Honestly, I don't think I'd want to throw that 1 warp dice even at the "perfect targets".
I'm NOT going to waste enfeeble to get a target to T2 when I can just hit them with S5 spam for cheaper.


Unless there just HAPPENS to be a tightly-packed group of weak enemy infantry out there, the power is a pure waste and I'd rather spend that dice to assure my REAL powers go off.

Firestorm needs to be large blast and barrage and THEN it would be sorta useful. sorta.

For T2/3 3+ or worse save targets, bolters should be able to do all the work you need them to. Also, if you're getting 3 hits with a small blast, you're up against a hoarde army, so doombolt is very likely to get more than 3 hits. One of the few points in firestorms favour is it's 24" range, meaning that you can cross board it without too much effort when your enemy is trying to maintain range. The sad thing is, if you're delving into biomancy, haemorrage combo'ed with enfeeble probably does more damage than 2x firestorms. If you're against actual hoardes, rockmaw or whatever the name of the geomortis power that forces a dangerous terrain test on a unit is would be a better use of your dice too as it will get a decent amount of kills on large, poorly armoured units.

I think the only times that I would say that firestorm is unconditionally a good use of dice is against deepstriking T3 units that don't run after they arrive - so... Scions? or T3 units that have just been shucked out of their transport - Guard or Tau breachers where you're getting at least 6 hits due to forced clustering.

Unfortunately, even though it's the primaris and therefore assured, there really isn't much upside to it at all. It was bad back when it was just released in 2012, it's significantly worse now in 2017 where we have to contend with 7.5 ed dexes instead of 5th ed ones and can cast less powers than we used to less reliably than we used to.

I'm looking specifically at First Curse, so those models will get their Invul Saves against Rockmaw (2.2W for a WC2 power).

Haemmorage can be saved by Invuls, at T3 once again that's probably 1-2W for WC2.

I don't think Firestorm is cost-effective against a 4+. That's better suited for either the Pyro flamer, Warpshock or Shriek. Versatile it is not.

So I'm only considering targets with an Invul save, or a 6+ at best. Firestorm suffers immensely from the lack of an AP value, it's hard to understate. That's why it's so surprising when armor and cover saves aren't influencing the relative results.

Check out the math on Enfeebled Purestrains, that's the upside for me. Almost everything else is disappointing.

You still have to contend with the issues of a small blast, but that's a bit more universal.

And the fact you had to use enfeeble to get the job done....

Firestorm is never wasting a warp charge on unless every other squad has activated force weapons for the buff.

Yoyoyo wrote:
I'm looking specifically at First Curse, so those models will get their Invul Saves against Rockmaw (2.2W for a WC2 power).

Haemmorage can be saved by Invuls, at T3 once again that's probably 1-2W for WC2.

I don't think Firestorm is cost-effective against a 4+. That's better suited for either the Pyro flamer, Warpshock or Shriek. Versatile it is not.

So I'm only considering targets with an Invul save, or a 6+ at best. Firestorm suffers immensely from the lack of an AP value, it's hard to understate. That's why it's so surprising when armor and cover saves aren't influencing the relative results.

Check out the math on Enfeebled Purestrains, that's the upside for me. Almost everything else is disappointing.

You still have to contend with the issues of a small blast, but that's a bit more universal.

I noticed, that's why is specifically said against Hoardes (ie units of 30+) and yes, I know Haemorrage can be saved by invul., and I know it's terrible at T3, which is why I said that if you're going biomancy anyway for enfeeble, then the haemorage enfeeble combo probably does more damage than enfeeble & firestorm (it's actually a touch in firestorms favour, if my back of the envelope math is correct with a T2 target as haemorrage should do ~5 wounds, even less to one with a 5++, poroving that unless you're casting against brimstone horrors, haemorrage is just absolutely atrociously bad). Again, yes, firestorm isn't great against a 4+, which is why I specified that it needs to be against T3 units that have just been clustered up after being forced out of their transport so as to ensure you get 6ish hits. Geez, it's like you just skimmed my post without actually reading it at all.

As someone who has been playing a Sons army for the greater part of the last 5 years, I'm well aware of how bad firestorm is and how hard it's neutered by saves (and toughness as you obviously know as well otherwise you wouldn't be leaning on enfeeble to make it viable). Sure, if you are looking at killing nothing but purestrains, then I guess firestorm wouldn't be terrible if your opponent doesn't know how or chooses not to space their models and you manage to roll enfeeble every game. If you can get them to bunch up like that however, you might as well just shoot for cleansing flame/sunburst/inferno etc and have something that works against multiple units at the same time. For the record, I did check the math against the purestrains as it was surprising that firestorm outperformed the double heavy bolter of warpshock, but then I guess getting 2 extra hits for every casualty does hide the true power since T2 is incredibly uncommon (less so recently with blue and brimstone horrors being a thing).

Regardless, if you've found a way to get Firestorm to work for you, then all praise to you.

Edit: 1 rather left field thought on the uses for Firestorm - You've got a roughly 10% chance to remove a hull point from an AV11 vehicle per cast using 1 dice with a spell familiar. It's not great, but in an army as starved as we are for anti tank, sometimes it's worth it. Rarely. Very rarely.

 Drasius wrote:
Sure, if you are looking at killing nothing but purestrains, then I guess firestorm wouldn't be terrible

Purestrains are the best target I've found so far.

Being 14ppm they are priced like MEQ. There's unfortunately not a lot of units that share that combination of price and statline.

I think if I start from a situation where Firestorm actually performs well, then I can maybe recognize situations where it is merely "ok". At that point, you make your choices whether you need support from the Pyro table or concentrate on generating other powers.

It's not that I want to ignore your points about 4+ units. I'm just trying to definitely establish performance against Purestrains first as a baseline. I think Firestorm still compares decently to Sunburst and CF/Inferno -- there is an economy/perils benefit to spreading your dice around your army (which also synergizes with Siphon).

 BoomWolf wrote:
And the fact you had to use enfeeble to get the job done....

True enough. But First Curse is a ~400pt unit, and the debuff is also helpful for bolters and assaulting.

I've once killed Calgar with haemorroidshage. We didn't know you can los it than. But apparently you can after the faq.

Yoyoyo wrote:

 Drasius wrote:
Sure, if you are looking at killing nothing but purestrains, then I guess firestorm wouldn't be terrible

Purestrains are the best target I've found so far.

Being 14ppm they are priced like MEQ. There's unfortunately not a lot of units that share that combination of price and statline.

I think if I start from a situation where Firestorm actually performs well, then I can maybe recognize situations where it is merely "ok". At that point, you make your choices whether you need support from the Pyro table or concentrate on generating other powers.

It's not that I want to ignore your points about 4+ units. I'm just trying to definitely establish performance against Purestrains first as a baseline. I think Firestorm still compares decently to Sunburst and CF/Inferno -- there is an economy/perils benefit to spreading your dice around your army (which also synergizes with Siphon).

Any time you can hit 6 or more targets with a direct hit it's probably worth tossing 1 dice at it, be it from deep striking and shooting instead of running, being forced to emergency disembark from a wrecked or exploded transport, a bad consolidation move (or lack thereof against a vehicle) or just bad positioning. Even against MEQ, that generates ~1 casualty (1 dice with familiar and BS4) which isn't terrible. It's not shriek and never will be, but against gaunts, pathfinders, blob guard/GSC and the like, the extra hits are possibly enough to make it worthwhile, but I really suspect that it's more of a solution looking for a problem rather than the other way around.

Harlequins would probably be another decent target since they're T3, 5++ and expensive. Scions are T3 4+ but they're also priced far too high and have a tendancy to deep strike and shoot meaning you get lots of hits easily. Deamonettes and bloodletters can often clump up for assaults, and they're another member of the T3/5++ club, though at 9/10 ppm, they're not that expensive. Legion of the damned could probably also qualify since while they're MEQ, they also deep strike and shoot while being rather expensive, so if you get 6 or 7 hits, while it's only ~1 unsaved wound, it's also 23 points +/- a special/heavy weapon, which means it's a decent trade for 1 dice.

 Drasius wrote:
I really suspect that it's more of a solution looking for a problem rather than the other way around.

At this point, yeah.

That is a good observation about the Harlequins though -- they are even more expensive than Purestrains.

Hi,

Played a 1850pts full cabal game againt SM Iron Hands (? anyway the ones with eternal warrior and it will not die and FNP6+) using a landrider-formation of 3 which made LR's immune to vehicle dmg results.

He had a squad of devastators to back them up, 2 razors, 2 tac squads of 5 in LR's and melee centurions with a decked out chapter master in one LR. Also legion of damned sqd of 5 with plasma cannon and rifle.

I rolled almost exclusiverly heretek, got 1 x flayerstorm and 2 x scrapcode. Forgot to use primaris on others, that might have been good also. Downside was that literally the only blessing was armor of hatred (sinistrum) which was actually a cheap way to buff most of my units in turns 1-3.

He regained 4-5 HP for LR's, but by turn 5b when we were forced to quit, the last LR was wrecked. I'd say that means we are not actually weak in AT. Also shot down all the cents, some with bolters and some with Baleful Devolution (we played it as a regular shooting after resolving against the selected target).

Two of LR's were that variant with hurricane bolters, so sheer number of shots ground down some of my units. Ended up losing 2 5 men rubrics, and 8 scrabs but no full scarab squds.

I forgot to use tzeench primaris against damned, I just shot them with ap3 bolters instead.

By my count, which may be below the actual, I saved 17 wounds with full cabal reroll saves of 1 -rule. That's almost half my models saved, so that is a huge benefit.

Lost the game 4-6 because his obsec chapter master managed to hang on to his last hp against a bane disk exalted sorc.

Definitely liking TS and psychic dabbling at the moment.

Timmon

Not sure if I was reading it correctly, but when you mentioned shooting the LotD with AP3 bolters, remember their saves are 3+ invulnerable, so your bolters are no different.

Good to hear that the full cabal is doing well. With practice I think it could be very effective. Would you mind posting a summary of your list?

Here's the list. 10 points under limit, I think I had a flamer with some of the rubrics. Didnt use it though.

+++ Thousand Sons Detachments 1850 (Warhammer 40,000 7th Edition v2013) (1840pts) +++
+ Formation +

········War Cabal
············Exalted Sorcerer [Mastery Level 3, Spell familiar]
············Exalted Sorcerer [Disc of Tzeetch, Mastery Level 2, Seer's Bane]
············Rubric Marines [4x Rubric Marine]
················Aspiring Sorcerer [Force Stave, Warpflame Pistol]
············Rubric Marines [4x Rubric Marine]
················Aspiring Sorcerer [Force Stave, Inferno Bolt Pistol]
············Rubric Marines [4x Rubric Marine]
················Aspiring Sorcerer [Force Stave, Inferno Bolt Pistol]
············Scarab Occult Terminators [Scarab Occult Sorcerer, 4x Scarab Occult Terminator, Soulreaper Cannon]
············Scarab Occult Terminators [Scarab Occult Sorcerer, 4x Scarab Occult Terminator]
············Scarab Occult Terminators [Scarab Occult Sorcerer, 4x Scarab Occult Terminator]
············Sorcerer [Astral Grimoire, Force Axe, Mark of Tzeentch, Power Armour, Veterans of the Long War]
············Sorcerer [Force Axe, Mark of Tzeentch, Power Armour, Veterans of the Long War]

Created with BattleScribe (http://www.battlescribe.net)


The Damned have 3++, so yes AP3 was irrelevant for those, sheer weight of fire killed them off, really had nothing more to shoot at that point. Later, most of the tacticals just melted with AP3. Also, oracular guidance helps quite a lot with shooting too.

Timmon

Just so your friend knows, Chapter Masters cannot replace Captains in demi-companies (covered on page 3).

https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Space_Marines_v1.0.pdf

FYI Drasius, Cantopek Wraiths also got their initiative restored.

Yoyoyo wrote:
FYI Drasius, Cantopek Wraiths also got their initiative restored.

Thanks for that, it's something I would have missed (again). Oh well, was fun while it lasted.

What do you guys think of this?

CSM CAD 930
Thousand sons
HQ Ml3 Sorc, spell familiar, athenean scrolls, pistol, axe, MoT, aura dark glory 165
Troops
2x10 cultists Mot 120
LoW Magnus 650

CD Cad 185
HQ
Masque 75
Troops
2x11 Blue Horrors 110

CD formation
Heralds Anarchic 385
Herald Ml3 Disc paradox 145
Herald Ml3 Disc 120
Herald Ml3, Disc 120

1500 points and 24 warp charges.

You're much better off taking a non-thousand sons CAD to get Magnus so you don't have to waste a power on the Tz table and don't have to waste 20 points of MoT for the cultists.

Unless you just want Magnus to be extra invincible with the extra +1 to his invulnerable when he casts siphon, in which case I'd still advise dropping the scrolls for a disk since you don't want the sorc to be hiding in with the non-fearless cultists.

You're going to have to do a lot of work with summoning and you're in quite a large amount of trouble if Magnus goes down. I do like the Masque though, even if she does break theme. Lots of small units though, going to be easy kill points if that matters int he meta you play in.

Thinking of starting a TSons army. Saw a list from Kenny that looked interesting and modified it.

My question is regarding Scarab Occult Terminators.

If I take a squad of 10, battlescibe is allowing me to take 2 Soulreaper cannons in the squad as well as 2 Hellfyre Missile Racks. Is this possible? Is there a loose rule interpretation that the people who made the datafile may have made a decision on?

Thanks!

Naaris wrote:
Thinking of starting a TSons army. Saw a list from Kenny that looked interesting and modified it.

My question is regarding Scarab Occult Terminators.

If I take a squad of 10, battlescibe is allowing me to take 2 Soulreaper cannons in the squad as well as 2 Hellfyre Missile Racks. Is this possible? Is there a loose rule interpretation that the people who made the datafile may have made a decision on?

Thanks!

You can indeed take all of them in a unit of 10.

The rules are pretty clear.
For every five, one SOT can take one of
-Heavy warpflamer
-Soulreaper
So at 10 man, you get two picks.

In addition, for every 5 models you can take one missile rack.

So yes you can have two soulreapers and two missile racks.
But not two soulreapers and two warpflamers.

Whether that's a good idea or not, well that's a different matter. The only one I even consider in lists is the missiles.

And for the life of me, I struggle to think why you'd want a squad of 10 over 2x squads of 5. Saving 40 points I guess? But then, I see anything that's not a maxed cabal and think it's useless.

I've already been told my Sons aren't fun to play against anymore. Funny how they were fun to play against before the TL book dropped...

Ultras vs 1ksons

https://www.twitch.tv/warhammer

*EDIT: False alarm, it's only partial. He's using Iron Warriors stuff and Raptors so it's not an actual 1ksons.

Here's a magnus list that did really well at the LVO. Came in top 4 I believe. I really like the inclusion of the trickery locus. Very cool

Thousand sons cad

Sorcerer MoT

10 cultists MoT
10 cultists MoT

Magnus

Daemon cad

Fateweaver warlord
Masque
10 horrors
10 brimstone horrors
7 screamers

Heralds anarchic

Level 1 heralds exalted gift disc
Level 1 heralds locus of trickery disc
Level 3 herald paradox disc

I'm seeing the Masque show up in a lot of lists, and that kind of puzzles me. Did the new Daemon book update her rules or what, didn't seem that great in the past.

In case you don't follow the news updates, one of the new warlord traits in the Ynnead army apparently lets the warlord select their psyker powers instead of rolling for them.

I can't tell you how much I want the Sons to have that ability. Can you imagine the power of a Sons army in which each sorcerer can select their powers instead of having to roll for them? Even lowly aspiring sorcerers would be useful again if they were guaranteed to get something like Doombolt.

Hell, even if it was just limited to one HQ model, you could build a guaranteed-super-killmonster if you were guaranteed to get Invisibility and Warp Speed or Endurance.

Given how warlord trait and spell selection work in Age of Sigmar, I wonder if GW will move towards this model in 8th edition.

 Badablack wrote:
I'm seeing the Masque show up in a lot of lists, and that kind of puzzles me. Did the new Daemon book update her rules or what, didn't seem that great in the past.

She's anti deathstar insurance for 75 points. Dance of caging targets a single unit and they can only move, run, charge and fall back d3 inches a turn while also taking a -5 WS penalty. Also automatically forces a swooping FMC to land since they have to move at least 12 to maintain swooping. Have fun with a combined move & charge threat range of 6" with your 1000 point deathstar. Also means Fatey or Magnus are walking next turn, and slowly at that, so yeah, that's why you see the masque a bunch.

I got a couple games in last week using the Rehati War Sect for the first time. I've been sick so I don't know if I'll do a detailed report, but I can fill in some general observations from it anyway.

It was actually a small 2000 point ITC tournament so I was able to fit 4 flying princes and a heralds anarchic with 4 barebones heralds.

I prioritized getting cursed earth in both games, but in my second game it really bit me in the foot because I didn't get it till my 7th roll on the table. I won both games, but my second game would have gone a lot better if I'd had more aggressive spells. I was up against 3 imperial knights and bellisarius cawl in a deathstar of sorts and I had a really hard time getting through the units since he was able to heal so much every turn. I basically only had Magnus throwing d shots and beams for output (and several times I failed to cast throwing 7 dice at gaze of magnus and 5 dice at the one shot d power)

If I play it again, I think I'll focus on heretech for anti armor and telepathy for anti infantry and rely more on my swooping status for durability. All the summoning I did just gave up kill points and never secured an objective unless it was something like "have a unit in their deployment" where I could boost screamers far enough away from threats to survive the whole turn.

It was fun and easier to keep track of spells than the other thousand sons lists I'd played. It also went a lot faster as a result since I was basically just vector striking and casting. I'd like to try it again with fateweaver at some point but it'll be tough to fit.

The leaked Ynnari rules make me feel a little better from the psychic phase standpoint. The Yncarne is only ML3 and Yvraine is only ML2 (although that can go up), and each of them only has access to the new Revenant discipline and Sanctic Daemonology, WITHOUT having the special Grey Knights protection against increased periling. Have fun eating those perils, space elves!

Brian888 wrote:
The leaked Ynnari rules make me feel a little better from the psychic phase standpoint. The Yncarne is only ML3 and Yvraine is only ML2 (although that can go up), and each of them only has access to the new Revenant discipline and Sanctic Daemonology, WITHOUT having the special Grey Knights protection against increased periling. Have fun eating those perils, space elves!

But that's the point. They get as much solo psychers as possible. Those peril and the scatbikes, d-batteries and wraithknights shoot twice. The only special characters they need are sacrificial ones. Also, those to put in front of their squads to get free shooting in the opponent's turn.

Or they get a bunch of inquisitorial detachments with min warbands. Use a nova power and all the stuff around gets a free round of shooting. Plus a free warlord trait from inquisitors.

By "special characters" I meant Yvraine and the Yncarne. They seem to be pretty crucial to the army's success, so it will likely hurt (a lot) if they get killed by perils.

Thought id revive this as i've got an 1850 tournament coming up.

Is Ahriman too nuch of a luxury in a full war cabal? If i take him and ml3 on all the other sorcerors, there is no wiggle room in points. No aodg for the sorcs, no spell familiars, no grimoire. Unless i start dropping ml from the sorcs.

Anyone running a war cabal, how necessary are the grimoire and spell familiars?

Familiars are mandatory IMHO, Grimoure is about as close to manatory as you can get since the rest of the force is so slow unless you roll a psychic movement power, though if you're taking Ahriman, some of that is gained back with infiltrate, though if you roll a 1 on your d3, then you're right back at square one again.

Timmon wrote:
Here's the list. 10 points under limit, I think I had a flamer with some of the rubrics. Didnt use it though.

+++ Thousand Sons Detachments 1850 (Warhammer 40,000 7th Edition v2013) (1840pts) +++
+ Formation +

········War Cabal
············Exalted Sorcerer [Mastery Level 3, Spell familiar]
············Exalted Sorcerer [Disc of Tzeetch, Mastery Level 2, Seer's Bane]
············Rubric Marines [4x Rubric Marine]
················Aspiring Sorcerer [Force Stave, Warpflame Pistol]
············Rubric Marines [4x Rubric Marine]
················Aspiring Sorcerer [Force Stave, Inferno Bolt Pistol]
············Rubric Marines [4x Rubric Marine]
················Aspiring Sorcerer [Force Stave, Inferno Bolt Pistol]
············Scarab Occult Terminators [Scarab Occult Sorcerer, 4x Scarab Occult Terminator, Soulreaper Cannon]
············Scarab Occult Terminators [Scarab Occult Sorcerer, 4x Scarab Occult Terminator]
············Scarab Occult Terminators [Scarab Occult Sorcerer, 4x Scarab Occult Terminator]
············Sorcerer [Astral Grimoire, Force Axe, Mark of Tzeentch, Power Armour, Veterans of the Long War]
············Sorcerer [Force Axe, Mark of Tzeentch, Power Armour, Veterans of the Long War]

Created with BattleScribe (http://www.battlescribe.net)


The Damned have 3++, so yes AP3 was irrelevant for those, sheer weight of fire killed them off, really had nothing more to shoot at that point. Later, most of the tacticals just melted with AP3. Also, oracular guidance helps quite a lot with shooting too.

Timmon

These kinds of lists are exactly what I'd love to do with my Thousand Sons when I eventually get enough of them to field a full army, but I'm struggling with how to make it useful.

How do you deal with the lack of mobility and anti-armor here? Is the re-roll on saves that worth it (I'm guessing it would be on the termies, but the power armored duders I feel would just run around not doing anything).

The big reason my lists keep going back to the basics of a CAD setup is because in my eyes if you're not getting Favored of Tzeentch the +1BS isn't worth the loss of obsec and the loss of tzaangor or cultist bodies to fill out the lists.

Why you would want fewer, bigger units in my opinion is twofold. One, you can get the one soulreaper on a 10-man rubric squad and one rhino to carry 10 of them. The Soulreaper seems bad until you consider how much more you get out of your 2 firepoints in the rhino with the Soulreaper. You get a witchfire in the psychic phase, then Soulreaper+1 bolter in the shooting phase, which is good for those early turns where you don't have a good enough target to commit to 10 inferno bolters. Secondly, having a big squad means you can blob up and get the maximum bang for your buck out of the Grimoire and psychic buffs. I've played with double-reaper double-missile 10 man terminator squads in a CAD before, and all you need is one decent defensive buff power like endurance or invis to make them basically unassailable.

The last problem I have with War Cabal is the big waste IMO that is the basic Tax Sorceror with MoTZ. 100 points for a single ML with a spell familiar! Do the extra saves you get with the rerolls really account for the loss of efficiency you get wasting so many points on 3-4 of these useless suckers?

the_scotsman wrote:
These kinds of lists are exactly what I'd love to do with my Thousand Sons when I eventually get enough of them to field a full army, but I'm struggling with how to make it useful.

How do you deal with the lack of mobility and anti-armor here? Is the re-roll on saves that worth it (I'm guessing it would be on the termies, but the power armored duders I feel would just run around not doing anything).

The big reason my lists keep going back to the basics of a CAD setup is because in my eyes if you're not getting Favored of Tzeentch the +1BS isn't worth the loss of obsec and the loss of tzaangor or cultist bodies to fill out the lists.

Why you would want fewer, bigger units in my opinion is twofold. One, you can get the one soulreaper on a 10-man rubric squad and one rhino to carry 10 of them. The Soulreaper seems bad until you consider how much more you get out of your 2 firepoints in the rhino with the Soulreaper. You get a witchfire in the psychic phase, then Soulreaper+1 bolter in the shooting phase, which is good for those early turns where you don't have a good enough target to commit to 10 inferno bolters. Secondly, having a big squad means you can blob up and get the maximum bang for your buck out of the Grimoire and psychic buffs. I've played with double-reaper double-missile 10 man terminator squads in a CAD before, and all you need is one decent defensive buff power like endurance or invis to make them basically unassailable.

The last problem I have with War Cabal is the big waste IMO that is the basic Tax Sorceror with MoTZ. 100 points for a single ML with a spell familiar! Do the extra saves you get with the rerolls really account for the loss of efficiency you get wasting so many points on 3-4 of these useless suckers?

Lack of mobility is generally fixed with grimoure, infiltrate or just accepting that you're going to trudge forward slowly. Lack of anti tank if fixed by rolling on heretek until you get enough haywire to drown all your opponents vehicles. The re-roll on saves is the only thing that makes them playable IMHO, and yes, it's not worth much on the rubricae who are just flat out tax.

Having run a CAD for the last ~4 years and watched my win-rate slowly decline from ~60% to <20% and then suddenly surge back up when running a full cabal, I honestly believe that the only way to make them work is with the cabal, a full cabal.

The soulreaper isn't worth it. Yes, you can fire it out the hatch of a rhino, but that rhino is going to be dead turn 1/2 depending on how much other armour you're bringing and then it doesn't matter. Not to mention that it's not allowing the squad to do anything they weren't already doing - forcing MEQ to stay in cover and not much else. As for blobbing up, there are much better things to cast buffs on than a unit of rubricae (except ignores cover, that's pretty win, but we can't even do that anymore with the changes to crimson slaughter).

As for the tax sorc, well, just don't take him as a tax! The HQ's are the only thing that makes the list work, they do all the heavy lifting while your Scarabs make them immune to small arms fire and your rubricae are the tax you pay and serve as charge deterants and backfield objective grabbers, preferably out of LoS where they don't fall over to a stiff breeze. I've said it before and I'll undoubtedly say it again, the basic workable core of a full coven is:

170 - Sorc, MoT, ML3, Familiar, Grimoure
140 - Sorc, MoT, ML3, Familiar
140 - Sorc, MoT, ML3, Familiar
140 - Sorc, MoT, ML3, Familiar
150 - 5x Rubricae
150 - 5x Rubricae
150 - 5x Rubricae
250 - 5x Scarabs
250 - 5x Scarabs
250 - 5x Scarabs

1790/1850

Your choice what to spend those remaining 60 points on, but the smart money says its either 3 sets of missiles for the termies, an AoDG for each of your sorcs or an Exalted upgrade for your warlord.

I honestly don't think the missiles are worth a damn.
They come back to the point of "making things in power armor scared shitless of leaving cover", but it does not really do much else, besides hurting MCs a bit I guess.

Exalting the warlord might be a good idea, as it makes him tougher to take down, and meaner in CC (its a chaos lord with a force stave basically)
Alternatevly go ham and Ahriman him (give the grimoure to another dude), though you'd probably prefer ahri on a disk, and that's 30 more points...and I'm not sure I'm sold on dropping the grimoure in favor of disk ahriman.

You drop the grimoire and the familiars to fit in disc ahriman. The familiars is not such a bad trade off because ahriman will suck up 12 dice or so in the psychic phase by himself.

Keeping the grimoire in there means dropping a mastery level. Which is why i say Ahriman might be too much of a luxury

BoomWolf wrote:I honestly don't think the missiles are worth a damn.
They come back to the point of "making things in power armor scared shitless of leaving cover", but it does not really do much else, besides hurting MCs a bit I guess.

The missiles let you take the last HP off vehicles when you roll like a 'tard on your haywire powers.

Ericthegreen wrote:You drop the grimoire and the familiars to fit in disc ahriman. The familiars is not such a bad trade off because ahriman will suck up 12 dice or so in the psychic phase by himself.

Keeping the grimoire in there means dropping a mastery level. Which is why i say Ahriman might be too much of a luxury

I find that I'm already short on spell capacity due to the fact that my sorcs have to do all the heavy lifting, do you really think that giving up the efficiency that spell familiars allow for is worth it to get 3x shriek/doombolt/flayerstorms out of Ahriman with less reliability? Someone with more experience running Ahriman than me is going to have to chime in, but everytime I've run Ahri, I've been underwhelmed (except when he rolled doombolt, Iron arm, Warp Speed and Endurance and solo'ed 70% of a marine army on his own, that was awesome)

Its a tricky one. It does give you more flexibility in power choice in that if ahriman rolls a heeretech witchfire, hes casting it as many times as 3 sorcerors with the same power with 3 more dice (ahrimam using 3 dice, sorcerors using 2). So your other sorcerors can pick up stuff from other tables or double down on heretech against things like a gladius army

But the loss of efficiency means less powers overall and as you say Drasius, they are doing the heavy lifting.

Whats your usual power setup? Im at the theoryhammer stage right now and im a massive Ahriman fanboy so trying to squeeze him in and think its wodth testing, but ultimately i think youre right when it comes to war cabal

What about the sword?

I've run Ahriman with the Full Cabal a few times recently. Sadly, I have to confirm what's already been stated. Ahriman needs 10-12 WC's to get his business done and that's provided that you rolled some decent powers on him. In the full Cabal, I've actually kept him on foot, stuck in a Scarab unit. That way if you only roll one Infiltrate, it can be that unit or if multiple, grab the other Scarabs with Sorcs attached to flank him. Grimoire isn't bad to toss in there if you need the mobility. I've also run him on a disc, bouncing between LOS terrain and units as needed.

The nicest thing about having him is being able to nab just the right Witchfire for the army you're facing and then blasting like a machine gun. As stated above, it removes a little of the random aspect since if he gets, say haywire powers for vehicles, you now have the choice to roll Biomancy on some Sorcs or grab even more Heretek if needed.

I feel like every game I've badly lost with my TS has been lost during power generation before the game. Ahriman can help fix that, somewhat.

That's certainly a positive with him.
If you're willing to sacrifice a single mastery level, you can get the grimoire or 2 familiars in an ahriman cabal

 Elroniel wrote:
I've run Ahriman with the Full Cabal a few times recently. Sadly, I have to confirm what's already been stated. Ahriman needs 10-12 WC's to get his business done and that's provided that you rolled some decent powers on him. In the full Cabal, I've actually kept him on foot, stuck in a Scarab unit. That way if you only roll one Infiltrate, it can be that unit or if multiple, grab the other Scarabs with Sorcs attached to flank him. Grimoire isn't bad to toss in there if you need the mobility. I've also run him on a disc, bouncing between LOS terrain and units as needed.

The nicest thing about having him is being able to nab just the right Witchfire for the army you're facing and then blasting like a machine gun. As stated above, it removes a little of the random aspect since if he gets, say haywire powers for vehicles, you now have the choice to roll Biomancy on some Sorcs or grab even more Heretek if needed.

I feel like every game I've badly lost with my TS has been lost during power generation before the game. Ahriman can help fix that, somewhat.

IIRC ICs joining units happens at deployment and giving infiltrate happens before that so you would need to roll a 2+ to give him and his unit infiltrate.

Fhionnuisce wrote:
IIRC ICs joining units happens at deployment and giving infiltrate happens before that so you would need to roll a 2+ to give him and his unit infiltrate.

Hmm, that might totally be the case. Either way, even being able to get a Scarab unit by itself upfield a little, then string a few back to catch up a Sorc or Ahriman would work similarly. While I greatly enjoy being able to spread out my forces, TS seems to play best when everyone is rather tight for overlapping buffs, psychic support, and multiple units to combine fire.

Will be testing this nect week and let you know:
Ahriman - disc
5 rubrics
5 rubrics
5 rubrics
5 scarab occult
5 scarab occult
5 scarab occult
Sorceror - ml3, familiar
Sorceror - ml3, familiar
Sorceror - grimoire

Sacrificied 2 mastery levels and a familiar to fit in Ahzek. Lets see how it goes

So now that the full 8th edition rules have effectively been leaked, let's get this party going again!

What evil strategies and combinations does the new information suggest to you?

Right off the bat, it seems to me that if you're taking Magnus, you're going to want to abuse the hell out of Warptime from the Dark Hereticus list. It's an easy cast for him, and the resulting 32" threat range (when he's at full wounds) means a fair shot at him pulling off a turn 1 charge. It also means he can summon some daemons and STILL move 16".

Two of the three Warlord Traits (+1 A or a save-after-the-save of 6+) look especially tasty for Magnus as well.

Magnus is definitely the premiere psyker and offers the strongest support bonus.

Tzaangors got a big boost, they are now S4 T4 5++ and will benefit from the rr1s on Invul saves. They are probably the stronger pick over Cultists.

Flamers of all types and the Soulreaper Cannon are looking much stronger (if pricey). Rubrics got a lot of help, SOT are still solid.

Psychic phase won't be nearly as overpowering (Warptime has obvious utility).

Finally a tangential point. Rhinos and Land Raiders finally may be viable. Definitely something to consider.

The more I think about Warptime, the happier it makes me. Let's say you manage to advance Magnus far down the board in turn 1. In turn 2, your SOT squad can deep-strike near him (and 9" away from the enemy), but they can't move...until Magnus Warptimes them towards the opponent, who's now facing a SOT charge on turn 2 preceded by a shooting phase of lethal SOT dakka.

Rubrics are much better, my opinion of SoT is lower than 7th.

Our main issue is that multi-psykers are practically pointless. you can only cast three spells, as there are only three spells, and ahriman/magnus alone does that.

Exalted would have been crazy good if not for the issue with multi-psykers not actually casting spells, as they are basically a sorcerer with better statline for slightly cheaper.

Smite isn't doing much on our mini-casters, so they are not good at all for all they cost. with some luck, when they eventually nuke themselves it will be in CC.

Tazz are pretty good.

Flamers, are too expensive in my book. soulreapers however are awesome.

Rhinos are pointless. no fire points mean no drive-by, disembark before movement means they don't actually add reach unless you outright ram yourself into enemy lines and hope not to be killed until next turn.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Rubrics are much better, my opinion of SoT is lower than 7th.

Why do you say that?

Our main issue is that multi-psykers are practically pointless. you can only cast three spells, as there are only three spells, and ahriman/magnus alone does that.

Yeah, it's a real issue in matched play. Not so much in the other modes, it seems. Hopefully we'll get a work-around for that when we get our inevitable codex (whether it's an exception to the matched play rules, or just a lot more powers to choose from and utilize).

Brian888 wrote:
So now that the full 8th edition rules have effectively been leaked, let's get this party going again!

What evil strategies and combinations does the new information suggest to you?

Right off the bat, it seems to me that if you're taking Magnus, you're going to want to abuse the hell out of Warptime from the Dark Hereticus list. It's an easy cast for him, and the resulting 32" threat range (when he's at full wounds) means a fair shot at him pulling off a turn 1 charge. It also means he can summon some daemons and STILL move 16".

Two of the three Warlord Traits (+1 A or a save-after-the-save of 6+) look especially tasty for Magnus as well.

Leave Magnus at home hes too big and cant hide. 50 points of guardsman average 1 wound per turn...with lasguns. You fly him up 32" and he wont see turn 2. Leave him in the back and hes useless since his range tops out at 18" which are un aimed so less then that.

Smite and Infernal cant target units so trash will be put in the way to absorb mortal wounds. Warp time has a 3" range so thats a thing. Prescience is good but has a casting Value of 7 so your going to get it a little more then half the time with Ahriman and most of the time with Magnus but again he will die in 2 or 3 rounds.

Best strat is another army till more releases come.

If you insist on playing TS 20 man squad of SOT with Soul Reaper Cannons and Hellfyre Missles. Pray Ahriman can get prescience off most of the time shoot the crap out of everything in sight with your rerolling Inferno Combi-Bolters.

A more sure thing is to bring a Daemon Prince probably wont have Prescience but rerolling 1s to hit is nice and guaranteed. Plus he is almost the same price as Ahriman with Dual Malefic Talons.

Basically as TS play your going to want to keep your casting to a minimum sice you have no real way to mitigate perils. Or Spam Cultists and bring a bunch of Sorcs on disks and try to position them so you can hit what you want except if you do that your going to lose a Sorc a turn probably.

Thousand Sons faction focus today.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/06/02/warhammer-40000-faction-focus-thousand-sons/

I think as usual Tsons will have to rely on being tricky. Tzaangors are great chaff with their 5+ inv and -1 AP in CC for just 7 pts. Once the forgeworld stuff comes out I think the dreadclaw will help out immensely. A dreadclaw loaded with warpflamers and a sorceror will allow you to drop in and flame a unit out of existence with warptime. Drop in a terminator squad next to them and you should be able to clear an objective or relieve a flank.

Ahriman is pretty cheap at 131 points, but as previously noted the DemonPrince will give the biggest buff. I think a pure Tson army will be hard because of the limits on psychic shenanigans but a core Tson with some allied Tzeentch marines will give you alot of options.

Right now we are great at the mid range firefight, but for long range support we need help. Havocs are good, The forgefiend with Hades autocannons next to a DemonPrince is surprisingly good as well. Set up a fire base and use tzaangors to go for objs backed by spawn and Tsons and use the terminators to reinforce where needed.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:
Leave Magnus at home hes too big and cant hide. 50 points of guardsman average 1 wound per turn...with lasguns. You fly him up 32" and he wont see turn 2. Leave him in the back and hes useless since his range tops out at 18" which are un aimed so less then that.

I think that's an oversimplification. Magnus can reliably move at least 34" (with only a 2" charge result) in a turn, and most likely will move and charge around 38". That's over 3 feet. With a threat range like that, I don't think we can simply say that he'll get shot up long before he gets to the enemy lines (and once he's in there, he basically no longer has to worry about getting shot).

Whatever the issues in higher point games, you won't need more than one psychic table if you're only fielding 1-2 HQs. TS have some very good troops available, plus Occult. And vehicle support has improved in 8th, so there's potential there.

So probably the best thing for the time being is to play at low points, to get a grip on how they've changed versus the other factions. They will scale better once their dedicated codex is published.

Brian888 wrote:
I think that's an oversimplification. Magnus can reliably move at least 34" (with only a 2" charge result) in a turn, and most likely will move and charge around 38". That's over 3 feet. With a threat range like that, I don't think we can simply say that he'll get shot up long before he gets to the enemy lines (and once he's in there, he basically no longer has to worry about getting shot).

He does have to worry about getting shot at. Any unit you charge will just fall back and now your in the middle of the enemy army. Everthying that can hurt him, which is everything now, will be shot at him. He WILL die in 1 turn of shooting with around 2000 points being shot at him.

His uber smite has a range of 18" and targets the closest unit so for you to use it your going to have to fly up super close and stand next to the unit you want to kill. The best use of him i could see is moving up and standing next the unit you want to blast and then backing out with warp time. Problem is you have to start within 14" of where you want to be which is pretty damn close. And if Warp Time fails charge the closest unit and hope the enemy is stupid.

If an opponent wastes an entire turn shooting 2000pts at a 415 unit that charged them while the remainder of your army positions itself to threaten them further, that's a victory more than a defeat.

 Cephalobeard wrote:
If an opponent wastes an entire turn shooting 2000pts at a 415 unit that charged them while the remainder of your army positions itself to threaten them further, that's a victory more than a defeat.

If you think losing a 415 point model that gives reroll 1s to saves and hits in a 9" aura on the first turn is a victory you dont know what victory is. You would be losing 20% of your army in 1 turn.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 Cephalobeard wrote:
If an opponent wastes an entire turn shooting 2000pts at a 415 unit that charged them while the remainder of your army positions itself to threaten them further, that's a victory more than a defeat.

If you think losing a 415 point model that gives reroll 1s to saves and hits in a 9" aura on the first turn is a victory you dont know what victory is. You would be losing 20% of your army in 1 turn.

Assuming they managed to kill him, AND that he didn't take anything down with him.

Am I reading it right that all is dust buffs normal armour saves and invulnerable saves? If this is true the exalted sorceres give a hell of a buff especially to scarab occults. 3++ and reroll 1s if its a dam 1 weapon.

The reroll is only to Invul saves. Still, that's worthwhile under a lot of circumstances.

I did mean the all is dust rule from rubrics and scarabs. Not the buble effect the exalted gives,this one is pretty clear to me.

IMO yes. It affects "saving throws", and the Invul throw is used in the place of the Armor one.

I don't have the leaks handy... do the Occult terminators have a base 4++? That's really solid if so.

 BoomWolf wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 Cephalobeard wrote:
If an opponent wastes an entire turn shooting 2000pts at a 415 unit that charged them while the remainder of your army positions itself to threaten them further, that's a victory more than a defeat.

If you think losing a 415 point model that gives reroll 1s to saves and hits in a 9" aura on the first turn is a victory you dont know what victory is. You would be losing 20% of your army in 1 turn.

Assuming they managed to kill him, AND that he didn't take anything down with him.

A Single squad of meltas will take almost 1/3 of his wounds in 1 turn of shooting. He will die to 2000 points of shooting. If he does kill something its bot going to be more then 250 points.


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Anon052 wrote:
Am I reading it right that all is dust buffs normal armour saves and invulnerable saves? If this is true the exalted sorceres give a hell of a buff especially to scarab occults. 3++ and reroll 1s if its a dam 1 weapon.

Its a 4++ save vs D 1 and you the reroll only ups the success rate to 55% instead of 50% its marginal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Yoyoyo wrote:
IMO yes. It affects "saving throws", and the Invul throw is used in the place of the Armor one.

I don't have the leaks handy... do the Occult terminators have a base 4++? That's really solid if so.

they don't everything that has Thousand Sons key word has a 5++ base except Magnus he has a 4++ base.

Hmm... Is it just me or are flamers of Tzeentch still more useful than thousand sons with flamers?

The Flamers can jump into action and have two wounds, whereas the thousand sons cost more and need a rhino, which is much Pricier in this edition.

changemod wrote:
Hmm... Is it just me or are flamers of Tzeentch still more useful than thousand sons with flamers?

The Flamers can jump into action and have two wounds, whereas the thousand sons cost more and need a rhino, which is much Pricier in this edition.

They are and they are armed with Pistols so they can shoot even while in CC