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Snitchey wrote:


It seems very similar to a lascannon to me. Shorter range but move and fire without penalty helps. I think the rail is overall the best pick as it's scary to almost everything. What else would you take alongside the rail instead of the L7?

Going with HYLas. HunTR 3 S6 Ap-2 is not bad for 5 points. Damage is a bit meh, but it's some shooting before ion is in range..

I've come to the conclusion that for GTL at least the L7 and Magnarail are the best weapons for Hearthkyn. Both are potentially high-damage, single shot weapons that really like having that reroll available, particularly if shooting at something that hasn't gotten any Judgment Tokens yet. And the frag-type round for the L7 does very much the same job as the HYLas, if you find yourself needing more low-damage shots. Versatility is worth the extra 5 points, at least to me.

I can't find any real use case for the beam weapon though; as far as I can tell that thing is hot garbage.

I finally decided to take the plunge on LoV recently and picked up the army set, and I'm planning to sell my Space Wolves army to help pay for the rest of what I'll need. I'm playing around in Battlescribe to try and figure out a good competitive list, and said list must have at least one Land Fortress in it because that model is SEXY! Ideally it will have at least a couple of Sagitaurs in it as well because those are awesome-looking too. Anybody had a chance to try those units out (with proxies perhaps?) and can tell me how good they worked in an actual game?

Made a list, would like feedback.
Thank you!

What weaponloadout do people prefer for their Thunderkyn?

I'm leaning towards the Beam but I'm also slightly tempted by the Grav...

 MinscS2 wrote:
What weaponloadout do people prefer for their Thunderkyn?

I'm leaning towards the Beam but I'm also slightly tempted by the Grav...

Usually the answer to this kind of question is always magnets, but having not seen the Thunderkyn kit in person myself I don't know how feasible that would be.

 MinscS2 wrote:
What weaponloadout do people prefer for their Thunderkyn?

I'm leaning towards the Beam but I'm also slightly tempted by the Grav...

I like the look of the bolt cannon. If you offered most other armies a 36" range move and fire without penalty weapon with 3 shots S6 -2AP 2D they'd bite your hand off.

I can see the sense in the Grav but the range may hurt as the kin aren't quick and the swing in 3xD6 shots is very hard to rely on.

I really want to take 6 of these in a unit with bolt cannons. But I keep thinking why wouldn't I just pay a few more points & take a fortress instead

The Grav looks pretty nice in Ymyr.
27” threat range isn’t bad, more shots even without blast on average, and D3 a lot of the time.

 MinscS2 wrote:
What weaponloadout do people prefer for their Thunderkyn?

I'm leaning towards the Beam but I'm also slightly tempted by the Grav...

Beams, and be careful picking a firing lane for them where there is going to be some traffic towards key objectives.

What do you see in the beams? An extra five points for one shot, even at D3, feels eh.
Also, the extra hit doesn’t synergize well with Judgement Tokens.

Don't see the point in the beams, either the bolt cannons or possibly the grav. I think the thunderkyn are worth taking at the minute because people aren't too focused on them but they can put out a solid amount of damage.

 Olthannon wrote:
Don't see the point in the beams, either the bolt cannons or possibly the grav. I think the thunderkyn are worth taking at the minute because people aren't too focused on them but they can put out a solid amount of damage.

The extra hits add up tho. If the target unit is over 15" away, each hit = 2 hits. Then there is the damage you are doing to the mid unit. At 3 damage, you could really go after elite units and also hit the screen in front of them. Not to mention the stratagems you can set up. If they have a judgement token, Make your first shot auto hit with HUNTRs mark. Now the rest of your beam shots at that unit auto mw on a 4+ with the core buster stratagem. 2cp used but that unit is evaporating.

 JNAProductions wrote:
What do you see in the beams? An extra five points for one shot, even at D3, feels eh.
Also, the extra hit doesn’t synergize well with Judgement Tokens.

Area denial and a side order of character sniping for starters.

On top of that, in every army where it has existed - shoot again abilities have been considered so overpowered they have all been nerfed heavily. Scoring double hits per hit roll, and splashing onto multiple units per hit roll, is better than a shoot twice ability - especially when it isn't too hard to line up your shots when most factions play style involves moving a chunky block of units to the table centre.

Finally, beams are good on their own - the rest of the army can use the JT's.

The Beams also have 30" range which is pretty high for LoV-standards.

The Bolt Cannons on the other hand, are just pimped up Heavy Bolters. Not bad, but not something LoV really needs more of.

 Insularum wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
What do you see in the beams? An extra five points for one shot, even at D3, feels eh.
Also, the extra hit doesn’t synergize well with Judgement Tokens.

Area denial and a side order of character sniping for starters.

The codex explicitly shows an example that you cannot snipe with beams any character benefitting from 'look out sir'.

To really do the beam thing, you'd kind of have to build your whole army around it. You have to have at least one beam weapon hit to enable Core Buster, which means either using HunTR's Mark as mentioned above or just scoring the hit. And most beam weapons have short ranges, other than the Thunderkyn's ones. Smart opponents will see your list and then spread out to prevent beams from hitting multiple units. It just feels kind of gimmicky.

Could forcing an army to spread out be a valid tactic tho? Most armies really rely on that 1-2 punch. Setting up counter chargers, screens, etc. So you could possibly mess with someone's plan by getting them to spread out more.

 Insularum wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
What do you see in the beams? An extra five points for one shot, even at D3, feels eh.
Also, the extra hit doesn’t synergize well with Judgement Tokens.

Area denial and a side order of character sniping for starters.

On top of that, in every army where it has existed - shoot again abilities have been considered so overpowered they have all been nerfed heavily. Scoring double hits per hit roll, and splashing onto multiple units per hit roll, is better than a shoot twice ability - especially when it isn't too hard to line up your shots when most factions play style involves moving a chunky block of units to the table centre.

Finally, beams are good on their own - the rest of the army can use the JT's.

"(excluding units that were not eligible to be targeted by this weapon when targets were selected)"

If you can beam character you can just point your magmarail/boltstorm/Grav/whatever and delete it right away. If you can't shoot the character you can't hit him with beam.

It's not exactly sniping as such if you are shooting at character you can shoot with every gun that has LOS. And if you don't have LOS you can't beam him either.

It's not exactly sniping as such if you are shooting at character you can shoot with every gun that has LOS. And if you don't have LOS you can't beam him either.

beams were the first thing i saw and made me want to play the army. but given beam weapons typically cost more for similar a similar stat line but with a third of the shots, it becomes hard to justify using them.

you would need to line up a shot across 3 units to make that beam weapon output worth it over a MATR autocannon on the sagitaurs for example. on a properly built table, thats going to happen less often than not, or you have to play very exposed to line up that shot, you will get it off once and then die. Or you could have played it safer, spent fewer points, done the same damage to a single unit and lived.

MAYBE if horde armies made a comeback there would be room to justify it, but that isnt happening any time soon.

terennNash wrote:

It's not exactly sniping as such if you are shooting at character you can shoot with every gun that has LOS. And if you don't have LOS you can't beam him either.

beams were the first thing i saw and made me want to play the army. but given beam weapons typically cost more for similar a similar stat line but with a third of the shots, it becomes hard to justify using them.

you would need to line up a shot across 3 units to make that beam weapon output worth it over a MATR autocannon on the sagitaurs for example. on a properly built table, thats going to happen less often than not, or you have to play very exposed to line up that shot, you will get it off once and then die. Or you could have played it safer, spent fewer points, done the same damage to a single unit and lived.

And had less fun because you've fallen into the math-hammer trap & aren't playing the force as you really want.

Oddly I think the Sagitaur's beam gun is probably the best beam, although its output is swingy due to d6 damage. It's still 2 lascannon shots. Only downside I really see is the high cost.

And had less fun because you've fallen into the math-hammer trap & aren't playing the force as you really want.

i live in a veritable shark tank of a gaming scene, several current top 100 players around. math hammer has been my norm since i started playing 2 years ago.

in a more casual friday night game against buds thats one and done i'll absolutely take fun or fluffy or skew lists; its a 3 hour investment tops, not 20.

I've recently been trying to go through the codex and figure out all the good "murder character" builds the Leagues can take. One that was in a recent tournament-winning list was a Kronus Einhyr Champion with Exactor (the relic mass hammer) and the Kronus warlord trait. Basically that guy would have 6 attacks on the charge with full hit rerolls, doing d3+3 mortals on 6's to hit (and d3+3 regular damage on non-6's). Nasty!

I think you could also make an Einhyr Champion really gross in Ymyr, thanks to their Warlord trait Guild Connections for +1 to your non-relic weapon damage. Take that with the Darkstar Axe and he's throwing out 8 attacks that your opponent cannot use any kind of "feel no pain" or phase caps to mitigate. That trait is also okay on a Kahl, although they really don't get enough attacks to warrant it (and it doesn't work on relics).

One trait that is good on either a Kahl or an Einhyr Champion is Warrior Lord. It lets them ignore FnP and phase caps and have full wound rerolls; it's incredibly mean on an EC with the hammer, and honestly a Kahl with the relic axe can get good mileage out of it as well since he'll have 7 attacks. I'm planning to run an EC with this trait and Exactor in my GTL list; the GTL custom will let me reroll a hit if I happen to miss an attack, and full wound rerolls, while less necessary vs. units with any Judgment Tokens, could allow the EC to really punch above his weight. He could take out a C'tan in one round without too much dependence on dice luck.

Any other good murder character builds I missed?

Goonhammer recently featured a Leagues of Votann list that made the top table at a GT in Quebec:

https://www.goonhammer.com/competitive-innovations-in-9th-grand-showdown-pt-1/

The guy was running Ymyr and actually kept the troops fairly barebones, although he did spring for ion guns on one unit. He also had 2 Land Fortresses with all the ion guns, and a pair of Cthonian Beserk units with hammers, and 3 3-model bike units. I'm starting to wonder if I've made a bit of a booboo giving my troops all the bling; I may need to buy an extra box or two just to use as swaps so if I need to be WYSIWYG I'm not stuck carrying all the expensive stuff.

I bought 5 boxes of warriors so I could do anything I wanted.

I have 10 built with Ions, 3 Magnas, 3 Hylast, 3 Missiles, Medi, 2 Comms, 2 Scanners, and 3 Theyn with a melee weapon.

But I actually like our Warriors, i take 20 every game and at times a battalion for 30.

new FAQ is out....

Q: Do weapons with the Beam ability affect friendly units along the
line between the firing model and the target unit?
A: Yes. A wound roll should be made against those friendly units
in the same manner as attacks against enemy units.

Yes, that means if the beam travels over the unit the model is in, it hits its own unit.

Fun.

No one will play it that way obviously, but it does go to show how awful GW's understanding of their own rules is (also exemplified by the LoV rules upon release and their botched attempt to 'fix' them).

GW have always given Dwarfs the very shortest of thrift, I just didn't expect them to be *quite* so vicious towards them from the get-go, being a new army and all.

Twilight Pathways wrote:
No one will play it that way obviously, but it does go to show how awful GW's understanding of their own rules is (also exemplified by the LoV rules upon release and their botched attempt to 'fix' them).

GW have always given Dwarfs the very shortest of thrift, I just didn't expect them to be *quite* so vicious towards them from the get-go, being a new army and all.

Yeah dude super-lame.

They need to FAQ their own FAQ...

 ZergSmasher wrote:
They need to FAQ their own FAQ...

Lol! Put some ice on that burn yo!

Twilight Pathways wrote:
No one will play it that way obviously,

People will definitely play it that way. Especially in the tourneys you all worship.
Right now in fact people are coming up with ways to take advantage of being able to hit thier own units.