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Independently we seem to have similar first impressions.

1. My Favorite are 3-4 shocking Terminators with combiplasma/melta

- Its like Fire Dragons on steroids... and no need for a Falcon. Further upgrades only delute the inherent strength imo, so no icons for me here.

- This should help against Skimmers who hmm... "have to keep their buts to the wall" from now on, as well as TMCs. Drop the Termis into a piece of terrain and gain additional saves and more importantly ini10 powerweapons.

2. Second are units of 2 Obliterators

- These guys are good against... anything! Whats not to like about reletivly cheap mobile Lascannons? Shoot Skimmers that havent moved first turn or TMCs that are out of range to return the favor. Sure they are not that tough, but you should normally be able to minimize returnfire be deploying behind cover and then sniping around corners.

- And these match nicely with termis too. Against Tau or Guard you might just deepstrike them all together.

3. Troops: Nurgles seem to be the most reasonable because theres no simple counter to them unlike all the others who are rather expensive plasma casualties.


2x10 basic Bolter-Marines with a Lascannon should be considered too.

Thousand sons are just as tough against Plasma as Nurgle, and tougher against Melta, Pulse Lasers, Battlecannon, Lascannon, and all other good MEQ eliminators. And a squad of 8 is nearly as effective against MEQ as a full squad of dark reaper. They are kinda chaos flavored dark reapers. Their only issue is that they are f-ing slow.

And that they're useless against vehicles.

Bolt of change? Seems ok, as in the same price as most other heavy anti-tank weapons.

Requires a psychic test is a killer in the new order.

Plague marines are better than Thousand sons vs Tau. Alot of strength 5 weapons and the plasma is strength 6.

The problem with 1k sons is that they don't perform as well as Plagues metagame-wise i.e. vs Nidzilla or Clown Falcons. 5-man Plague squads with 2 Plasma stand up reasonably well against the Dakkafex and suffer less casualties from Harlies because of their Blight grenades. I haven't done the numbers tho so if someone could kindly do the Dakkafex or Harlies vs Plague Marine math that would be interesting to hear.

Dakkafex kills 8/9 Plague marines vs 2 Thousand sons per round of shooting.

Plague marines seem great but they just don't have much firepower, and are slow. No matter how tough they are if they can't do any damage other than bolters and plasma, and can't reliably get to assault anything, the wind up being slightly gimped.

The fundamental problem is that any squad you get that is any good, with any of the cult marines, has to compare to a Las/Plas 10 man squad. I don't know that any of them really do.

None of them provide resilient anti-vehicle, or really effective anti-horde (even noise marines are just so expensive they might as well have $$$ painted on them to let the opponent know how juicy a target they are, which kinda nullifies their antihorde abilities -- being dead does that).

Plague marines might be OK with double lash I guess, to protect them from assault (where they get pwned).

What do you mean when you say Plague Marines are slow? They are the same speed as any other infantry and they can take a Rhino just like any of the others.

It looks like Cult squads should be used much like Aspect Warriors in the Eldar codex. Each is specialized and will work well if properly employed in an overall plan. But they are too expensive to simply use as "generalist" troops. That's what the CSM are for.

I'm also throwing in my hat for Lucius the Eternal. Cheap as dirt. Excellent attack statistics. And his special armor is a nifty little pile of awesome. Use him against orks, gaunts, or other hordes and watch them whither!

Well the Plague Marine Plasma squad is fearless and loses less pts per round of Dakkafex shooting than normal CSM. It is slow because it moves at infantry speed I guess. However lash makes up for this in a way as you can pull a squad into range of your infantry. Against Harlies you do get to reduce their charging attacks by 1 and you're very resistant to non-rending attacks. I still think that it will still lose to a well-played Mech Eldar force tho.

Posted By jfrazell on 09/07/2007 6:21 AM
Its still there. It was a tactic I used to use with my tac squads, making them all 9 man squads so that my AC could likely hitch a ride when he came into play at the same time.

Illegal, actually, since the only two ways you could put your commander in reserves would be with jump packs (which can't go in drop pods) or terminator armor (which take up 2 spaces).

Posted By DarkHellion on 09/10/2007 1:21 PM
Thousand sons are just as tough against Plasma as Nurgle

Wrong, actually. Thousand Sons are only as tough against plasma as Plaguemarines when they're not in cover. Plaguemarines are also obviously much better vs. everything S6 and below.

Ive not seen the codex in detail yet - is it possible to bring a greater daemon in using any aspiring champion? Couldnt you just use a chosen squad infiltrated close to cut down on walking distance for the now wingless greater daemon? Sounds good to me, esp supported by dsing slaanesh termies~

Plague marines are slow and short ranged.

CSM with a lascannon are slow and long ranged.

Thousand sons are slow and longer ranged (slow and purposeful + 24").

Plague marines are never more than an a 26" threat, and that's assuming they don't blow up your rhino. More reasonably they're an 18" threat.

That's why Plague Marines and double Lash work so well together. Combine them and they become a much stronger ranged threat. The same as with Vindicators I guess.