultists, or preds. I have random other models.
Dactylartha wrote: Just heard that my upcoming "casual" 2500 pt tourney will allow a secondary detachment after a battalion or brigade. I was taking Skarbrand as an auxiliary, because I want him and will finally not be penalized score for bringing him (point penalty for exceeding escalating PL, this time 18 so I don't expect any LoW unless it's a knight gallant) and because I want his fearless buff. (Casual = no FW, PL cap, detachment limits)
The meta here is a predator or Russ parking lot with very little LoS blocking terrain. I planned on bringing 15 possessed to infiltrate (AL), even after the change to infiltration. I'd like to move Skarbrand into a non-aux detachment, but my options are a supreme command with Karanak and my one prince run as a CD prince instead of an AL prince, or an outrider with 15-20 flesh hounds. I can do either of these giving up some/all the possessed.
I'd appreciate your input. I don't have obliterators or more cultists, or preds. I have random other models.
It can, and a 5+++ has done very well for me on it from Agonies.
I'm barely a year into 40k, and the LR has lascannons I don't have elsewhere in my army. Also, it's a tough nut to Crack, my Berzerker rhinos get blown up turn 1. I know it's overcosted for what it brings, but it helps my angry boys get to the fight.
My Drake is a huge distraction but also gives me a chance to crash it into an exposed character or a group of vehicles turn 1. For some hilarious reason my opponents have been so focused on it. Also, I like making it the closest model to shooters to buffer my aggressive prince.
Dactylartha wrote: It can, and a 5+++ has done very well for me on it from Agonies.
I'm barely a year into 40k, and the LR has lascannons I don't have elsewhere in my army. Also, it's a tough nut to Crack, my Berzerker rhinos get blown up turn 1. I know it's overcosted for what it brings, but it helps my angry boys get to the fight.
My Drake is a huge distraction but also gives me a chance to crash it into an exposed character or a group of vehicles turn 1. For some hilarious reason my opponents have been so focused on it. Also, I like making it the closest model to shooters to buffer my aggressive prince.
I guess that's fair tbh. If it works for you, but i feel that your comment about a very open board is not going to play in your favour. I mean yes you can infilitrate possesed forward 9" into no-mans land another 7" you probably can walk, if and that is a big if, you go first. I have a feeling that if you don't go first that they will just shoot the Possessed of the table and be done with it. I belive in regards to the helldrake, many players are still traumatized from a certain other edition where it was absolute hot (pun intended in conjunction with the warpflamer) to run 3 of em and roast marines even those inside boxes. Nowadays they are glorified bullet magnets, yet don't get the -1 to hit from beeing actually a supposedly fast flyer.
Another thing, if you meet Castellans, how do you intend to deal with them?
You make really good points, not online. Lack of LoS blocking at my FLGS forces me to play very aggressively and not going first really hurts. I'm looking forward to using the universal cover stratagem, even though my army is CP starved already.
The possessed are OK if the dude places his shooters up front with no screens, a waste if he doesn't. Gimmicky. That's why I'm seeking competent advice.
Castellans won't be on the tale, fortunately, or they'd take like a 20% or more penalty to their score. If someone brings that cheese to what's supposed to be do fun, whatever.
Custodes to scare me, though, and without my Murdersword Jump Lord I'll have to familiar into Death Hex if i get one or some smash bros, which I expect.
Dactylartha wrote: You make really good points, not online. Lack of LoS blocking at my FLGS forces me to play very aggressively and not going first really hurts. I'm looking forward to using the universal cover stratagem, even though my army is CP starved already.
The possessed are OK if the dude places his shooters up front with no screens, a waste if he doesn't. Gimmicky. That's why I'm seeking competent advice.
Castellans won't be on the tale, fortunately, or they'd take like a 20% or more penalty to their score. If someone brings that cheese to what's supposed to be do fun, whatever.
Custodes to scare me, though, and without my Murdersword Jump Lord I'll have to familiar into Death Hex if i get one or some smash bros, which I expect.
Castellans are banned, what a surprise......... I firmly hope the knights get kicked in the nuts firmly. I mean atm it is common tournament list practice to say can you one turn a knight?No? Then your list sucks........
Honestly with what terrain rules do you play? That is very much important.
Additionally propose to your FLGS that more terrain will be used, espccially to help armies that don't play gunline , which is a surprinsgly big ammount.
Every one is hoping that Meltas and Combi Meltas get a big points reduction and Plasma and its equivalents get a price hike.
Even just swapping Plasma and Melta Costs would do a lot to make the game a bit more balanced. If something like that happens it would likely be in Chapter Approved.
I haven't had the pleasure of facing any Custodes yet, though I did get crushed and tabled by Turn 3 of Game 2 this Sunday vs Harlequins. Might be similar to deal with?
Their jet-bikes dish out mortal wounds with their guns....and that got me thinking, what do CSMs have besides psychic powers to do ranged mortal wounds? I had squat to do that. And vs all those invul saves, my Lord of Skulls couldn't cut the mustard, not even in combat.
So my only answer if Forgeworld Soulburner stuff. Time to make some Decimators.....probably riding in Dreadclaws. Then if I end up going first I could just disembark and move the Decimators, and maybe embark some Troops, then move all as needed and unload some pain at 24". And fortunately Decimators are pretty awesome models.
A Renegade Castellan or Valiant with some missiles could help vs those invul bikes of all sorts too. My Lord of Skulls, aka the Kaban Machine, might be better suited to being a Renegade Knight. Even saving some points. Being able to fall back, shoot and charge is too darn good!
JNAProductions wrote: T1 Charges are pretty possible with Nurgle. Unfortunately, it requires a Fortification network.
Get a Feculent Gnarlmaw, start it on the board.
Get a Spoilpox Scrivener and some Plague Drones with instruments.
Plague Drones have a 12" move (thanks to the Scrivener), advance 1d6"+1", and charge 2d6"+1".
Average is just barely across the DZ, at 24.5", but a command point or two should make that a lot more possible.
I was looking at this, however the Drones’ movement doesn’t benefit from Scrivener as it specifies Infantry.
Still possible, if you use re-rolls on a couple of short rolls. And your opponent deploys as close as possible.
Would still try to Warptime a Defiler or such alongside it.
It does?
Feth, I've been cheating.
Unfortuantely, Plague Drones don't have the INFANTRY or PLAGUEBEARERS keywords so don't benefit from either of the Spoilpox buffs - would be awesome if they did though
akaean wrote: Every one is hoping that Meltas and Combi Meltas get a big points reduction and Plasma and its equivalents get a price hike.
Even just swapping Plasma and Melta Costs would do a lot to make the game a bit more balanced. If something like that happens it would likely be in Chapter Approved.
I get that melta needs to come down, but i think plasma is fine where it is for the most part.
Melta at short range has a 1/36 chance of doing one damage if it wounds; a 3/36 chance of doing 2 damage. That's 32/36 chance of doing 3+ damage. Which sounds a bit more reliable than the simple 1-6 damage.
So it's pretty much a 3-6 damage weapon when close. The problem is always getting it close. But if it was cheaper I'd definitely look at putting some on my bikes or even a cheeky combimelta on a rhino. Not that I'm playing competitive mind you; might be different at a tourney.
the.cobb wrote: Melta at short range has a 1/36 chance of doing one damage if it wounds; a 3/36 chance of doing 2 damage. That's 32/36 chance of doing 3+ damage. Which sounds a bit more reliable than the simple 1-6 damage.
So it's pretty much a 3-6 damage weapon when close. The problem is always getting it close. But if it was cheaper I'd definitely look at putting some on my bikes or even a cheeky combimelta on a rhino. Not that I'm playing competitive mind you; might be different at a tourney.
Just looking at points costs for what the models I've bought already have. And I've got a terminator squad with combi meltas. I think deepstriking next to something precious to the opponent, that could be pretty nasty. You'd want meltas against armour, plasma against troops I guess?
Do you guys know the maximum amount of cultists I can lose in a 40 man blob before I have to use the autopass morale strategem? I can't seem to figure out the maths.
Just looking at points costs for what the models I've bought already have. And I've got a terminator squad with combi meltas. I think deepstriking next to something precious to the opponent, that could be pretty nasty. You'd want meltas against armour, plasma against troops I guess?
Also, heavy flamers are rubbish.
I used to absolutely *love* termicide squads through 5th and 6th edition. Back then it had several advantages. 1) Temrinaters were cheaper at around 33 points per model, 2) Combi Meltas were single shot and only 5 points, 3) Temrinator Minimum Squad size was 3 models. 4) There wasn't a 9 inch restriction on deep striking. So you could drop into melta range (you could also mishap or fail to come on, but whatever).
These days basically everything has changed. Back in the old days, you had a dirty cheap throwaway anti tank unit that would drop in, melta something's face off, then do whatever until they died. They performed pretty well for just north of 100 points for a squad of 3. Now though... Terminators lost their ability to be a throw away unit. Between the point increase associated with the second wound, and the increasing of the minimum squad cap, and the increase in wargear prices on the combi melta especially... the minimum price for a squad of melta terminators is now easily north of 250 points. Also while you don't need to worry about your reserve rolls being poor, and you don't need to worry about a mishap potentially killing your squad, you also cannot drop those melta guns into optimal range anymore. You also didn't really care if your terminators mishapped in earlier editions. It sucked sure, but it was only 105 points at the end of the day.
For a little while in 8th I ran my Raptors with Meltas. 2 Melta Guns and a Combi Melta. And tried to use em like I used to use termicide. It didn't really work that well for me. Dropping 9 inches away is a big issue with Melta Guns, as they really want to be within 6 to guarentee vehicle kills and to be worth it over other options. I ended up switching my Raptors over to Plas and haven't looked back. Unlike Melta, Plasma can drop into their ideal range, as they rapid fire out to 12. I still use Melta on my bikers. But they can use their good movement, and warp time to get their melta guns within 6 inches. Raptors haven't been closing the gap effectively for me.
Honestly, I'm not sure the best way to run Terminators. I've never seen anybody actually field Chaos Terminators, Scarab Occult Terminators, or Loyalist Terminators and not felt disappointed at their performance. Hopefully we can get an update on Terminators. I for one would love to see them go back to their 5th edition "glory" days as a cheap disposable anti tank drop that your opponent couldn't ignore.
akaean wrote: Every one is hoping that Meltas and Combi Meltas get a big points reduction and Plasma and its equivalents get a price hike.
Even just swapping Plasma and Melta Costs would do a lot to make the game a bit more balanced. If something like that happens it would likely be in Chapter Approved.
I get that melta needs to come down, but i think plasma is fine where it is for the most part.
Exactly. It's only a few platforms where it's an issue.
Question: anyone playing Triple Decimators with Twin Soulburner Petards? How have they been working out for you?
Drukarii are big in my local meta right now and I've been working on ways to deal with them. Seems like I always get into a short-range firefight and they've always got some negative to-hit modifier making it hard to blast them.
So I'm thinking about units that auto-hit, but I'm concerned about other downsides. Are they really that much of an improvement over a contemptor?
techsoldaten wrote: Question: anyone playing Triple Decimators with Twin Soulburner Petards? How have they been working out for you?
Drukarii are big in my local meta right now and I've been working on ways to deal with them. Seems like I always get into a short-range firefight and they've always got some negative to-hit modifier making it hard to blast them.
So I'm thinking about units that auto-hit, but I'm concerned about other downsides. Are they really that much of an improvement over a contemptor?
Have you considered Contemptor Dreads? Probably less efficient but mine sure stands up to anything (except a tessaract ark).
orangebrushminiatures wrote: Do you guys know the maximum amount of cultists I can lose in a 40 man blob before I have to use the autopass morale strategem? I can't seem to figure out the maths.
22 casualties should leave 2 cultist after morale.
Have you considered Contemptor Dreads? Probably less efficient but mine sure stands up to anything (except a tessaract ark).
One volley from 3x Triple Dissie Ravagers and you have a 165+pt hole in your army.
And they will get the jump on it, because they match range but move faster.
Honestly, Dark Eldar is just a fething gak matchup for CSM. Oblits suicide drop to their doom, so if you roll badly for damage on the drop you just threw 600ish points away. Good luck getting Cacophony off through Agents of Vect, since it's about the one thing he needs to save CP for given said 600+ pt investment. We have no mobile long range weapon platforms with which to force positioning mistakes. Anything power armour is useless vs Dissies. Anything vehicle-based is largely useless vs Advance+Charge bikers or weight of fire Dissies/Blasters. Our melee options have to one-shot their targets on the charge, otherwise they just fall back and shoot the crap out of it (since almost everything of importance flies, or is embarked on something that flies).
The only thing that I found remotely successful (and by that I mean, afforded me a non-zero chance of winning) was a detachment including a TSons Fire Raptor backed up by Glamour/Weaver of Fates/Prescience, inside a re-roll aura that could keep up (Ahriman), and even then, the entire game rested on it performing well, and my (nurgle daemon) ground troops surviving long enough to simply outlast their nonsense 6 faction rules in 1.
Have you considered Contemptor Dreads? Probably less efficient but mine sure stands up to anything (except a tessaract ark).
One volley from 3x Triple Dissie Ravagers and you have a 165+pt hole in your army.
And they will get the jump on it, because they match range but move faster.
Honestly, Dark Eldar is just a fething gak matchup for CSM. Oblits suicide drop to their doom, so if you roll badly for damage on the drop you just threw 600ish points away. Good luck getting Cacophony off through Agents of Vect, since it's about the one thing he needs to save CP for given said 600+ pt investment. We have no mobile long range weapon platforms with which to force positioning mistakes. Anything power armour is useless vs Dissies. Anything vehicle-based is largely useless vs Advance+Charge bikers or weight of fire Dissies/Blasters. Our melee options have to one-shot their targets on the charge, otherwise they just fall back and shoot the crap out of it (since almost everything of importance flies, or is embarked on something that flies).
The only thing that I found remotely successful (and by that I mean, afforded me a non-zero chance of winning) was a detachment including a TSons Fire Raptor backed up by Glamour/Weaver of Fates/Prescience, inside a re-roll aura that could keep up (Ahriman), and even then, the entire game rested on it performing well, and my (nurgle daemon) ground troops surviving long enough to simply outlast their nonsense 6 faction rules in 1.
I don't know if it's that bad. Talos and Ravager units tend to shred my infantry and there's always something there to blow away my tanks.
I'm just looking for mid-ranged killy units that can take a beating on the way up the board. The Butcher cannons are a good recommendation and something I will definitely think about.
Second the Helverins suggestion. They're pretty much the perfect weapon against DE. Outranging his threats gives you back some of the initiative rather than letting them decide when and where to fight all the time.
Ap0k wrote: Double Soulburner Deci averages 7 shots, of which 3.75 hit (4+ BS), of which 3.11 go through after FNP, for 210pts.
Double Butcher Deci does 2.96 damage after going through hits/wounds/saves/FNP, for 150.
Soulburner Deci costs 67.5pts per wound caused, while Butcher Deci costs 50.6pts per wound caused.
Soulburners aren't even close to efficient. Furthermore, popping DaemonForge does a *lot* more for a Butcher Deci than it does for a Soulburner Deci.
Not to mention that the petard has a nasty tendency of selfharm....
Okay, I’m going to present some further points that come to mind:
- Math check: Soulburner averages 4 shots, so dualies means 8 shots, 4 hits when hitting on 4+, of which 3.33 go through FNP 6+, for 63 PPW
- Soulburners are Assault, Butcher is Heavy. If you’re firing on the hoof, Butcher goes up to... huh. 63 PPW. Cool EDIT: wait, we’re already down to BS4+ in this scenario before we deduct moving hit penalty, so actually we’re going up to like 75 PPW
- - If it needs to move to get soulburners into range, then the Butcher would have been in range. BUT you might want to use it as a mobile unit, stomping forwards with some Cultists or whatever and punching out tough things that think about tarpitting them.
- - Given the cap on how much Soulburners can backfire, sometimes it might be a good call to advance and shoot.
- Against DE, Butcher will marginally increase its WPP through more morale losses. Scaring away that last one with the big gun is pretty useful on a medium walker
- I assume that dual Soulburners can each inflict a single MW on the user in the same phase? I can see a TFG trying to blag otherwise, but this is marginal
- perhaps most importantly: are those Butcher states bearing in mind that most of the Butcher’s killing shots will overkill? PPW efficiency gets distorted when medium to high Damage hits are allocated to 1W models
Why would you be shooting 1W models when there is an abundance of multiwound Venoms/Ravagers/Raiders/Taloi/Grotesques/Razorwings to shoot at?
Killing Dark Eldar infantry is almost never the problem. Almost any list you make will have enough incidental firepower to deal with the paltry amount of DE bodies on the table. It's cracking the transports in a timely fashion to get at the gooey interior, or dealing with the Ravagers before they rip you a new arsehole.
Good catch on the number of shots from Soulburners though. Brainfart on my part for forgetting the way d3's rounded.
Honestly, even at 50ppw, thats not a great return (Oblits sit somewhere <40 iirc, and that can be further enhanced with Cacophony/re-rolls/Prescience/VotLW), but it's a bit easier to stomach when you can do it from 36" away and mitigate a portion of the risk.
At 24" away you're pretty much in range for it to be a suicide mission, since there's unlikely to be any weapon in his army that can't shoot at it if it wants, and I've seen first hand how fast Deci's (and Contemptors) drop to a volley of Dissies with Black Heart re-rolls. You don't want to be that close. You don't even want to be at 36", but short of Helverins, CSM don't really have many >36" threats that are mobile enough to either avoid being tarpitted with bikes and/or keep range on vehicles that can move 14" minimum (not including advance).
Soulburner Decimators in Dreadclaws? Drop them x3 turn 2 with Cultists and other mobs to make sure the table isn't taken over by the enemy? Getting the drop could clear a flank, making the rest of them too far away to do the close up killing.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Maybe Nurglings, or even a bunch of Tzeentch daemons to clog the table. Tzeentchy invuls are 4++ so maybe horrors can withstand probably more than twice the shots of Cultists I think.
Yeah, the reach on the Butchers is really quite compelling. Especially if you’re castling. Honestly? I think the main thing the Decimator has over a Contemptor is Epidemius synergy, and niche stuff with advance and charge from a tree or Herald of Slaanesh. BS2+ & HELBRUTE is really nice. I really wanna get one, and the more I think about, the more I think I’ll only really field it in Daemonkin lists.
Just looking at points costs for what the models I've bought already have. And I've got a terminator squad with combi meltas. I think deepstriking next to something precious to the opponent, that could be pretty nasty. You'd want meltas against armour, plasma against troops I guess?
Also, heavy flamers are rubbish.
I used to absolutely *love* termicide squads through 5th and 6th edition. Back then it had several advantages. 1) Temrinaters were cheaper at around 33 points per model, 2) Combi Meltas were single shot and only 5 points, 3) Temrinator Minimum Squad size was 3 models. 4) There wasn't a 9 inch restriction on deep striking. So you could drop into melta range (you could also mishap or fail to come on, but whatever).
These days basically everything has changed. Back in the old days, you had a dirty cheap throwaway anti tank unit that would drop in, melta something's face off, then do whatever until they died. They performed pretty well for just north of 100 points for a squad of 3. Now though... Terminators lost their ability to be a throw away unit. Between the point increase associated with the second wound, and the increasing of the minimum squad cap, and the increase in wargear prices on the combi melta especially... the minimum price for a squad of melta terminators is now easily north of 250 points. Also while you don't need to worry about your reserve rolls being poor, and you don't need to worry about a mishap potentially killing your squad, you also cannot drop those melta guns into optimal range anymore. You also didn't really care if your terminators mishapped in earlier editions. It sucked sure, but it was only 105 points at the end of the day.
For a little while in 8th I ran my Raptors with Meltas. 2 Melta Guns and a Combi Melta. And tried to use em like I used to use termicide. It didn't really work that well for me. Dropping 9 inches away is a big issue with Melta Guns, as they really want to be within 6 to guarentee vehicle kills and to be worth it over other options. I ended up switching my Raptors over to Plas and haven't looked back. Unlike Melta, Plasma can drop into their ideal range, as they rapid fire out to 12. I still use Melta on my bikers. But they can use their good movement, and warp time to get their melta guns within 6 inches. Raptors haven't been closing the gap effectively for me.
Honestly, I'm not sure the best way to run Terminators. I've never seen anybody actually field Chaos Terminators, Scarab Occult Terminators, or Loyalist Terminators and not felt disappointed at their performance. Hopefully we can get an update on Terminators. I for one would love to see them go back to their 5th edition "glory" days as a cheap disposable anti tank drop that your opponent couldn't ignore.
You are right, they are expensive for what a squad like that would end up doing : drop them in on T2 to do a load of damage then watch them get vapourised next go. Albeit they would be a good distraction for that turn.
But I really like terminators and it's what I have so I'd probably still do it for the time being.
I've also got a terminator close combat squad, but that's even more of a gamble. I reckon they could be a right pain for the opponent if they made their charge after deepstriking. But if they failed it they'd probably get shot off the board without landing a hit.
But then, in my day, Chaos terminators couldn't teleport at all. And all this were fields...
Ap0k wrote: Second the Helverins suggestion. They're pretty much the perfect weapon against DE. Outranging his threats gives you back some of the initiative rather than letting them decide when and where to fight all the time.
Deredeo is flat better in ever way to a helverin. Has more wounds, the same save, better BS can add +1 vs fly and it's guns are better against more matchups. PLUS it has helbrute keyword, and it can benefit from psychic powers and buffing characters. Costs more for the greater HL but worth it every time if you have points. I'd almost never take chaos armigers of either type over the access of walkers we already have. They soak their own detachment for no real CP gained and they have none of the good buffs the good knights get.
techsoldaten wrote: Question: anyone playing Triple Decimators with Twin Soulburner Petards? How have they been working out for you?
Drukarii are big in my local meta right now and I've been working on ways to deal with them. Seems like I always get into a short-range firefight and they've always got some negative to-hit modifier making it hard to blast them.
So I'm thinking about units that auto-hit, but I'm concerned about other downsides. Are they really that much of an improvement over a contemptor?
I tested them along with three BloodSlaughterers and two Hellwrights to cause an insane numbers of mortal wounds and they performed well but in the end I was tabled every time I tried this list.
An immediate threat like Blood Slaughterers that have a 16" move is vital to keep the Decimators alive, as the enemy has to kill the Slaughterer first as they are rape machines and a nemesis for every infantry unit they charge.
The combo works only in casual games as all the units are overcosted for what they can do.
Ap0k wrote: Second the Helverins suggestion. They're pretty much the perfect weapon against DE. Outranging his threats gives you back some of the initiative rather than letting them decide when and where to fight all the time.
Deredeo is flat better in ever way to a helverin. Has more wounds, the same save, better BS can add +1 vs fly and it's guns are better against more matchups. PLUS it has helbrute keyword, and it can benefit from psychic powers and buffing characters. Costs more for the greater HL but worth it every time if you have points. I'd almost never take chaos armigers of either type over the access of walkers we already have. They soak their own detachment for no real CP gained and they have none of the good buffs the good knights get.
Erm, hang on a minute. Deredeo with Butcher Cannon and Greater Havoc Launcher is 66 pts more expensive than a Helverin, and it’s weapons have a range of 36-48 vs 60-60.
I agree that being able to fit a Deredeo into a Battalion or Spearhead is excellent, CP-wise, and their compatibility with CSM buffs is good (shame EC doesn’t behave like a Lieutenant), and I’m not interested in getting a Helverin myself, but I wouldn’t discount the latter as an efficient gunner.
Ap0k wrote: Second the Helverins suggestion. They're pretty much the perfect weapon against DE. Outranging his threats gives you back some of the initiative rather than letting them decide when and where to fight all the time.
Deredeo is flat better in ever way to a helverin. Has more wounds, the same save, better BS can add +1 vs fly and it's guns are better against more matchups. PLUS it has helbrute keyword, and it can benefit from psychic powers and buffing characters. Costs more for the greater HL but worth it every time if you have points. I'd almost never take chaos armigers of either type over the access of walkers we already have. They soak their own detachment for no real CP gained and they have none of the good buffs the good knights get.
You're completely ignoring the fact that a 74" effective range vs DE is a huge advantage. You force Disintegrators to come to you if they want to remove the threat, rather than you having to figure out a way to get into 36" range without being alpha struck off the table on the return volley. Helverins give you a positioning advantage. Leviathans/Deredeo's don't. DE's primary strength (outside of busted dissies and FLY) is their ability to dictate when and where the fight happens, and being able to force them into a position they don't want to be in is an important part of beating them.
174pts vs 212/247pts is also kinda a big deal.
I don't disagree that Leviathans/Deredeos are much more able to benefit from auras/psychic support/stratagems, but that's not much consolation if they get blown off the table the turn after they get into range.
DE are one of my main factions. IDK what world you think getting into range of a helverin is difficult. There is no deployment that ravagers cannot get into range. Further more, only when a DE player is toning down his list does he leave fliers out of his list. Helverins only have a 74" range on paper. Do you seriously not use terrain? Both platforms (ravagers and armigers) have a 14" move, only one has fly and assault though, your playing on one terrible table if you have 74" range and LOS to something, period.
EDIT
Oh BTW your ignoring the fact that the dreredeo not only costs more, but has more wounds and idealy -1 to hit (alpha legion) that more then makes up for the cost. Dissies go down in efficiency very quickly when they are hitting on 4's.
I don't disagree that Leviathans/Deredeos are much more able to benefit from auras/psychic support/stratagems, but that's not much consolation if they get blown off the table the turn after they get into range.
But that was the entire point you chose to gloss over. With alpha legion and psychic character support they outlast the helverin. Helverins are stuck on there own in an edition that is 90% about combo/aura buffs. A Tzeentch deredeo suddenly gets a 4++, slaanesh a 5+++ you can't do that with a helverin. A helverin gets to rotate Ion shields if the DE player allows it.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ill Also add, DE take advantage of not being hit, do to there own speed/deployment options and stratagems/flicker fields. Things got even worse with the +1 save strat that DE get to use but can turn off on the other guy. Pretty much the short story is DE will beat ANY chaos army when matching lists alone, so for me the issue I have with helverins is they suck verse other targets. Auto canons are not good at killing t7+ tanks, they are also glorified heavy bolters vs infantry.
There is a reason why hype over mini knights dropped off and folks are just taking proper knights. Proper knights are way better per point.
Not being in range to get shot at all for a turn or two, while you can largely fire with impunity (depending on external factors).
I play on a table that fairly closely resembles the NOVA terrain layout, and from an elevated position (like, the big hills in either corner), Most vehicles can see fairly well through the windows in the 2nd level of central terrain to the diagonally opposite corner of the table. Yeah, Dissies will get in range within a turn or two, but that's a turn or two of almost completely free shooting for me (in a vacuum, not considering your disruption units or my attempts to prevent your disruption, etc).
If a DE player wants to be able to Labyrinthine Cunning deployment stage stratagems, his Archon is one of the first units he puts on the table, which then locks his Ravagers to that general area if they want to benefit from re-roll auras. At that point, you stick the Helverins at the diagonally opposite end of the table and tadaa! You're 80"+ away. At that point there are obviously a number of units he can deploy to the Helverins side of the table to tie them up, but with the exception of bikes, there's not much (if anything) that's going to reach them turn 1. Plus screening etc.
There will still be places for vehicles/units to hide, but that's fine, since you're at least confining them to manageable areas of the table, rather than giving them almost completely free reign by generating virtually zero pressure on them (that doesn't expose you to greater casualties than you deal).
The entire problem with Deredeos/Leviathans/Contemptors/Decimators armed with Butcher-type weaponry is that they *cannot* compete with the points efficiency of Ravager damage output at the mid-range they operate in, and their relative lack of mobility makes it incredibly difficult to get an alpha strike off to cripple the Ravager blob without leaving themselves either vulnerable to a counter-volley, or within range of a huge amount of other threatening DE weaponry (haywire taloi, blasters, etc), at which point you're trading away more points to kill Ravagers than the Ravagers are worth. 36" allows them to be drawn into range to be assaulted and tied up, or for DE to exploit the extra 4" of threat range they have over them.
All said and done, though, there's a reason virtually nobody uses any of them (with the exception of Death Guard Leviathans).
Out of all those options, I'd still pick Helverins both for the range advantage, and for the fact I don't need to dedicate another 100+ points worth of babysitting units to make them passable.
Pretty much the short story is DE will beat ANY chaos army when matching lists alone, so for me the issue I have with helverins is they suck verse other targets. Auto canons are not good at killing t7+ tanks, they are also glorified heavy bolters vs infantry.
On this I don't disagree. It's a garbage matchup. In an ideal world, I'd probably just slam 400 cultists + Abby on the table and choke the board up with bodies vs DE. They don't tend to bring enough firepower to drop 400+ fearless bodies, and good luck getting to objectives when I can just million man march my way across the table. The discussion tangent, however, was raised because a dude was having issues dealing with DE, and had been looking at Decimators as an option.
Ap0k wrote: Y'know what's better than -1/4++/5+++?
Not being in range to get shot at all for a turn or two, while you can largely fire with impunity (depending on external factors).
I play on a table that fairly closely resembles the NOVA terrain layout, and from an elevated position (like, the big hills in either corner), Most vehicles can see fairly well through the windows in the 2nd level of central terrain to the diagonally opposite corner of the table. Yeah, Dissies will get in range within a turn or two, but that's a turn or two of almost completely free shooting for me (in a vacuum, not considering your disruption units or my attempts to prevent your disruption, etc).
If a DE player wants to be able to Labyrinthine Cunning deployment stage stratagems, his Archon is one of the first units he puts on the table, which then locks his Ravagers to that general area if they want to benefit from re-roll auras. At that point, you stick the Helverins at the diagonally opposite end of the table and tadaa! You're 80"+ away. At that point there are obviously a number of units he can deploy to the Helverins side of the table to tie them up, but with the exception of bikes, there's not much (if anything) that's going to reach them turn 1. Plus screening etc.
There will still be places for vehicles/units to hide, but that's fine, since you're at least confining them to manageable areas of the table, rather than giving them almost completely free reign by generating virtually zero pressure on them (that doesn't expose you to greater casualties than you deal).
The entire problem with Deredeos/Leviathans/Contemptors/Decimators armed with Butcher-type weaponry is that they *cannot* compete with the points efficiency of Ravager damage output at the mid-range they operate in, and their relative lack of mobility makes it incredibly difficult to get an alpha strike off to cripple the Ravager blob without leaving themselves either vulnerable to a counter-volley, or within range of a huge amount of other threatening DE weaponry (haywire taloi, blasters, etc), at which point you're trading away more points to kill Ravagers than the Ravagers are worth. 36" allows them to be drawn into range to be assaulted and tied up, or for DE to exploit the extra 4" of threat range they have over them.
All said and done, though, there's a reason virtually nobody uses any of them (with the exception of Death Guard Leviathans).
Out of all those options, I'd still pick Helverins both for the range advantage, and for the fact I don't need to dedicate another 100+ points worth of babysitting units to make them passable.
Pretty much the short story is DE will beat ANY chaos army when matching lists alone, so for me the issue I have with helverins is they suck verse other targets. Auto canons are not good at killing t7+ tanks, they are also glorified heavy bolters vs infantry.
On this I don't disagree. It's a garbage matchup. In an ideal world, I'd probably just slam 400 cultists + Abby on the table and choke the board up with bodies vs DE. They don't tend to bring enough firepower to drop 400+ fearless bodies, and good luck getting to objectives when I can just million man march my way across the table. The discussion tangent, however, was raised because a dude was having issues dealing with DE, and had been looking at Decimators as an option.
First off, thanks for giving me a clear picture on your table. I am not a big fan of NOVA terrain. It's cool for their event but as a general standard IMHO it's terrible. WAY to easily gamed which was why Castellans were even more potent at this years NOVA. Part of 40k is being prepared for a random table, While I like to have two large BLOS pieces centrally as a general rule, I don't like NOVAS weird Corner shapes and have yet to see a year those have not been gamed hard.
So yea, if your using their terrain policy and can pretty much guarantee LOS at max range then it is what it is I guess? I think that is kind of terrible in regard to having a tactical game. No unit should have corner to corner LOS in 8th vs a none titan unless the other player is allowing for it.
In regard to DE tactics, your kind off in left field. With the new Deepstrike ruling I am either hard deploying my ravagers or I have until turn two, meaning I am not even close to locked in my deployment. And BTW if your using that 14" move without fly your not bubble wrapping completely, or you are and your not moving liberally. You can't have it both ways there. Minor issue but worth mentioning since your right, bubble wrap regardless of what you take is essential, but it slows down mobility and limits deployment options.
BTW your never out gunning ravagers on an efficiency level, they are criminally undercost currently. I have tried helverins in a ton of test games and they underperformed much of the time. I am just not a fan since they struggle vs tanks and are heavy bolter equivalents vs infantry. There is a reason why most players with access to knights don't waste time with them and just take normal knights. I know deredeos are not perfect either BTW, but I find they work better in this case since they have a higher tactical flexibility. At least a deredeo still hits a venom on a 2 and can get rerolls. At that point your essentially auto hitting with it's weapons. A deredeo with its targetting array, twin HB's and the launcher while expensive can be a real PITA. It can down one venom with the butcher canons and deal half the wounds to another, meaning two will drop three venoms a turn. With Alpha legion and delightful agonies on a deredeo you need 96 dissy shots, less near the archon but I am lazy for that kind of math right now and it isn't necessary to the point I'm making.
Take for example:
A slaanesh deredeo with delightful agonies requires 96 shots at 4+ to hit for alpha legion nets 48 hits. A third wound, so 16, of which ~11 get past the invulnerable save for 22 damage which is required for him to fail two thirds or 14 wounds. Thats ludicrous.
A Tzeentch deredeo with weaver of fates requires 84 shots. 42 hit, 14 wound, 7 get past the 4++ Not as crazy but close.
A helverin requires 40 shots. 27 hit, 9 wound, 6 get by for 12 damage.
I think we both just have differing philosophies on how to deal with ravager nonsense.
I agree that in a straight 36" shootout, Glamour/Weavered Leviathans or Delightful Deredeos have a huge durability advantage in a vacuum. My issue with that sort of strategy is that it doesn't factor in the additional blaster/haywire shots that it puts those units easily within range of. Suddenly those 84-96 shots drop significantly, and the damage output on the CSM platforms just isn't enough to cripple the flying circus before they get overrun. That's not even factoring in the inability to bring multiple units for redundancy purposes, since you can only psychic buff one at a time, at which point he just shoots the crap out of the ones you didn't buff.
Even if you swap NOVA's central semi-LOS blockers for 2-3 story full-LOS blockers, you gain a significant advantage with Helverins due to their zoning capability, particularly given the Ravagers will suffer the same problems with complete LOS blocking terrain. In that scenario, you can force them to overextend either on top of said LOS blockers, which opens them up to firepower across the table (range dependent), or they have to play a more cautious game which mitigates their ability to inflict severe casualties. 3 Helverins parked in a corner of the table will zone them away from anywhere within 74" that they can draw vision to, and the critical part is that it doesn't particularly expose Helverins to do so. That's not something you can safely do with the more mid-range Butcher-type platforms without opening yourself up to being outmaneuvered.
Dissie ravagers are way undercosted, but it sadly doesn't change the fact they need to be dealt with in some way or another. Whether that's by mitigating their ability to control the battlefield with their movement/range, or figuring out some non-suicidal way of alpha striking them off the table is largely irrelevant. The crux of my point is that CSM just don't seem to have any efficient means of performing the latter, which leaves only the former as a feasible option.
Obviously Helverins aren't the best TAC choice, but in a CSM vs DE matchup, I just don't think the other options hold up. That 36" range is just too big a disadvantage vs a faction that can fly 14+" with its' massively cost efficient threats.
As a DE player I can tell you I am never in a game where I don't dictate when and where the fight is. It's the entire shtick of the army. The best way to handle it is durability.
For the record I totally forgot to post the maths on Miasma of Pestilence...99 dissy shots to down one!
DE blasters are 18" range, and haywire is none existant really. You only get it on Talos which start at BS 4+ and usually advance + fire and fade to clse the distance. Those shots are worthless and only a means to get them closer since fire and fade requires shots and it's the only assault weapon available to them. Scourge lack obscessions and are not cost effective.
So really your referencing blasters as if they are an issue, which is a joke since they are single shot weapons that are always on venoms since they both have that 18" sweet spot. This is why I specifically referrenced how well deredeos handle venoms. The back bone in any DE list is venoms, dropping them is the key. A deredeo is killing one with it's butcher canons and dealing ~5 of the 6 wounds to a second with the twin HB and GHL. Thats massive, especially since the havoclauncher doesn't need LOS in later turns.
You deal with dissy ravagers by surviving them. They are cheap platforms with a solid gun, but at the end of the day dissys over kill cultists and are literally the equivalent, yet struggle to put wounds on armor. They murder primaris, but they suck anyway. Personally, I take dark lances on all three of my ravagers, dissys are consistant across an entire game, DE need to kill them early. But thats for the DE tactica thread, I could go on and on about how dissys are the losing choice.
As to your terrain, hey man it's your meta. In my own area and games we play with a healthy amount of BLOS and ruins because shooting galleries suck. Gunlines are still strong, but they can't just turtle up the entire game and blow the other army away and expect to win, they need to eventually make a move. Or not and lose on missions.
I hope I am not coming across rude BTW, I tend to come across rather blunt n written form at times. Just trying to push back on conventional thought here. I own an absurd amount of stuff (not bragging, I just have an addiction to 40k) so I tend to play the crap out of several options that fill similar rolls, sometimes in mock up scenarios. For me helverins are OK and I'd never fault someone for taking them, but specifically in a match against DE, something I have a TON of experience with on both sides, they really are not much of a threat. A proper knight will give DE WAY more issues and cost less.
To your very last point, if your worried about DE, build a list that makes them inefficient. Lots of cheap cultists that are fearless, and super durable support shooters like I mentioned. This allows you to ignore ther dissy boats and focus on the venoms. The venoms are what wind the DE the game in the end phases, they also have a lot of damage output tied up in them. Most DE players are happy you waste so many turns trading with cheap ravagers while the venoms are doing damage elsewhere. Venoms boats are midrange so the deredeos can easily engage them, and will shred them. It's stil lan uphill game for sure, but thats just codex creep in action.
I know am am addressing your points all over the place here so I appologize, I am on my way out the door and am rushing a bit, but wanted to give you a response.
You're literally the last person to trust the moment you said Disintegrators are a losing choice to Dark Lances. Have you done basic math like AT ALL on that?
Red Corsair wrote: As a DE player I can tell you I am never in a game where I don't dictate when and where the fight is. It's the entire shtick of the army. The best way to handle it is durability...
Thank you for the perspective. I hate playing against DE, it's like everyone suddenly decided to get an army. I've been going mass-armor and mass-infantry against them, both approaches seem laden with downsides.
Do you really see the Deredo as the best option against them? I guess I'm surprised to hear about that over a Leviathan.
Red Corsair wrote: As a DE player I can tell you I am never in a game where I don't dictate when and where the fight is. It's the entire shtick of the army. The best way to handle it is durability...
Thank you for the perspective. I hate playing against DE, it's like everyone suddenly decided to get an army. I've been going mass-armor and mass-infantry against them, both approaches seem laden with downsides.
Do you really see the Deredo as the best option against them? I guess I'm surprised to hear about that over a Leviathan.
Deredeo is pretty cheap as an add-on, and gives out less points if killed (as it isn't much more effort to kill a Leviathan for the price). The Leviathan is still a monster though, no doubt about it.
I dramaticly try to make normal CSM squads work in competive seetings. My newest idea is to take them as Havocs ( same price, more spec weapons ) and run them arrouns Abbadon.
Abbadon and 2x 10 havocs ( in each squad for example 4 plazma gun and combi plazm ).
Any ideas/though on this topic? I still pray for lower cost for them in CHA2k18.
I dramaticly try to make normal CSM squads work in competive seetings. My newest idea is to take them as Havocs ( same price, more spec weapons ) and run them arrouns Abbadon.
Abbadon and 2x 10 havocs ( in each squad for example 4 plazma gun and combi plazm ).
Any ideas/though on this topic? I still pray for lower cost for them in CHA2k18.
Abaddon makes everything around him better. I run normal CSMs with lascannons to fill out troop slots and that works fine.
Here's the thing about Abaddon + Plasma Havocs - they have a 24 inch threat radius. You can't sit back and wait for your opponent to come to you. Likewise, at 24 inches, most things can shoot at you.
if you want to run an army that fights up-close and personal - go ahead! If you want to run one where you can sit back and shoot things up while opponents come to you - think about lascannons, autocannons and missile launchers.
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Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Deredeo is pretty cheap as an add-on, and gives out less points if killed (as it isn't much more effort to kill a Leviathan for the price). The Leviathan is still a monster though, no doubt about it.
Interesting. I'm all about beating Drukhari right now. Time to start playtesting.
I have found a lot of success with mine. Yes, they are fragile, and they dont get direct buffs, but thats part of what makes them strong; they are self sufficient and cost very little. As well, they combo very well with debuffs like shriveling pox, making them hurt knights on 4s. I combine with pbcs, leaves my opponents choosing their poison
Place them so they’re within 9” of the corner edges, no need to babysit them with auras, just plug away at anything within 5ft, only LOS and the very far corners stops them from tagging a target
(Of course this is very dependent on your terrain meta)
Place them so they’re within 9” of the corner edges, no need to babysit them with auras, just plug away at anything within 5ft, only LOS and the very far corners stops them from tagging a target
(Of course this is very dependent on your terrain meta)
Bingo. Helverins also have excellent damage spike potential and work well against all light and medium targets. D3 is great
Sounds great until you think about the fact that your opponent only has to snipe one of those predators out to deny you the stratagem for the rest of the game.
It's just too telegraphed, and experienced players aren't likely to just ignore them when it's clear what you're trying to do. Popping vehicles without invulns is pretty easy for most armies these days.
I tried chaos soup today (still pure CSM) and it worked out better than expected. Of course, my opponent took a fluffy list (still imperium soup).
My list was originally full world eaters and had the triple predator tank for kill shot. But then I compared the Deathguard plague burst crawler to a predator tank and the different was just too great. So, I took a spearhead detachment of deathguard with three plague burst crawlers and a nurgle sorceror and a hellbrute.
My main list was world eaters. Had 20 zerkers and boy did they shine so much this game. I also brought 3 squads of minimal bikes (sergeant combi bolter). Shows how fluffy my list was! lol.
Anyway, the bikes were amazing too. Thing is, I skipped cultists totally. My core troop was 4 squads of zerkers (all chain axes, chain swords and sergeant power fist) squeezed into 2 Rhinos. I didnt even accompany them with m y characters! lol. (Though I did have a dark apostle and chaos lord on foot with murder sword as HQ).
I had my distraction carnefix too - a WE defiler with twinbolters and the defiler scourge.
So, I go first and my shooting isn't that great, which was ok (I expected it). But the bikes were able to into double tap range of his 3 squads of scouts and I discimated all 3 squads. Rest of the shooting took out one squad of infantry and one or two of his 10 man death company.
I thought I was in big trouble. Anyway, turns out he had brought a super melee lost. It had a Taranis Gallant, a 10 man squad of sanguinary guard, a 10 man squad of death company, mephiston, smash captain, sainguinary priest and sanguinary Ancient, the guy had 5 wounds and projected an aura of feel no pain).
He also had a battalion of IG just for extra CPs. And he had two squads of 3 mortars each. But his mortars were not very effective the whole game. No cultists for him to kill, just CSM marines in power armour, or vehiclesto shoot at.
So, after my 1st round shooting didn't do much, but decimated his 3 scout units and wiped 1 infantry sqaud, he charged in full tilt. He teleported his Sanguinary guard and made the 3d6 charge into my PBC, and he later piled into another PBC and my hellbrute! But those PBC are so tough! He barely took 3 wounds off one PBC cos he strung out his squad so much (I didnt cluster those 3 vehicles, 10 sang guard can cover quite a lot of space). My hellbrute hit alot (scourge), but his saves that round were amazing. He saved 7 wounds with his saves from my hellbrute!
His Gallant then somehow failed to kill either one of my Rhinos (one took 6 and another was down to 1 wound), cos he tried to kill both and ended up failing. All his jump pack characters and death company jumped over but had no targets other than to destroy a 3 man bike squad. He arranged his death company around his 3 characters and hoped they could screen him. And that was it for his turn.
My turn, all 4 squads of 20 berserkers came boiling out of the Rhinos and charged into combat. One squad charged his sang guard, another charged the Gallant along with my defiler. two squads moved into charge range of his 3 characters surrounded by death company. My shooting took out enough of his death company shield so that he left 4. 10 zerkers (2 powerfists sergeants) then charged into his death company (4 men left) and 3 characters.
And this is where the epicness happened. Those 10 WE zerkers, had zero character support (my characters I kept back because we were playing ITC rules and he picked killing characters as one of his secondary objectives). When the melee dust cleared, those 2 squads of 5 each had killed the smash captain, Mephiston, the Sang priest and 3 of the death company (last surviver died to morale) !!! 10 zerkers took out like 500 points in one epic charge!!
His Gallant did the cool thing of destroying my 2 Rhinos with his guantlet and throwing both Rhinos at my zerker squad and Defiler. It killed my defiler over two turns in the end too. But not before my defiler used demonforge twice over two round to severely injure it. (It had a 2+ armor save relic, a warlord trait 4++ and a Taranis 6+ fnp to boot!).
Anyway, his Gallant died by turn 4 to a smite from my sorceror. And the amazing thing is that all my PBCs were still alive lol. His remaining mortar teams (which I ignored the whole game) wouldn't have been able to do much against my PBC, and his entire melee force had been wiped out by my melee. (The Sang guard interrupted and took out one zerker squad and eventually the hellbrute, but not before being reduced to just 2 man from all the melee fighting, and they were finished off by a charge from my dark apostle and chaos lord with murder sword.
Those 2 zerker squad that took out his 3 characters then got charged by his Sanguinary ancient, and they took that out as well! lol, so that is 4 character killed by 2 zerker squads. They died finally to his mortars though (only after he unloaded all 6 of them into the 3 survivers!).
When he conceded the game after his Gallant died, I had one surviving bike squad of 3 sitting on one of his objectives. And my 2 PBC were on my 2 objectives. In fact, all 3 PBC were still alive and so were 2 of my characters. He had 2 mortar teams, his IG characters and one infantry squad left sitting on just one objective.
It was a very enjoyable match because we both brought relatively fluffy lists. It was still soup (for both sides), and we didnt intentionally gimp ourselves, but both lists could give each other a hard fight without necessarily any hard unkillable counters. Ok, his Gallant was really tough (4++, 2+, 6+ FNP), but I still managed to kill it in the end with the demon forged defiler, powerfist attacks from my zerker sergeant, shooting from PBCs, and smites from the sorceror).
But all in all, what I loved the most was that this was a game where those world eaters berserkers really shone! All that 2+ armor save from mephiston, 3++ from the captain, and whatever FNP that death company and blood angels had still didn't stop those 2 squads of zerkers from killing all 4 of his characters and his death company! It was just so epic!
I guess now the challenge would be to see if this list can fare ok against the heavy shooting lists which are more common. (sigh).
Thanks for the battle report! That looks like a great game.
Regarding the Deredeo vs other stuff, I like the Deredeo because it can take the Hellfire Veil, and give things within 6" an invulnerable save. That would help out other long range shooty Helbrutes, or a marching band of fearless Cultists, or tanks. However Chaos Deredeos are jealous of the Imperial gun options I think.
I would agree the Helverins are great for corners kinda out of the mix.
For a Leviathan I would like to try flying up or dropping a double grav-flux version in a Kharybdis.
I had a game vs triple Plagueburst Crawler Deathguard and I couldn't get much of anything through their toughness, armor, or FNP. That's where a Soulburner Decimator would come in handy, as one can't really ignore those types of units. Also vs super invul Harlequin jetbikes. Need those mortal wounds that can't be Denied their Witch like psychics can be.
I painted up a store army for fun. The owner is telling me to pick a single item off the shelves as a gift.
Thinking Renegade Knights. I have a choice between the Renegades Box or any of the other Knights GW currently makes.
Problem is I haven't been paying that much attention to Knights. Is the Dominus actually worth it? Would I do better with a pair of simple Renegades? Does the Renegade box actually have everything I would need to do up 2 Renegade Knights, is there something else I need?
Thoughts / opinions would be appreciated. He's leaving on a trip Monday and I'd need to decide before then or wait a couple months.
The Dominus isn't really worth it. Imperial Castellans are great because of relics/house traits and the fact you can just dump CP's into them to make them absurdly cost efficient. The alternate weapon options the Dominus has over the Renegade aren't much to write home about, and there's no significant stratagem support to improve them.
Regular old double Avenger Gatling Cannon Renegade Knights are probably your best bang for points.
AFAIK the Renegades box comes with one of each weapon option, so while you'd have the hulls to build 2 Knights, you'd likely have to convert or source additional Gatling Cannons from ebay or some other bits source.
It's also worth bearing in mind that a Super Heavy Detachment only generates CP in combinations of a single Titanic unit (+3CP), or with 3 Titanic units (+6CP), so unless you're going to pick up a 3rd Knight, having a 2nd isn't a huge advantage unless you just want the additional dakka. The optimal configuration would probably be 1 Knight and 2 solo Helverins for your 3CP, which comes in at a fairly reasonable 800ish points. Either that, or you just take a single Knight as an Auxiliary and forfeit any CP/stratagem support for it.
I'd also expect Knights to become more expensive across the board with CA2018, so that might be worth factoring into your decision. Whilst it's an unknown quantity at the minute, you could get burned for 'buying in' at this stage, with CA2018 maybe 6-10 weeks away. The counterpoint to that is that Renegade Knights don't stand to lose as much as their Imperial counterparts, so it might still be a fairly safe bet.
Ap0k wrote: The Dominus isn't really worth it. Imperial Castellans are great because of relics/house traits and the fact you can just dump CP's into them to make them absurdly cost efficient. The alternate weapon options the Dominus has over the Renegade aren't much to write home about, and there's no significant stratagem support to improve them.
Regular old double Avenger Gatling Cannon Renegade Knights are probably your best bang for points.
AFAIK the Renegades box comes with one of each weapon option, so while you'd have the hulls to build 2 Knights, you'd likely have to convert or source additional Gatling Cannons from ebay or some other bits source.
It's also worth bearing in mind that a Super Heavy Detachment only generates CP in combinations of a single Titanic unit (+3CP), or with 3 Titanic units (+6CP), so unless you're going to pick up a 3rd Knight, having a 2nd isn't a huge advantage unless you just want the additional dakka. The optimal configuration would probably be 1 Knight and 2 solo Helverins for your 3CP, which comes in at a fairly reasonable 800ish points. Either that, or you just take a single Knight as an Auxiliary and forfeit any CP/stratagem support for it.
I'd also expect Knights to become more expensive across the board with CA2018, so that might be worth factoring into your decision. Whilst it's an unknown quantity at the minute, you could get burned for 'buying in' at this stage, with CA2018 maybe 6-10 weeks away. The counterpoint to that is that Renegade Knights don't stand to lose as much as their Imperial counterparts, so it might still be a fairly safe bet.
Nice thoughts.
I think I will get the Renegades box and risk the changes in CA. They may turn into expensive shelf decorations, but they will look nice.
Astmeister wrote: How do you guys like the new CSM from Blackstone fortress?
1 model with 2 heads? Thanks? It looks good but remind me of the DV chosen, without the variety. Lord looks sweet but he needs a bike or jet pack.
I mean if he's strictly buffing a gunline he doesn't need much fancy.
I agree, but he's already got a power maul and combi-plas, presumably, so that's a bunch of points invested in a gunline motivator for weapons he's not designed to use? He may be an aspiring or exalted champion too. My bet would be exalted except the KTEC can't take those weapons; however, our KTEC can't take a combi-melta either but that's what the designated model is built with.
Them new Chaos Space Marines look promising. Not Primaris-scale, so plastic Heretac & Havocs might come out before the whole existing range gets put on notice. Hopefully the loadout implies we’ll get a hero or squad set for Kill Team with a better inventory.
I thought primaris marines were supposed to be engineered bigger. CSM that are bigger than non-standard SM doesn't make sense to me, as nice as it looks. Someone said they're to scale? By what metric? IDK how 20 of those new bois will fit inside a Storm Eagle.
AFAIK Belisarius (or w/e) also made primaris marines from founding chapters that went heretic, so there could eventually be primaris CSM that aren't veterans of the long war, and/or primaris marines of say Luna Wolves or Iron Warriors still loyal to the Imperium. That would be neat, though I don't know how GW would pull it off.
I recall hooks being set regarding Fabius Bile on a load of Community content. My main thought is ‘how would they square up with similarly sized Plague Marines’?
But, hey, in-kit combi-weapons seem to be incoming, I can rejoice at that.
Enhanced Marines certainly could become a thing, just as easily explained off like the Cawl Marines.
I also think adding more mutation to the Marines to make them bigger is a possibility. Not quite as badly corrupted as a Plague Marine, but noticeably bulkier, spikier, explained away as having spent so much more time in the Warp. I've had issues with the smaller scale on CSM way before the Primaris having had to use metal upgrade packs on all my Night Lords, compared to Raptors or even the Possessed kit. And my metal Plague Marines were a sore sight.
Hmm. What’s the plan, mobile stuff runs up behind a Warptimed Cultist screen in the first turn, then gets stuck in over the next few turns? If you budget 4CP to make sure the Warptime goes off, the Infantry don’t get snake eyes on their Advances, and the 34 Cultist blob doesn’t get deleted by morale, I guess the knights and heroes can probably stomp most threats that cross the picket line to tag your home objectives.
For the first turn(s) the cultists cam bubble wrap the shooty knight. Magnus and the Gallant are fast enough to get into position for some charges from turn 2 on forward most probably.
Go after their AT threats and scoring units and play bullyball was the idea behind the list.
Turn one I hope to.have enough target saturation to have enough live for turn 2, then try and get the defense powers off on Magnus.
We do not play ITC mission but mostly play book stuff though.
At least one person is bringing a Custodes army What can I expect from that list? I've never played against them. Also, besides units and Death Hex, what tactics work well to counter them?
Has anyone had any experience with summoning as opposed to Deep Strike?
I have a Fire Bomb (30 Pink Horrors) that I usually Deep Strike on T2. However, using a summons (with the 4d6 stratagem) would let them avoid enemy fire T1, and be on the field T1.
The downside is that the range is severely limited compared to Deep Strike.
I have a TSons Prince with Warptime who would do the summoning, so he could "move" afterwards and stay close. And he also has Temporal Manipulation and 8W, so he won't die from this tactic, and can heal himself.
you never want to plan on summoning specific units. You want to have a large pile of Daemons available, so if you do decide to summon you can drop in whatever you need at the time. Do you need a Fire Bomb of 30 Pink Horrors to light something up, drop it in. Did you get lucky and roll high enough to drop in a Lord of Change? Do it. Do you have Gift of Chaos psychic power on your Daemon Prince? Have a laff and take a moment to summon in a Chaos Spawn where the Farseer used to be. Roll'd unexpectedly low on your summon roll? Drop in a smaller squad of some sort and be ready to drop in the rest later or drop something else later. You ideally want a very large toolbox to pull from so you can go for exactly what you need at any given time. Remember, you are still subject to all of the inherent flaws of summoning, and you need a healthy amount of characters scattered across the map.
By contrast, you can just take a Daemon Patrol, and spend CP to deep strike the Daemons directly into reserve and not worry about a character giving up their movement, and have access to the Daemon Strategems to help your Daemons. INFACT you should have at least a Daemon Patrol in any list that plans to take advantage of summoning so that your summons themselves can use the Daemon strategems if they need to. Summoning is only really going to be worth it to you if you have the collection to drop in whatever you need to solve whatever problem you are currently facing. Being able to decide whether you would be better served by dropping a big plague bearer squad onto an objective, or zapping a Keeper of Secrets into existence. that flexibility is the only advantage Summoning has over just bringing those units in an allied daemon detachment.
If you really want to take advantage of summoning I would look to putting together a list like this.
1) Word Bearers / Thousand Sons Battalion 2) Daemon Battalion - probably Nurgle for objective holding reasons. 3) Leave points free for summoning stuff in. I would hesitate to leave a hole bigger than 300 points in your list. - Create a cheat sheet of your available Daemons and break them into blocks of roughly equal power level / points cost. So you can quickly look at your summoning roll and bring in the squad you need without pen and papering points costs.
Keep the Nurgle Battalion cheap, and use them as your primary objective runners and a good CP pool. Use your summons to trouble shoot any issues your list is having by summoning exactly what you need. Don't expect to drop in a Greater Daemon other than a Keeper of Secrets. And remember, if you have a specific unit in mind, you are *always* better off bringing in a patrol.
EDIT: It bears mentioning that the biggest benefit to summoning is it allows you some degree of list tailoring- which is why it has so many drawbacks. Are you expecting to face down a green tide of orcs? Drop in as many Flamers of Tzeentch as possible. Dealing with an opponent with tons of strong invulnerable saves? Drop in Heralds to help spam smite and take over the psychic phase. It lets you patch up your list based on what your opponent has brought to the game, and lets you adjust on the fly as the game continues. If you have the knowledge and collection to take advantage of that, you can see benefit to summoning.
The main benefit of summoning I've noticed lately is that it gives you much greater flexibility in detachments. My core list is a pure Khorne battalion. I then have some Nurgle stuff and some TSons stuff, but I'm already at my 3 detachments limit.
Summoning Pinks instead of building them in essentially gives me that patrol of Changecaster+Pinks that I want, but without having to pay the Brimstone tax, AND while keeping my Nurgle and TSons as pure detachments.
Leaving my options open for WHAT I will summon is a good idea. I have loads of Pinks and Khorne Dogs, as well as some Slaanesh character models and extra DPs.
Is it possible to spend 1CP on a bloodletter unit in your summoning pool to upgrade an icon into a Banner of Blood? Because summoning bloodletters without a 3D6 charge would be awful otherwise. Pinks and plaguebearers make sense. Khorne units... not so much.
At least one person is bringing a Custodes army What can I expect from that list? I've never played against them. Also, besides units and Death Hex, what tactics work well to counter them?
Shield Captains on Bikes are usually the biggest threat. The best way to fight them is to tie them up as much as much as possible. The fact jumpbikes can no longer charge over units is a significant nerf for them.
The tactics I use to deal with them are massed firepower and screens. Make them fight small screening units that are there to fall back or die. Then pour tons of firepower at them.
There's a clever fellow at my FLGS who incorporates several small patrol detachments in his lists specifically for this purpose.
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barboggo wrote: Is it possible to spend 1CP on a bloodletter unit in your summoning pool to upgrade an icon into a Banner of Blood? Because summoning bloodletters without a 3D6 charge would be awful otherwise. Pinks and plaguebearers make sense. Khorne units... not so much.
It's something worth arguing about.
The Stratagem says the Banner of Blood must be used before the battle begins. The argument against using it for summoned units is that they are not there before the battle begins. The argument for it is that summoned units are the same as any other, the fact you don't specify how your points will be paid later in the game makes no a difference.
I personally play it that you are allowed to use this Stratagem for units you plan to summon. But something to remember is it's almost always better to actually take a Daemon detachment with a herald and have them deep strike. What you lose in CPs you make up for by not having to summon (which is uncertain.)
Elric Greywolf wrote: Has anyone had any experience with summoning as opposed to Deep Strike?
I have a Fire Bomb (30 Pink Horrors) that I usually Deep Strike on T2. However, using a summons (with the 4d6 stratagem) would let them avoid enemy fire T1, and be on the field T1.
The downside is that the range is severely limited compared to Deep Strike.
I have a TSons Prince with Warptime who would do the summoning, so he could "move" afterwards and stay close. And he also has Temporal Manipulation and 8W, so he won't die from this tactic, and can heal himself.
Huh. Re-reading the big FAQ, I realise that Summoning is indeed allowable on T1, granting a 12” reach.
How is ‘wholly within 12’ defined, exactly? Could you drop something so that the tip of its base kisses a 12” ruler? Or does the entire base of every member of the unit have to be completely within 12”?
My main (only) uses for Summoning ATM are as a way to add Epidemius to a niche list where detachments are limited, and narrative games. I’m open to the notion of a 12+?” surprise T1 drop. I *want* to make Summoning *viable*, it’s my Legion’s whole schtick.
And did we mention he is Black Legion. That's an advantage in everyone's eyes, I'm sure.
Also, all the other Chaos units from BSF have to deploy within 6 inches of the Chaos Lord at the same time he deploys. If they can't do that, they are automatically destroyed.
Captyn_Bob wrote: .. how do you even use the non black legion stuff in matched play? Struggling to see how you can do anything other than aux detachments .
Easy, Servants of abyss keyword. That's probably also why the CSM lord with a thunderhammer rocks a 102 pts pricetag since his reroll aura also works on all the mortal dudes aswell as CSM of the black legion.
Captyn_Bob wrote: .. how do you even use the non black legion stuff in matched play? Struggling to see how you can do anything other than aux detachments .
There doesn't appear to be a way to use most of the models without the Chaos Lord. The Servants of the Abyss keyword is the only thing they all have in common.
You can't take the Black Legionnaires without him unless you want to lose Legion traits. You max out at 4 Negavolt cultists in any army. You max out at 14 Guardsmen in any army. You max out at 4 Beastmen in any army.
So the rules limit the models to use as a meatshield for the Chaos Lord. They don't have a use otherwise.
So i have been working on a slaanesh force, but not using emporers children. I am using this as my basic starting point.
Alpha legion
Hq -
Lord w/ bolt pistol and hydra blade
Sorcerer w/ delightful agonies, jump pack, and ??? Power i need
Troops -
40 cultists, mark of slaanesh
10 chaos marines, 2 w/ plasma gun, 1 w/ combi plasma, icon of excess
10 chaos marines, 2 w/ plasma gun, 1 w/ combi plasma, icon of excess
Idea is i can move my cultists and marines up if needed before t1, i get extra protection from -1 to hit, cultists get 5+++, and icon helps those plasma guns get extra shots to make up only having 3.
Super competitive? No, but viable in an unexpected way? I think it has potential. Thoughts?
Azuza001 wrote: So i have been working on a slaanesh force, but not using emporers children. I am using this as my basic starting point.
Alpha legion
Hq -
Lord w/ bolt pistol and hydra blade
Sorcerer w/ delightful agonies, jump pack, and ??? Power i need
Troops -
40 cultists, mark of slaanesh
10 chaos marines, 2 w/ plasma gun, 1 w/ combi plasma, icon of excess
10 chaos marines, 2 w/ plasma gun, 1 w/ combi plasma, icon of excess
Idea is i can move my cultists and marines up if needed before t1, i get extra protection from -1 to hit, cultists get 5+++, and icon helps those plasma guns get extra shots to make up only having 3.
Super competitive? No, but viable in an unexpected way? I think it has potential. Thoughts?
Separate the Cultists enough so that you can meet the minimum troop requirement and make those Chaos Marines as Chosen with Plasma Guns instead.
I have used minimum sized cultist squads before, 10 men squads just get shot and die without doing anything from any enemy unit that just looks at them funny. Are you saying thats all they are good for?
As for choosen, didnt think of them. Your suggesting small squad sizes or more plasma or both? I get that choosen get more plasma without needing 10 guys, and have more cc attacks, but is cc worth the extra 28 pts they would cost is the question, or put differently is the 2 less wounds for the same number of plasma worth the extra cc ability from those 8 guys?
10-strong Cultist squads do get shot off the board in a single round of shooting if your opponent decides they want to shoot at them, this is very true. This is why mine are typically found lurking in table corners holding objective markers that I might need later but don't want to devote my main force into capturing/holding when I do happen to draw the relevant card. If the enemy decides they want to delete them, they'll be deleted, but that's typically shooting not going into a unit that I want to keep alive because it has a good damage output.
Assuming you split your Cultists into 20/10/10 strong units and didn't want to pay for Chosen, you could take them as Havocs instead - same cost per basic marine model, but access to 4 Plasma per squad instead of two (plus the combi weapon).
You should swap the Bolt Pistol on your lord for a second chain sword. That gives you an extra attack (4+1+d3). Then pair the Flames of Spite Warlord Trait, with Veterans of the Long War in the fight phase and he will cause mortal wounds on a 5+. Since you are fielding Alpha Legion, you don't lose anything by marking him Khorne instead of Slaanesh, which would let him potentially fight twice in the fight phase. And just like how Vets stacks with Delightful Agonies... Vets will stack with the Khorne fight twice stratagem for two rounds of carnage.
The nice thing about Psychers in 8th edition is you pick your powers at the start of the match. So look at your opponents list and pick a suitable power. Prescience is always potent for helping a shooting unit. Death Hex is great if you are willing to spend CP to help get it off and your enemy has units that rely on strong invulnerable saves, even Infernal Gaze can be awesome if you want to spit out mortal wounds for a turn with your Sorcerer. Also remember we have the Familiar Strategem, so if you need a psychic power on the fly, you can pick it up.
Finally, you should look into some transports for your Power Armor bodies. Rhinos. The Alpha Legion strategem is now more akin to a scout move, which is unlikely to take you into plasma rapid fire range. And you don't want those squads getting chewed to pieces while you advance up the field. Some metal boxes could be helpful in ensuring your boys stay alive. If you don't want to go the Rhino route, you will be better off with doubling up on heavy weapons on those CSM squads. Consider taking 2x Las Cannons or 2x Auto Cannons instead of the Plasma Guns. That gives you much more reach to touch things without leaving cover. You can also use the scout move to get your guys into ruins placed just out of your deployment zone, etc.
As others have said, you can also do 20, 10, 10 cultists to fill out the batallion and use Havocs instead of the Marines. 10 man Cultist squads are not combat units, but they are nice for screening to deny deep strikers a place to land, or running off to objectives, or screening vs front line assault units, and just generally taking up space. Usually people don't want to divert fire power to 40 point cultist squads when they are being hammered by auto cannons anyway, so the low aggro that 10 cultists draw helps keep them alive a bit.
