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 buddha wrote:
How are people feeling about obliterator spam with the new codex? A spearhead with 6-9 oblits seems like a great add to most any army.

Deepstrike in with the MoS and double shoot to your hearts content. I'm liking alpha Legion for tactics as you can deepstrike 18-24" away for your guns to still work and be safer from return fire.

One unit is definitely worth taking. You get diminishing returns with more of them because stratagems can only be used on one.

They're still pretty good though, assuming you're re-rolling 1s from a Prince or Lord (note that the Prince doesn't even have to be the same Legion if he's the same Mark). If I'm working this out right, they're almost exactly as good as 4 Scions against T7 3+. They're about 10% better if you have plenty of targets and a tiny bit worse if all you have is a single 10W thing to shoot at. They cost 195 whereas you can get a plasma command squad and a Prime for 104 points, or you can take a Troops squad too and pay 114 per 4 plasma gunners. So with the stratagem they're about as good as the Scions in terms of killing efficiency, and without it they're only about half as efficient. Of course they have several advantages. They're a lot more durable, especially if Alpha Legion, and they can also hit things behind screeners just as efficiently as Scions can.

The random gun stats makes thinking about Obliterators tricky. Like, suppose that you drop them near some Razorbacks and some MEQs -- enough that you're not plausibly overkilling things. If you're definitely shooting them at the Razorbacks, you expect to be about half as efficient as Scions. You're about 65% as efficient if you can use a CP to re-roll a damage roll of 1. If you're only going to shoot at the Razorbacks if you roll 2 or more damage, then, when you do shoot at the Razorbacks, you're about 70% as efficient as Scions. If you shoot at the MEQs when you do roll a 1 for damage, you're still half as efficient.

Their flexibility in targeting makes me think they're a compelling choice. Like, even in the worst-case scenario (S7 AP-1 D1), the unit is still shooting the same number of shots at a higher strength as a Razorback or a Heavy Bolter dev squad or Mortis Dread, and they're getting to shoot first and at full BS. And of course most of the time they're either wounding MEQs on a 2+ or getting AP better than -1.

Something that I think it's hard to overstate the importance of is how they can reach out 12" farther than rapid-firing deep strikers. Instead of keeping your guns 3" behind your screeners, you have to stay 15" back to be safe from Obliterators. I feel like they're going to be great for killing things like Devastators clustered around Guilliman behind a screen, or Dark Reapers hiding behind Wave Serpents. Probably people will adjust, but if you're coupling the Obliterators with a strong assault component, you're pretty happy if the enemy is spread out over half of their deployment zone instead of holed up in a castle behind a dense screen.

Obviously the Obliterators' big weakness is CC. Your opponent will want to charge them with practically anything available. They're useless in CC and they can't fall back and shoot. Again I think this is an argument for having your own CC units that get between the Obliterators and the enemy.

Personally, I'm looking at using only one squad in a list with Magnus, or three squads in a list without him. I feel like I definitely want to still have room for things like big Possessed and Cultist units, and so many of the stratagems seem useful that I'd really like a battalion and two other detachments.

*When I talk about efficiency in this post I'm referring to the results of a 100,000-sample monte carlo simulation. It would not be hard to enumerate the possibilities here but I don't think that kind of precision is necessary.

Captyn_Bob wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:


BTW,can I check something? Can I give an artifact to a champion? Like can I give Axe of Biting Fury to my berzerker champion? Because I actually think a berzerker champion with an axe of biting fury is more deadly on the attack compared to a chaos lord on foot with the same axe of biting fury. lol

CHARACTERs only :(

Question does that include unique Charcters like Ahriman or Magnus?

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

 buddha wrote:
How are people feeling about obliterator spam with the new codex? A spearhead with 6-9 oblits seems like a great add to most any army.

Deepstrike in with the MoS and double shoot to your hearts content. I'm liking alpha Legion for tactics as you can deepstrike 18-24" away for your guns to still work and be safer from return fire.

There are much better units to 2x shoot-strategem with than the Oblits, because iirc they only come in units of three, period. You'll get much more for your CP-buck using that on Slaanesh Terminators. That said, i'm looking at Obliterators as a pretty good option ONLY when they're getting a Changling buff + the Alpha Legion one, which means you'll absolutely want them dancing around their maximum range for as long as possible.

In this scenario, if you get first turn they're providing a lot of added value too, as they can be deployed at one of those "golden" ranges to deny deep-strike options. 18" up from your deployment means they'll have decent targets to shoot at, AND potentially (depending on the rest of your deployment), deny EVERYTHING behind them as a valid drop location.

I mentioned this in passing earlier, but I really don't think it's true that Slaanesh Terminators are clearly a better choice for the stratagem. Combi-plasma Terminators are at minimum 50 points apiece. So 25 points per plasma shot, compared to Scions' 13. Therefore they're always going to be half as efficient as Scions per volley, which is the same result I got for the Obliterators vs Razorbacks. And so you get slightly more out of using the stratagem on a 250 point Terminator squad than a 195 point Obliterator squad, but not much. You're going to need more Terminators before you're seeing a big difference. But let's say you've got 8 Terminators in a 400 point unit. That sounds great -- you're putting out 32 plasma shots at 12". This is 4 Scion squads' worth of firepower. But here's the problem: you're probably killing the things you wanted to kill well before then. You expect to do 28 wounds to Razorbacks with this (I'm assuming you're re-rolling 1s). That's great if you can put 2 Scion squads over near a Dreadnought and 2 over near a Predator, since you're very likely to kill both, but obviously your Terminators have to all set up together. What happens if your targets are far apart or if your opponent is screening well enough to make it hard for you to get in rapid-fire range of two good targets? Obviously you can still shoot half as many shots at something up to 24" away, but at that point the 195 point Obliterator squad is matching the 400 point Terminator squad's firepower. And of course, if you're putting out 32 overcharged plasma shots, you're probably losing a Terminator. Maybe you don't care about this at all -- maybe you're taking the unit purely for this one alpha strike -- but probably we should deduct about 50 points from their expected output if you're not counting on them to win you the game outright.

It's true that the Terminators have other advantages. They're much better in CC, although they'll rarely make it into combat on the turn they come in because everything near them will be dead. They pay for this by being much less durable than the Obliterators against most kinds of firepower, particularly plasma.

Obliterators can also operate independently much more effectively than the Terminators, since the Terminators absolutely need re-rolls or Prescience and will never ever shoot at something with a -1 modifier. You can drop a squad of Obliterators next to a Stormraven and have a very good chance of killing it, with stratagems. You can drop Obliterators along the enemy deployment edge, if they've moved too far forward, and start shooting backline stuff.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

Captyn_Bob wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:


BTW,can I check something? Can I give an artifact to a champion? Like can I give Axe of Biting Fury to my berzerker champion? Because I actually think a berzerker champion with an axe of biting fury is more deadly on the attack compared to a chaos lord on foot with the same axe of biting fury. lol

CHARACTERs only :(

Question does that include unique Charcters like Ahriman or Magnus?

No. They have their own relics and can't take other relics.

I'm generally in agreement with @Dionysodorus here and pleased to have my Oblits back as a fearsome semi-autonomous danger, but there's a few points I'd like to mention:
- Scions seem to be extremely efficient and are in another army, they're a useful yardstick but not necessarily one on which anything should be rejected out of hand
- Terminators might be screenable against, but here's a thought: deploy a sorcerer on one side of the board with Warptime, and a unit that looks like it'd be deadly with it. Unless you're against GKs, you'll probably bait out DTW stuff to counter him, because no-one wants turn one charges. Drop in the Terminators, with a Prescience & Death Hex Sorcerer, conga lining them so Sorcerer is out of DTW but within Warptime range. Use Familiar to switch DH for Warptime, have them stroll up to the enemy screen, flame it twice, shoot the units behind it, and have a reasonable chance of a charge to boot.

I miss our brilliant autotake familiars, but the possibility for bait-and-switch is very interesting.

 Arkaine wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

Captyn_Bob wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:


BTW,can I check something? Can I give an artifact to a champion? Like can I give Axe of Biting Fury to my berzerker champion? Because I actually think a berzerker champion with an axe of biting fury is more deadly on the attack compared to a chaos lord on foot with the same axe of biting fury. lol

CHARACTERs only :(

Question does that include unique Charcters like Ahriman or Magnus?

No. They have their own relics and can't take other relics.

Yeah i figured it was a nice thought though. Magnus with a +3 to smite

Alpha legion infiltrate definitely happens after the seize. The first battle round hasn't started until after the seize. I'm sure they'll FAQ it though.

It's powerful but putting all your eggs in the "I hope I get first turn" basket isn't a good way to consistently win games.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

 buddha wrote:
How are people feeling about obliterator spam with the new codex? A spearhead with 6-9 oblits seems like a great add to most any army.

Deepstrike in with the MoS and double shoot to your hearts content. I'm liking alpha Legion for tactics as you can deepstrike 18-24" away for your guns to still work and be safer from return fire.

There are much better units to 2x shoot-strategem with than the Oblits, because iirc they only come in units of three, period. You'll get much more for your CP-buck using that on Slaanesh Terminators. That said, i'm looking at Obliterators as a pretty good option ONLY when they're getting a Changling buff + the Alpha Legion one, which means you'll absolutely want them dancing around their maximum range for as long as possible.

In this scenario, if you get first turn they're providing a lot of added value too, as they can be deployed at one of those "golden" ranges to deny deep-strike options. 18" up from your deployment means they'll have decent targets to shoot at, AND potentially (depending on the rest of your deployment), deny EVERYTHING behind them as a valid drop location.

You mean those super expensive units? Yeah of course 10 Plasma Terminators are gonna do more damage. Think about cost though. How many Terminators are you getting for 195 points? On top of having a better effective range I say you got the wrong idea.

I agree Alpha Legion is one of the strongest traits for them, but any of them work outside Black Legion to me.

Question on Chaos Boon strat. If your warlord gets turned into a spawn or prince, does it count's as having died, or does the spawn/prince become the new warlord?

Nope, that warlord has had it. The wording is pretty straight forward.

Of course if you're using the Alpha Legion warlord trait and your warlord turns into a daemon prince he can baton pass the trait to himself.

What would you all say is the most effective loadout for a Terminator Lord, Terminator Librarian, and 5 man Terminator squad that are designed to deep strike, double shoot and then get warp timed into CC on turn one?

I was thinking of 5 combiplasma, 3 axes and 2 chainfists on the Termies but no idea about the characters. Any thoughts? Legion will be Iron Warriors and they'll have the Mark of Slaanesh so they can use the double shooty strategem.

 Morskul wrote:
What would you all say is the most effective loadout for a Terminator Lord, Terminator Librarian, and 5 man Terminator squad that are designed to deep strike, double shoot and then get warp timed into CC on turn one?

I was thinking of 5 combiplasma, 3 axes and 2 chainfists on the Termies but no idea about the characters. Any thoughts? Legion will be Iron Warriors and they'll have the Mark of Slaanesh so they can use the double shooty strategem.

Termies is good, but remember in 8th, the Lord, and the Sorcerer are two different units, so only the termies will be warp timing and shooting twice. That said, probably wanna look to kit the lord out with something else other than shooty bits. I've always just left my sorcerers stock, because really, who cares, he's there to cast.

Any thoughts on Night lords obliterators? I'm liking their anti-infantry potential now, coupled with the fact that I can use midnight clad on them to trigger a -1 to hit for survivability, and mark them up with MoS if need be, to feed myself some extra dakka too. Only thing is that's pretty pricey at 195 points.

Ok so I tried out MoS on my IW obliterators. Oh man 24 shots. Thats alot of dakka.
I hade 2 Havocs 4 HB and 4 ML. And the both hade MoS.
But it feels wierd to have marks on IW units.

 Morskul wrote:
What would you all say is the most effective loadout for a Terminator Lord, Terminator Librarian, and 5 man Terminator squad that are designed to deep strike, double shoot and then get warp timed into CC on turn one?

I was thinking of 5 combiplasma, 3 axes and 2 chainfists on the Termies but no idea about the characters. Any thoughts? Legion will be Iron Warriors and they'll have the Mark of Slaanesh so they can use the double shooty strategem.

10 man Terminator squad is the best all with combi plasma and 1 lightning claw you can give the champ a chainfist if you want, basically deep strike them in prescience, warptime, leaving 1 guy slightly behind so he receives the lord buff for the squad double tap at two separate units charge a 3rd.

Rest of the army should be safe for a turn, since the opponent will generally try and deal with the terminators, if they survive double tap twice again, if they didn't start using the slaanesh stratagem on oblits.

Damn. I could understand the spawn being a death, but it's a shame gaining daemonhood is somehow a bad thing.

 Rydria wrote:

 Morskul wrote:
What would you all say is the most effective loadout for a Terminator Lord, Terminator Librarian, and 5 man Terminator squad that are designed to deep strike, double shoot and then get warp timed into CC on turn one?

I was thinking of 5 combiplasma, 3 axes and 2 chainfists on the Termies but no idea about the characters. Any thoughts? Legion will be Iron Warriors and they'll have the Mark of Slaanesh so they can use the double shooty strategem.

10 man Terminator squad is the best all with combi plasma and 1 lightning claw you can give the champ a chainfist if you want, basically deep strike them in prescience, warptime, leaving 1 guy slightly behind so he receives the lord buff for the squad double tap at two separate units charge a 3rd.

Rest of the army should be safe for a turn, since the opponent will generally try and deal with the terminators, if they survive double tap twice again, if they didn't start using the slaanesh stratagem on oblits.

I wonder how long this sort of list will work, before people start bringing 3 units of SM scouts or the equivalent and creating a giant "no deepstriking" bubble around their whole army. And if they do that, do you just hold your 720+ point termy/sorc/lord bomb until a target opens up and fight 2000points with 1300, or drop in the first turn and kill some scouts?

jcd386 wrote:

 Rydria wrote:

 Morskul wrote:
What would you all say is the most effective loadout for a Terminator Lord, Terminator Librarian, and 5 man Terminator squad that are designed to deep strike, double shoot and then get warp timed into CC on turn one?

I was thinking of 5 combiplasma, 3 axes and 2 chainfists on the Termies but no idea about the characters. Any thoughts? Legion will be Iron Warriors and they'll have the Mark of Slaanesh so they can use the double shooty strategem.

10 man Terminator squad is the best all with combi plasma and 1 lightning claw you can give the champ a chainfist if you want, basically deep strike them in prescience, warptime, leaving 1 guy slightly behind so he receives the lord buff for the squad double tap at two separate units charge a 3rd.

Rest of the army should be safe for a turn, since the opponent will generally try and deal with the terminators, if they survive double tap twice again, if they didn't start using the slaanesh stratagem on oblits.

I wonder how long this sort of list will work, before people start bringing 3 units of SM scouts or the equivalent and creating a giant "no deepstriking" bubble around their whole army. And if they do that, do you just hold your 720+ point termy/sorc/lord bomb until a target opens up and fight 2000points with 1300, or drop in the first turn and kill some scouts?

Drop in the first turn with Oblits, and shoot a hole, then bring the rest of the sledgehammer. You can only use the stratagem on one unit a turn anyway, so you've got the option to blaze your way through with obliterators, and then bring the termies in. Franky a unit of ten might be overkill, but I'm a Night Lords player, and that's not really a thing

 Jancoran wrote:
Just a report from the front.

I am now 9-0 with my Chaos Marines and get this: I'm using as DEFILER. Yes. i said it. a DEFILER. I haven't even gotten a game in yet with the new Strategem for Daemonforges so yeah... I'm jazzed.

My Defiler Scourges helped the Defiler in the last game absolutely wallop some uppity Crisis Commanders who came to assassinate me along with their Crisis Team buddies. that was supremely satisfying. He ended the game having killed three commanders, a Crisis team, a Broadside down yonder way and a couple Drones. Kind of awesome.


.

You must be happy about it's massive price reduction then.

jcd386 wrote:

 Rydria wrote:

 Morskul wrote:
What would you all say is the most effective loadout for a Terminator Lord, Terminator Librarian, and 5 man Terminator squad that are designed to deep strike, double shoot and then get warp timed into CC on turn one?

I was thinking of 5 combiplasma, 3 axes and 2 chainfists on the Termies but no idea about the characters. Any thoughts? Legion will be Iron Warriors and they'll have the Mark of Slaanesh so they can use the double shooty strategem.

10 man Terminator squad is the best all with combi plasma and 1 lightning claw you can give the champ a chainfist if you want, basically deep strike them in prescience, warptime, leaving 1 guy slightly behind so he receives the lord buff for the squad double tap at two separate units charge a 3rd.

Rest of the army should be safe for a turn, since the opponent will generally try and deal with the terminators, if they survive double tap twice again, if they didn't start using the slaanesh stratagem on oblits.

I wonder how long this sort of list will work, before people start bringing 3 units of SM scouts or the equivalent and creating a giant "no deepstriking" bubble around their whole army. And if they do that, do you just hold your 720+ point termy/sorc/lord bomb until a target opens up and fight 2000points with 1300, or drop in the first turn and kill some scouts?

Just bring rapier batteries with quad heavy bolters. A three gun emplacement tosses out 36 s5 -1 shots and can be given the mark of slaanesh so you can fire twice. Pretty sure that takes care of any PITA scouts real fast and for real cheap.

If your meta starts filling up with infiltrating DS denial, start taking Fiends. You are not obliged to use your whole charge or pile in move; you can easily stage-manage it so that a single Fiend and a single Biker or Seeker etc gets their attacks against the Scouts, guaranteeing that the unit will probably survive. Wham, you're possibly blocking LOS, shutting down most shooting against characters, and the surviving scouts can't run away; full pile in and kill them in their assault phase, and the enemy have gifted you a stepping stone for glass cannon melee units.

I got my first game in with my Dreadclaw Chosen today. Didn't use them offensively, in fact they had to drop within our DZ to protect an objective. That loadout sure attracts some firepower!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
RE 'CAN ALPHA LEGION USE THEIR STRATAGEM MORE THAN ONCE':

Strategic Discipline does not affect Stratagems that are not used during a phase, such as those used 'before the battle begins' - BRB, pg 215'

6 plasma Chosen is the contents of the Dreadclaw right? What HQs did you take with it and did you manage to do any summoning with them? I'm still wondering whether it's the way to go for me.

 lindsay40k wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:
RE 'CAN ALPHA LEGION USE THEIR STRATAGEM MORE THAN ONCE':

Strategic Discipline does not affect Stratagems that are not used during a phase, such as those used 'before the battle begins' - BRB, pg 215'

Wow, if this is official based on the rule book, its massive for melee focused armies. Alpha legion might now be the best melee army for CSM. Consider the amount of points you save in transports! Take a 100 man berzerker army. You will need 10 Rhinos if you don't want to foot slog them up the board. That's more than 700 points (I am not even sure you can fit all that into a 200 point army at this point). Now if you just use 5 command points and forward operatives. You can place them within 9.1 inches at the start of battle, ready to move, AND charge. At this point, who cares even if opponent seizes initiative or starts first. You only have to weather one round of shooting at most. And since you saved 700 points in Rhinos, that's 700 points more of berzerkers you can stuff into your army. And he needs to kill them all in one round of shooting before you hit his lines.

And if you place them all at 12.1 inch, he is out of rapid fire range and shoots you at a -1 because you are alpha legion. lol

Maybe it would be interesting to have a massive pure power armor army using forward operatives rule and see how that goes. lol 6 squads of normal CSM with 2 plama guns each squad. infiltrate 120 power armor bodies forward before turn 1. Start battle, rapid fire 240 shots and then charge in .... lol

 Red Corsair wrote:

jcd386 wrote:

 Rydria wrote:

 Morskul wrote:
What would you all say is the most effective loadout for a Terminator Lord, Terminator Librarian, and 5 man Terminator squad that are designed to deep strike, double shoot and then get warp timed into CC on turn one?

I was thinking of 5 combiplasma, 3 axes and 2 chainfists on the Termies but no idea about the characters. Any thoughts? Legion will be Iron Warriors and they'll have the Mark of Slaanesh so they can use the double shooty strategem.

10 man Terminator squad is the best all with combi plasma and 1 lightning claw you can give the champ a chainfist if you want, basically deep strike them in prescience, warptime, leaving 1 guy slightly behind so he receives the lord buff for the squad double tap at two separate units charge a 3rd.

Rest of the army should be safe for a turn, since the opponent will generally try and deal with the terminators, if they survive double tap twice again, if they didn't start using the slaanesh stratagem on oblits.

I wonder how long this sort of list will work, before people start bringing 3 units of SM scouts or the equivalent and creating a giant "no deepstriking" bubble around their whole army. And if they do that, do you just hold your 720+ point termy/sorc/lord bomb until a target opens up and fight 2000points with 1300, or drop in the first turn and kill some scouts?

Just bring rapier batteries with quad heavy bolters. A three gun emplacement tosses out 36 s5 -1 shots and can be given the mark of slaanesh so you can fire twice. Pretty sure that takes care of any PITA scouts real fast and for real cheap.

A couple things to point out:

1) you can't shoot the rapiers twice. They are vehicles and the crewmen don't technically "fire" them. They just stand next to them and watch

2) screening scout units or the like basically kills turn 1 deep strike. You could wait to bring your termies in, but still getting in double tap range of something that matters means that your opponent screwed up. Imo, it's not a viable competitive strategy. And that's without even considering how expensive the squad is. And that's not just me theorycrafting. I brought 10 terminators to a competitive RTT and definitely felt that they were the weak link in my list (was an otherwise extremely competitive list, so don't think I'm downing on them. I just think there are better ways to spend the points because a good opponent can mitigate their effects).

Sure, but you could wait until turn 2 or 3 you say! Ok. How do you feel about playing 500+ points down on your opponent for half of the game? Like your chances of victory? Me neither

So I just played a game with my World Eaters using the new codex. I lost badly to an Ultramarines list that used Roboute Guilliman, but really it was poor, poor tactical choices that lost me the game. I made the rookie mistake of charging the bubble-wrapping Conscripts in front of Bobby G. I attacked with one unit of Berzerkers, then my opponent used the 2CP option to attack out of turn with Bobby G (who had done a Heroic Intervention) and completely wiped a unit of Berzerkers before they could even swing. Now, between the two fight phases with the one unit of Berzerkers I wiped those Conscripts to a man, but that was all they accomplished before being Smited and shot off the board. Obviously I've got a lot to learn about how to play Berzerkers well.

I'm now thinking I might run a Vanguard of World Eaters with a Battalion of Alpha Legion. I might take a big blob of Cultists that will have that -1 to hit from shooting unless something gets close to them, and with their unit size they'll be able to absorb a fair few Smites instead of my more valuable units. Plus I might use the infiltrate stratagem to get a unit of regular CSM with Meltas closer to the enemy. All of my good shooting units will be Alpha Legion (along with a couple of Sorcerers as HQ's); the WE part will just be Berzerkers, characters, and Rhinos for them to ride in. Does this seem like a good idea?

Hi, I'm here from the Daemons thread. Now that we can take Daemon engines and get ObSec, how are these 4 ranged damage wise:
1. Defiler
2. Obliterators
3. Forgefiens
4. Lord of skulls ()

huh, how do you get obsec with daemon engines?

You have to have the Chaos Faction keyword and the Daemon keyword to get ObSec on your troops in the same detachment.

That doesn't sound right somehow. Doesn't that mean that all Chaos daemon units are obsec? Because they all have chaos faction keyword and they all have daemon keyword...

Lord of Skulls in a Deamon List is a waste imho because you dont hace the deamonforge stratagem wich is incredible effective on him.

Obliterators are really good now, they can put out a lot of hurt for 200pts and with 24" range you can drop them in a ruin safely and start hammering on your opponents vehicles or heavy infantry in his backfield. Just dont get caught in melee too fast.