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 Melissia wrote:
So GW's official terrain pieces are gak?

Yes, instead of using GW terrain you can use a sheet of paper for the same effect

GW Terrain was designed for 4th Edition rules before Trule Line of Sight was a thing
and for 8th edi rules it is pretty useless without building ground floor closed

next thing is they make stuff too look good and not to fit rules that change every 6 month
if you want terrain for gaming, buy somewhere else

Again though i have to point out that SMs don't have a problem eating through conscripts to get to the hidden yummies, Girlyman really ups the anti but you can get a similar affect with certain other SM factions and characters for a lot cheaper. The Asscan Razorbacks with rerolls kill 10-11 conscripts a turn, they kill slightly less orkz a turn but not by much. And once you get those pesky conscripts out of the way its not hard at all to pop those vehicles in the rear with all those Lascannons they bring, or go help you if they brought a Stormraven which will magically appear next to your out of sight artillery and destroy it.

Will be interesting to see how respawning Chaos Cultists are received, considering the angst directed (rightly or wrongly) at the Conscript/Commissar/Officer combo.

SemperMortis wrote:
Again though i have to point out that SMs don't have a problem eating through conscripts to get to the hidden yummies, Girlyman really ups the anti but you can get a similar affect with certain other SM factions and characters for a lot cheaper. The Asscan Razorbacks with rerolls kill 10-11 conscripts a turn, they kill slightly less orkz a turn but not by much. And once you get those pesky conscripts out of the way its not hard at all to pop those vehicles in the rear with all those Lascannons they bring, or go help you if they brought a Stormraven which will magically appear next to your out of sight artillery and destroy it.

The temporal cost kills the marines.

Enough shots will chew through a horde. Doesn't necessarily mean you need to have a horde, but in most cases it does imply a horde. Just my 2 cents.

GhostRecon wrote:
Will be interesting to see how respawning Chaos Cultists are received, considering the angst directed (rightly or wrongly) at the Conscript/Commissar/Officer combo.

You mean the 4 ppm cultists who die easier than 3 ppm conscripts, and whose cheapest access to fearless is 100+ Points and can't be spammed, compared to 30 point commissars? Cultists are literally just worse guardsmen even with the price drop, they are still nothing close to conscripts, the stratagem makes them just barely worth considering in moderation.

SemperMortis wrote:
Again though i have to point out that SMs don't have a problem eating through conscripts to get to the hidden yummies, Girlyman really ups the anti but you can get a similar affect with certain other SM factions and characters for a lot cheaper. The Asscan Razorbacks with rerolls kill 10-11 conscripts a turn, they kill slightly less orkz a turn but not by much. And once you get those pesky conscripts out of the way its not hard at all to pop those vehicles in the rear with all those Lascannons they bring, or go help you if they brought a Stormraven which will magically appear next to your out of sight artillery and destroy it.

Pure space marines are significantly less competetive than pure guard, even with guilliman, at the tournament level. The guard's triumverate of horde, effective no LoS fire, and beta strike drop in, all able to fit in the same list, is not something marines can beat

No mention of Necron warrior spam? is that a thing this edition? It sounded enticing when I was following the pre-release leaks but haven't been following the playtest reports much to see whats working and whats not.

SilverAlien wrote:

GhostRecon wrote:
Will be interesting to see how respawning Chaos Cultists are received, considering the angst directed (rightly or wrongly) at the Conscript/Commissar/Officer combo.

You mean the 4 ppm cultists who die easier than 3 ppm conscripts, and whose cheapest access to fearless is 100+ Points and can't be spammed, compared to 30 point commissars? Cultists are literally just worse guardsmen even with the price drop, they are still nothing close to conscripts, the stratagem makes them just barely worth considering in moderation.

Fearless is nice but it isn't necessarily a requirement - at least in the face of the ability to bring the unit back with its full strength. And for 2CP Chaos can do that, and put the newly refreshed unit within 6" of any board edge (w/the obligatory 9" from enemy units restriction).

BS4+ instead of BS5+, plus they can benefit from Legion traits so you can tweak their role slightly. Want an ultra-fighty WS4+ horde? Trade out the autoguns for pistols and CCW + give them the World Eater's LT. Want a screening renewable tarpit? Heavy Stubbers or Flamers + the Alpha Legion's LT.

320 for 80 Cultists, at least 72 for a Dark Apostle... make them World Eaters and you have 80 models putting out 160 attacks, 240 on a charge w/LD9 and re-rolling hits... with a block of 40 returning at full strength for 2CP.

Not here to argue whether they're more OP or not than Conscripts, or to argue Conscripts themselves - merely pointing out that among Hordes Chaos Cultists are easy to make a very nasty option to face.

As a new salamander player I have been playing a lot of tyrnaid lately. They use big blobs of genestealers, hormagaunts, termagaunts, and the swarmlord/broodlord/ trygon combos to get in my face very quick.

I find my most effective squads are small 5 men tac squads, srg with combi flamer, and Las cannon. I don't have math hammer to back me up bit 6 squads like this seem to help protect against Trygons popping up, do some damage against heavy monsters, and offer some effective counter attack with flamers and over watch.

As for ig, I haven't come against the conscription blob because I am the ig player in my group and I prefer guardsmen with hb teams for fluff reasons.

But for the guy dealing with mortars, do you have the option for 3 whirlwinds? These things will tear large squads apart with the Castilian launchers for 100 pts. And good luck with those mortars really hurting the whirlwinds back. Add a captain or lieutenant back with them and use the Marines as cover. Finally I take devs with heavy bolters or a pred, again it's against tyrnaid but at the moment my win / loss ratio is 50/50 and each game has been fun.

But fire is my preference to hordes. I would love to do a bunch of land speeders with dual heavy flamers, fly in and just torch the entire squad, daring them to charge you. I need more land speeders though to try this tactic.

Considering all the possible hordes only conscripts+commissars and brimstone horrors are very good. But the AM cheap bodies are that good because the army itself is very good, they have other units that are extremely effective and all together they make the army overpowered. Brimstones could be nerfed soon, 2 points models that can cast smite with the same odds as regular psykers are clearly a mistake.

 Blackie wrote:
Considering all the possible hordes only conscripts+commissars and brimstone horrors are very good. But the AM cheap bodies are that good because the army itself is very good, they have other units that are extremely effective and all together they make the army overpowered. Brimstones could be nerfed soon, 2 points models that can cast smite with the same odds as regular psykers are clearly a mistake.

You mean Brims are already nerfed as they are 3 points and cannot cast regular smite.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SemperMortis wrote:
Again though i have to point out that SMs don't have a problem eating through conscripts to get to the hidden yummies, Girlyman really ups the anti but you can get a similar affect with certain other SM factions and characters for a lot cheaper. The Asscan Razorbacks with rerolls kill 10-11 conscripts a turn, they kill slightly less orkz a turn but not by much. And once you get those pesky conscripts out of the way its not hard at all to pop those vehicles in the rear with all those Lascannons they bring, or go help you if they brought a Stormraven which will magically appear next to your out of sight artillery and destroy it.

I only have Asscan Razorbacks killing 8-9 conscripts per turn. Which means a squad of 50 will require ~6 Razorbacks shooting to kill a single squad. So that is about 900 points of shooting to kill 150 points of conscripts. It assumes the RB all make it within 24", and are in their re-roll bubble. Scions will cripple those razors shortly thereafter, so better hope there isn't another squad of conscripts behind the first one.

Breng77 wrote:


You mean Brims are already nerfed as they are 3 points and cannot cast regular smite.

I missed that. Is it from some new faq?

The new codex.

GhostRecon wrote:
[Fearless is nice but it isn't necessarily a requirement - at least in the face of the ability to bring the unit back with its full strength. And for 2CP Chaos can do that, and put the newly refreshed unit within 6" of any board edge (w/the obligatory 9" from enemy units restriction).

BS4+ instead of BS5+, plus they can benefit from Legion traits so you can tweak their role slightly. Want an ultra-fighty WS4+ horde? Trade out the autoguns for pistols and CCW + give them the World Eater's LT. Want a screening renewable tarpit? Heavy Stubbers or Flamers + the Alpha Legion's LT.

320 for 80 Cultists, at least 72 for a Dark Apostle... make them World Eaters and you have 80 models putting out 160 attacks, 240 on a charge w/LD9 and re-rolling hits... with a block of 40 returning at full strength for 2CP.

Not here to argue whether they're more OP or not than Conscripts, or to argue Conscripts themselves - merely pointing out that among Hordes Chaos Cultists are easy to make a very nasty option to face.

First off, running hordes with only LD 9 buff is not going to work. A smart enemy can easily kill 20 cultists in 2-3 units, use morale to take another 10-15, a huge increase in damage. The stratagem can only recover one unit per turn, it can't replace fearless. It's not hard to take out 60 cultists per turn and guarantee two units wipe in the morale phase. You run cultists as fearless or as msu, the latter also screwing up the stratagem.

Morale is devastating to hordes, if you can't ignore it you don't take units of more than 5-10. It's just not smart.

That's also not particularly scary damage output. Hordes are dominant more for how tough they are than how dangerous they are, and cultists are only tough in very specific builds. If you want to inflict damage look anywhere else

Hey guys, I'm fairly new to 40k. Loving it. But if I'm misunderstanding anything, please any help with the rules is so appreciated.

My girlfriend and have dived in and she's using a very unconventional horde to regularly trash me. She plays Dark Elder and uses 3 20 man squads of basic Kabalites with the cheapest load-out, 7 points a figure for 120 rapid fire poison shots hitting on a 3+. She backs this up with roving Ravagers nailing me with dark lace fire. Nasty.

I'm playing pure Death Guard at the moment with a couple of Hellbrutes for more dakka, a terrible match up. The only tactic that really messes with her blobs is moving up 2 or 3 Nurgle psykers in cover and casting Plague Wind repeatedly (mortal wounds on squad members on rolls of 6). All my command points go on avoiding the perils and making sure I don't whiff the Plague wind attacks.

It can really thin the ranks and force her out of cover and into the waiting arms of my bloat drones.

Imagine throwing 150 dice at those 50 conscripts. That's if I could get close enough...

SilverAlien wrote:

GhostRecon wrote:
[Fearless is nice but it isn't necessarily a requirement - at least in the face of the ability to bring the unit back with its full strength. And for 2CP Chaos can do that, and put the newly refreshed unit within 6" of any board edge (w/the obligatory 9" from enemy units restriction).

BS4+ instead of BS5+, plus they can benefit from Legion traits so you can tweak their role slightly. Want an ultra-fighty WS4+ horde? Trade out the autoguns for pistols and CCW + give them the World Eater's LT. Want a screening renewable tarpit? Heavy Stubbers or Flamers + the Alpha Legion's LT.

320 for 80 Cultists, at least 72 for a Dark Apostle... make them World Eaters and you have 80 models putting out 160 attacks, 240 on a charge w/LD9 and re-rolling hits... with a block of 40 returning at full strength for 2CP.

Not here to argue whether they're more OP or not than Conscripts, or to argue Conscripts themselves - merely pointing out that among Hordes Chaos Cultists are easy to make a very nasty option to face.

First off, running hordes with only LD 9 buff is not going to work. A smart enemy can easily kill 20 cultists in 2-3 units, use morale to take another 10-15, a huge increase in damage. The stratagem can only recover one unit per turn, it can't replace fearless. It's not hard to take out 60 cultists per turn and guarantee two units wipe in the morale phase. You run cultists as fearless or as msu, the latter also screwing up the stratagem.

Morale is devastating to hordes, if you can't ignore it you don't take units of more than 5-10. It's just not smart.

That's also not particularly scary damage output. Hordes are dominant more for how tough they are than how dangerous they are, and cultists are only tough in very specific builds. If you want to inflict damage look anywhere else

Would look to have them as a component of a greater army - much like how Conscripts are used. Been playing around in theorycraft with:


++ Battalion Detachment +3CP (Chaos - Chaos Space Marines) [73 PL, 1380pts] ++

Legion: Night Lords

+ HQ +

Sorcerer with Jump Pack [8 PL, 126pts]: Bolt pistol, Death Hex, Force sword, Mark of Nurgle, Prescience

Sorcerer with Jump Pack [8 PL, 126pts]: Bolt pistol, Force sword, Gift of Chaos, Mark of Nurgle, Miasma of Pestilence

+ Troops +

Chaos Space Marines [9 PL, 181pts]: Icon of Despair, Mark of Nurgle
. Aspiring Champion: Combi-plasma
. 7x Marine w/ Boltgun
. Marine w/ special weapon: Plasma gun
. Marine w/ special weapon: Plasma gun

Chaos Space Marines [9 PL, 181pts]: Icon of Despair, Mark of Nurgle
. Aspiring Champion: Combi-plasma
. 7x Marine w/ Boltgun
. Marine w/ special weapon: Plasma gun
. Marine w/ special weapon: Plasma gun

Chaos Space Marines [9 PL, 181pts]: Icon of Despair, Mark of Nurgle
. Aspiring Champion: Combi-plasma
. 7x Marine w/ Boltgun
. Marine w/ special weapon: Plasma gun
. Marine w/ special weapon: Plasma gun

+ Heavy Support +

Obliterators [10 PL, 195pts]: 3x Obliterator

Obliterators [10 PL, 195pts]: 3x Obliterator

Obliterators [10 PL, 195pts]: 3x Obliterator

++ Battalion Detachment +3CP (Chaos - Chaos Space Marines) [46 PL, 619pts] ++

Legion: Night Lords

+ HQ +

Dark Apostle [5 PL, 76pts]: Bolt pistol, Mark of Nurgle, Power maul, The Black Mace

Exalted Champion [5 PL, 71pts]: Bolt pistol, Chainaxe, Mark of Nurgle

+ Troops +

Chaos Cultists [12 PL, 160pts]: 39x Chaos Cultist w/ autopistol and brutal assault weapon, Mark of Nurgle
. Cultist Champion: Brutal assault weapon and Autopistol

Chaos Cultists [12 PL, 160pts]: 39x Chaos Cultist w/ autopistol and brutal assault weapon, Mark of Nurgle
. Cultist Champion: Brutal assault weapon and Autopistol

Chaos Cultists [12 PL, 152pts]: 37x Chaos Cultist w/ autopistol and brutal assault weapon, Mark of Nurgle
. Cultist Champion: Brutal assault weapon and Autopistol

++ Total: [119 PL, 1999pts] ++

Gw official terrain isn't that gak just bad value proposition , you need multiple sets to build a good LOS-blocker and that ain't cheap.

I've had a lot luck playing maelstrom against hordes but I've only faced 2 horde lists so take with a pinch of salt.

Martel732 wrote:
The new codex.

And also Chaos Index FaQ, in case anyone tries to argue that they can just not use the entries (or just outright refuse to/don't know) from a non-Chaos Daemon codex.

Yeah you can't say bastions bunkers or fortresses of redemption don't block line of sight

that's why you have to pay points und bring them own your own

While the standard generic terrain you find on tables is gak, the los blocking stuff need to be on your army list and has special rules....

Breng77 wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:I only have Asscan Razorbacks killing 8-9 conscripts per turn. Which means a squad of 50 will require ~6 Razorbacks shooting to kill a single squad. So that is about 900 points of shooting to kill 150 points of conscripts. It assumes the RB all make it within 24", and are in their re-roll bubble. Scions will cripple those razors shortly thereafter, so better hope there isn't another squad of conscripts behind the first one.

Asscans have 12 shots, that is 8 hits on the first round with 4 misses, 4 rerolls = 3 hits on average so thats 11. 11 hits wounding on 2 (S6 Vs T3) = 9-10 wounds with the first batch, the 2nd batch will get you 10-11. They will get a 6+ save so 9-10 will die.

A squad of 50 will take about 5 Razorbacks going full tilt turn 1 to kill them off completely. But you don't need to kill them off completely, the purpose of them is to blast a hole through their lines to get at the yummy goodness behind them. And as another point to note, you don't even need to kill the conscripts if they have any vehicles in the open, just hit them with those Ranged 48 Lascannons that are hitting on 3s rerolling and wounding on 3s rerolling.

Conscripts aren't that hard to deal with honestly.

Tournament results say otherwise.

Martel732 wrote:
Tournament results say otherwise.

What is scary about conscript spam honestly? what is the model count usually? I am guessing on average 100-150 conscripts. So they hide in a corner surrounded by this enormous mob and fire off their handful of heavy artillery pieces at you? And this is supposed to be scary? Going beyond the simple fact that a couple of Marine Assault squads could tie down that entire mob for the entire game, why are you scared of the shooting? I am asking seriously because I haven't played against an IG Player this edition yet. What massive artillery do they have these days that is so scary?

It's the physical barrier. It's really a temporal effect.

Martel732 wrote:
It's the physical barrier. It's really a temporal effect.

Right but the barrier has to serve a function beyond simply being a barrier an Conscripts don't. Their shooting is kind of crap and once you get into CC they just die dramatically. Ignoring CC you can just kill them from range easily enough. Hell you could charge a Dreadnought into CC with them and pull them out of range of the commissar and wipe them out easily enough.

So they aren't winning the tournaments which means something else in the IG list is scary and killing things, what is it?

No it doesn't. It just has to be. That's the problem.

SemperMortis wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Tournament results say otherwise.

What is scary about conscript spam honestly? what is the model count usually? I am guessing on average 100-150 conscripts. So they hide in a corner surrounded by this enormous mob and fire off their handful of heavy artillery pieces at you? And this is supposed to be scary? Going beyond the simple fact that a couple of Marine Assault squads could tie down that entire mob for the entire game, why are you scared of the shooting? I am asking seriously because I haven't played against an IG Player this edition yet. What massive artillery do they have these days that is so scary?

It is scary. HWT squads, Manticores, psykers and FW models like Earthshaker Platforms behind a wall of conscripts get to dish out an incredible amount of shooting. If you want to go outside of AM, any Imperium units can be used in conjunction with conscripts. It is very easy to bring them as a separate detachment if need be. Melee units trying to damage or disrupt the backline will be delayed or even blocked, deepstriking units like Tau commanders and scions can be forced to drop outside of range of their optimal targets. If your force is designed to ignore the conscripts and fire over them they still pose a credible threat to your force unless you bring nothing but vehicles. In any case they can hold objectives, with the new rule coming from chapter approved that gives all troops Objective Secured there's no way to outmodel them.

The main problem is that there are no ways to kill them efficiently enough to avoid losing too much of your own force in the process because you weren't focusing on the meat of the list in the backline. Bringing asscan razorbacks is an ok solution but not fast enough to allow you to eat through the conscripts and send in melee units. Very few models are as durable as conscripts - per pt that is.

SemperMortis wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
It's the physical barrier. It's really a temporal effect.

Right but the barrier has to serve a function beyond simply being a barrier an Conscripts don't. Their shooting is kind of crap and once you get into CC they just die dramatically. Ignoring CC you can just kill them from range easily enough. Hell you could charge a Dreadnought into CC with them and pull them out of range of the commissar and wipe them out easily enough.

So they aren't winning the tournaments which means something else in the IG list is scary and killing things, what is it?

Their shooting really isn't crap, with a cheap commander dishing out FRFSRF to a whole squad at once they are at least putting out above average damage for a typical troop squad. They are also a bigger threat in melee than you might think, if you try to tie them up with ASM you will kill a few and then suffer the effects of the order that allows them to fallback and shoot, most likely with a large proportion of double shots thanks to rapid fire.

They are also most definitely winning tournaments, the recent Bay Area Open featured only 2 undefeated lists out of ~100 - both of those lists were AM with ~100 conscripts. Previously the AM lists were probably inferior to the stormraven spam lists but since fliers have been FAQ'd the stormraven lists have actually been bringing in conscripts too...

And the ETC near me had IK first and green tide second and no AM in the top 8 there are just not enough tournaments yet to draw firm conclusions given the meta changes with each faq/codex release and it's not like that's every other week.

AM conscripts are perceived as a threat because they are a hard counter to elite Alpha lists because Lascannons can't kill conscripts fast enough and alpha lists don't win games if they don't table.

The silly complaint of you can't move them off 4/6 objectives is ludicrous because they don't start off on 4 and if you can't shoot one away your taking to much AV. Make sure objectives are as spaced out as you can because conscripts arnt moving anywhere quick.

As to shooting in rapid fire range 30 conscripts at 90 pts with frf cause 6.66 armour saves against t4-5 and that's assuming 70pts of taxed character's but it's rare to get that

Conversely 20 infantry at 80pts with frf cause 6.66 armour saves against t4-5 and that's assuming 70pts of taxed character's and easier to get them in range plus weapons options

Conscripts only advantage is body count

It's the only advantage they need in practice. Slow down army X, and make them eat an extra two turns of artillery. Game over. Any resource at all spent killing conscripts is a win for the IG.