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As an aside, where's the "circus" part come from?

The 4th edition Eldar army was called a Flying Circus because it had clowns (harlequins) flying around (in Falcons).

pyronis1050 wrote:About everyone claiming that Lord of Change can use power Mauls, the rule book clearly states that power weapons with special rules are AP 3 at your own strength (same as if it were a sword). Soul Devourer has that special rule of eating souls attached to it, so it cant get +2 strength.

I think this is a clear case the specific (Smash special rule) overriding the general.

DarknessEternal wrote:As an aside, where's the "circus" part come from?

It's

Zid wrote:Arm your khorne princes with the axe arm and pray that str 7 is enough...?

Pretty much. Khorne isn't really doing much for the DP. Slaanesh and nurgle gives your melee beatstick tricks- khorne makes your stick marginally longer.

Green is Best! posted up the best counter to this list (so far...). Although he forgot to mention guard. FRFSRF, bladestorms, ork shoota boy mobs... statistically, you've only got to hit it 3 times to bring it down. if you hit on 6's, that's only 18 shots that are required to bring it down. This isn't a broken or overpowered list

The real question is going to be where we find balance between huge flierers and beefy enough troops that wont just get shot to hell.

Our beefiest roops are Bearers but my last game I p[ayed on them. I actually used a four FMC list against DA. I was testing the build. The DA was a dualwing list.

Fateweaver. 333
LoC. Might. Blessing. 275
6 Fiends, Might 190
2x 5 Horrors. Bolt. 190
5 Horrors. Bolt. Changeling. 100
2x Daemon Prince. MoT. Flight. Soul Devourer. Breath. 410

Honestly, at 1500 I never really felt threatened. Even terminators were tough but between shooting and fiends you can handle them. I originally thought two troop slots enough and wanted five FMCs. But I'm pretty happy with four and the fiends and I'm lucky to have won - the fiends were the difference.

I used to be a fan of the tzeentch princes, but if your giving them flight now and all the goodies, paying 200+ pts for them, you might as well just get a LoC.

Most of the lists using alot of MC are going to be 2000 or so pts anyway so you can take 4 HQ.

Princes are good because they are customisable, but they are very expensive.

On a different note ... I've been thinking of using IG allies at 2000 points. So far I'm thinking
primaris psyker - 70
vet squad 3 plasmas,chimera X2 - 340
aegis defense Line comms 120
I'll need to lose 30 points in upgrades from the daemons though.
The primaris seems right for an added traitor guard contingent.

Jihallah wrote:

Zid wrote:Arm your khorne princes with the axe arm and pray that str 7 is enough...?

Pretty much. Khorne isn't really doing much for the DP. Slaanesh and nurgle gives your melee beatstick tricks- khorne makes your stick marginally longer.

Green is Best! posted up the best counter to this list (so far...). Although he forgot to mention guard. FRFSRF, bladestorms, ork shoota boy mobs... statistically, you've only got to hit it 3 times to bring it down. if you hit on 6's, that's only 18 shots that are required to bring it down. This isn't a broken or overpowered list

It's per unit that hits, not hits in a unit.

So someone in each of 3 units has to hit on average for him to fail a grounding check.

If a Flying Monstrous Creature that is Swooping suffers one or more hits from a unit's Shooting attack, it must take a Grounded test immediately after that Shooting attack has been resolved.

I really hope a list like this is good. I have wanted to try and do a demons army to up my painting ability for a while.

rigeld2 wrote:
It's per unit that hits, not hits in a unit.

So someone in each of 3 units has to hit on average for him to fail a grounding check.

Not that hard. When you are playing guard and orks, the "i have more bodies and crappy guns than you have bullets" armies. Yes, i can see these armies struggling to get 3 units firing at least 6 shots at a FMC to statistically force to to do a check. Even the other army mentioned, eldar, has enough access to S6 spam and shuriken fire to cause enough hits on a FMC.

FMC's aren't the be and end all of CSM/daemons. They are strong units, but they aren't an "i win" button. They can die harder and quicker now, once you get grounded in rapid fire range of the enemies whole army on the first/second turn.

As far as I know, to get a flying MC grounded you need to hit it and they need to roll 1 or 2. This is tested ONCE PER TURN, not once per hit. So the opponent cant really ground the MC with small arms an save the big guns for them when they land.

Also about the Soul Devourer, it's considered a unusual power weapon, so it gets AP3 and no extra. Unusual power weapons is all weapons with the rule "power weapon" AND something else, like SW +1str Frost axes.

How good are this list at dealing with Armour? I noticed that the MC got a slight nerf to deal with tanks. No more 2d6 armour pen. But on the other hand hit moving target easier and dubble str with half the attacks.
And I dont think the pew pew bolts is enough to pop all the tanks.

Vombat wrote:As far as I know, to get a flying MC grounded you need to hit it and they need to roll 1 or 2. This is tested ONCE PER TURN, not once per hit. So the opponent cant really ground the MC with small arms an save the big guns for them when they land.

Check your BRB. You make this test everytime a unit hits the FMC. So, if I have 6 mobs of 20 slugga boyz shooting 40 shots a piece. Assuming each mob rolls at least one 6, you are making 6 grounding checks PER TURN.

It's not that difficult to ground an FMC. Weight of fire still works. However, with 4- 6 fliers at 2000, odds improve that we will have plenty on the table at any given time.
I've already had issues with some lists. The list has holes.
1. We are not good against other flier lists. We don't have nearly enough shooting overall and relying on a BT's vector strike ... well I switched my BT out for an LoC.
2. We have no way to deal with parking lot forces, notably IG, reliably.
3. We still rely on the dice albeit DSing has improved.
4. We have mediocre weak troops.
5. There are still rules issues.
- You cannot say that soul devourer is AP3 without a FaQ. As written I get a power weqpon. Not an unusual power weapon. AS an 'addition' my DP gets to ID on a wound regardless of whether the power weapon was used - a fist would still ID.
- I've so far been allowed to swoop from a DS but that also is contentious. There is an argument against this.
- I would never use unholy might on a BT and say it's not modified. Yet some are contending it's a profile modification only?
I don't know how the rulings will go. I don't have high hopes as Xenos FaQs rarely are positive.
How do we shore up the weaknesses. Well, to be competitive at the tournament level we might need to add fortifications, allies, etc. As it stands, it's a very entertaining list to play and opponent's are actually have fun playing against it. It's not the new waac list though.

Just a thought but what about the skyshield platform.

do you think it's a worth while piece of terrain to use? The cover doesn't help as much due to our already invul saves but at least you can keep the fateweaver bubble together.

sudojoe wrote:Just a thought but what about the skyshield platform.

do you think it's a worth while piece of terrain to use? The cover doesn't help as much due to our already invul saves but at least you can keep the fateweaver bubble together.

My thoughts were to DS two soul grinders into it and then furl the pad, giving the soul grinders a 4+ invul save which would then be rerollable if Fateweaver was around.

Or ally with CSM and start two defilers sitting on it with the same condition.

Vombat -- I think your slightly off on your rules. I recently did a lot of reserach into this and can help

Vombat wrote:Also about the Soul Devourer, it's considered a unusual power weapon, so it gets AP3 and no extra.

Soul Devourer 'counts as' a power weapon. Its not a power weapon. Also, look at the 'smash' special rule. If the MC can choose between an AP2 and AP3 weapon, it would logically get the AP2.
Furthermore, p61 says "If a models wargear says it has a power weapon" No DP's wargear says it has a power weapon. Soul Devourer is not wargear -- its a gift.
This is a double edged maul, as it means that a lord of change does not get to wield a power maul.

Vombat wrote:How good are this list at dealing with Armour? I noticed that the MC got a slight nerf to deal with tanks. No more 2d6 armour pen.

Again, smash is the key. A DP gets 5 attacks on the assault, and can instead choose to take 3 smash hits. These are STR 10 (double base STR 5) and the DP can re-roll the penetration dice if they desire. These are also AP2 attacks and get +1 on the damage table.

Of course, they can't smash in swoop mode

Vombat wrote:As far as I know, to get a flying MC grounded you need to hit it and they need to roll 1 or 2. This is tested ONCE PER TURN, not once per hit. So the opponent cant really ground the MC with small arms an save the big guns for them when they land.

Check p49 of the base rule book
"If a FMC that is swooping suffers one more more hits from a units Shooting attack, it must take a Grounded test immediately after that Shooting attack has been resolved"

It seems pretty clear that you can force one MC to make multiple checks. Its also clear that its 'hits' and not 'wounds', so even grot blastas knock fateweaver from the air. What you really need are multiple units! If you have just 3 units that can shoot, your going to knock one creature down. If you have 9 units that can shoot, your in a much better situation.

But the problem is once massed small arms fire sends Fateweaver to the ground, he is likely gone and so is your expensive trick. With Vendettas and Night/Doom Scythes everywhere, it shouldn't be too hard to down the rest either and then the mop up begins....

And all this is assuming he doesn't wipe what dudes you have on table first turn. Which, with something like IG facing almost his whole force against your half (or less), seems entirely possible!

Seems like a noobslayer list.

felixcat wrote:- I've so far been allowed to swoop from a DS but that also is contentious. There is an argument against this.

How could there possibly be an argument about this? The rules seem pretty clear that if you start the game on the table you must be Gliding. If you come in from reserves you must choose. Daemonic Assault states that the entire army starts the game in reserve. How you enter the game from reserve seems to be irrelevant to the FMC rules.

I think FMC's are still hard, powerful units. But I think we can't just send 'em in ahead of the rest of the army. Having them swoop over and vector strike units to end up near the soft valuables of the army ready to glide and charge at the same time you hit their line with the rest of your army seems the best tactic. I mean, do you put that weight of fire onto the FMC's to ground them and hopefully kill them, or onto the rest of the army? FMC's are the same as before in the sense of "damned if you do go for them, damned if you don't go for them" (the classic pair of princes in a rhino rush. Put those AT weapons on the princes, the rhino's roll up. Put it into the rhino's and the princes fly up and the marines get out and start shooting. Damned if you do etc etc), but they are different in the actual mechanic and have much more actions open for them, and so are better than before.

How could there possibly be an argument about this? The rules seem pretty clear that if you start the game on the table you must be Gliding. If you come in from reserves you must choose.

The problem is that the rule states that you must move 18" to swoop when arriving and if you DS you cannot. You can from the table edge. I'm not arguing for or against. Just stating that it could be debated.

Seems like a noobslayer list.

There are issues against a few lists. I feel it needs allies.

felixcat wrote:

How could there possibly be an argument about this? The rules seem pretty clear that if you start the game on the table you must be Gliding. If you come in from reserves you must choose.

The problem is that the rule states that you must move 18" to swoop when arriving and if you DS you cannot. You can from the table edge. I'm not arguing for or against. Just stating that it could be debated.

Seems like a noobslayer list.

There are issues against a few lists. I feel it needs allies.

I see your point, but I still think the rules allow swooping from DS. If I play someone that argues this, I'll argue that swooping FMCs don't lose hard to hit when they take a grounding test because the rules never actually state that they lose it.

I play it that you cant swoop from DS.

Swooping says you must move at least 12", DS is your movement.


Under hard to hit it says a SWOOPING FMC is hard to hit.

I reckon they arent swooping when they fall to the ground. I assume you mean fail the grounding test, not just having to take one.