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I can tell you how I used him in the last edition: the bank shot.
1. Unlimited OSR shots
2. by any means necessary - targeting your own unit.
3. take a bastion (or FoR) and a flyer.

put karadread on the battlements. (not really necessary but odds are that it will help with line of sight.

abuse the following zooming flyer rules: blasts will always miss a zooming flyer.

by any means necessary (or whatever the rule is called now) target the flyer with the OSR.

just make sure to position the flyer's wings over your true target.

I know it is bending the rules to the breaking point, but It was endlessly entertaining, and I loved pulling that one - especially with mech guard.

I thought flyers couldn't be targets not that they don't auto miss.

 pretre wrote:
I thought flyers couldn't be targets not that they don't auto miss.

interesting. a rules interaction where the rulebook says one thing and the codex says another. How are such things normally resolved?


Hard to Hit. P. 84 in the rulebook.
'Template and Blast weapons, and any other attacks that don't roll To Hit, cannot hit Zooming Flyers.'

I'll have to look it up as my book isn't in front of me right now.

Last edition and in 5th I used karamazov in a big unit of crusaders. I would set them up in ruins of possible, with the ruins being bolsterd by a tech priest. I could drop The pie plate each turn and if anything threaten my unit with shooting, Karamazov would benefit from look out sir, with shots getting blocked by the crusaders 3++. If things got really bad, going to ground would give th whole squad a 2+ cover save.

I would leave death cult assassins with the tech priest( or marine, can remember) and he would have rad grenades. Anything that got close via deep strike would get hit by "I've been expecting you"', Coteaz with a bunch of psycannons, and the death cult assassins would charge what's left. Yes it was a lot to invest for backfield units.

I would send my multiple dreadknights forward to cause havoc, and if need be, allow itself to be the target of orbital strike relay.

Thanks guys! Lots of interesting stuff (the flyer trick is just sneaky). I love the idea of orbital strikes; a deep love of Akira and the SOL combined with the first WH40k game I observered was my older brother playing Rogue Trader, complete with something crazy like a 40" diameter vortex strike from space.

It seems like some of you are putting Karamazov on the battlements of a building (bastion for example). Is that legal? The throne rules say he can't embark on a building. But maybe I missed something and being on a battlement doesn't count as embarking? I hope so because I'd love to build a landed rocket ship that as a counts as bastion.

Failing that I believe the Skyshield landing pad is not technically a building (but unusual terrain or something weird like that) so would be a way to get the battlement cover (and the invulnerable save).

Also, am I misunderstanding the rules, or if Karamazov is in a shooty unit, if he decides to target a friendly model, wouldn't the rest of the unit be unable to shoot? I don't think they'd gain his special ability, and have no provision for splitting fire. If that's true then you'd be facing the tradeoff each turn of taking advantage of the non-scattering OSR but giving up the unit's shooting. So maybe it would be better to let a different inquisitor shepherd servitors.

 weirdingway wrote:
Also, am I misunderstanding the rules, or if Karamazov is in a shooty unit, if he decides to target a friendly model, wouldn't the rest of the unit be unable to shoot? I don't think they'd gain his special ability, and have no provision for splitting fire. If that's true then you'd be facing the tradeoff each turn of taking advantage of the non-scattering OSR but giving up the unit's shooting. So maybe it would be better to let a different inquisitor shepherd servitors.

that is how I always read his rule. and why a unit of crusaders was the perfect thing to attach him to. the 2+ Look at sir, combined with their 3++ storm shields, 4+ cover, and Karadread's ability for any unit within 12" of him to voluntarily pass or fail any morale or pinning test, (if he still has that one too) makes for a seriously tanky unit. The trick though is to ensure that something else is the warlord.

 weirdingway wrote:
Interesting thoughts!

Here's a discussion of relentless and the OSR: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/358817.page#2643152

That link is from 2011. I'm not sure if that is 5th or 6th edition, but I can tell you in 7th edition the OSR is a shooting attack. Two of them are Ordinance, and one is Heavy. Relentless allows firing of Ordinance, Heavy (and Salvo) as if stationary after moving (and allows charging after firing Ordinance, Heavy, and Salvo), Ergo, Vis-a-Vis, ipso facto you can move, shoot the OSR OR the MM, and then charge with Karamazov.

 carldooley wrote:

 pretre wrote:
I thought flyers couldn't be targets not that they don't auto miss.

interesting. a rules interaction where the rulebook says one thing and the codex says another. How are such things normally resolved?


Hard to Hit. P. 84 in the rulebook.
'Template and Blast weapons, and any other attacks that don't roll To Hit, cannot hit Zooming Flyers.'

Yeah, that's not all that it says:

"Hard to Hit
Zooming Flyers are incredibly difficult targets for troops without suitably calibrated weapons and scopes. Shots resolved at a Zooming Flyer can only be resolved as Snap Shots (unless the model or weapon has the Skyfire special rule). Template and Blast weapons, and any other attacks that don’t roll To Hit, cannot hit Zooming Flyers."

Shots can only be resolved as Snap Shots. You can't target them with a Blast.

You can take another, generic Inquisitor, and get some Servo Skulls. any blast templates dropped within 12" of a Servo Skull only scatters 1d6 instead of 2d6.

 pretre wrote:
Yeah, that's not all that it says:

"Hard to Hit
Zooming Flyers are incredibly difficult targets for troops without suitably calibrated weapons and scopes. Shots resolved at a Zooming Flyer can only be resolved as Snap Shots (unless the model or weapon has the Skyfire special rule). Template and Blast weapons, and any other attacks that don’t roll To Hit, cannot hit Zooming Flyers."

Shots can only be resolved as Snap Shots. You can't target them with a Blast.

I meant the statement to be rhetorical. As people like to say, Codex trumps Rulebook. Even if you have to jink to avoid the blast, the ability to use precise targeting of an OSR can and occasionally does make the risk worth it.
The whole point of the argument is that a zooming flyer cannot be HIT by a blast weapon, as per the rulebook. Karadread still allows you to TARGET it with the blast, which hits everything underneath it (except the flyer, for the reason above).

I don't read it that way. Kara allows you to target your own units. That's the only exception it lends. Unless Kara has skyfire, he can't target it though.

I second (or third?) the notion of dropping Karamazov in with Conscripts. His selling point for me is his collection of pie plates; conscripts [offsetting high cost with cheap meat] give him a cheap shield that does not waste their firepower, along with a bonus of passing morale checks for nearby units, which is usually a combined platoon sporting heavy weapons, and/or a squad of Jokaero.

He is a backfield guardian who can take up his MM/sword if something drops in to say hello...Otherwise, he is raining lead. Purposely running him in assault mode seems like a waste of those pie plates, grenades or not (still, if I was going to do it, I would probably include Cypher and a 50-man blob with all of the trimmings...talk about a blob...).

 ductvader wrote:
Karamazov wants to sit. Give him a pseudo dev squad and point his strike at squads of crusaders.

This is how i have run him. I like running him as a backfield hq. He sits back and fires his OSR at stuff and is protected by a group of acolytes weilding flamers and a squad of joquero. I run two groups of death cult assassins with three crusaders and a priest. each in a land raider. I run them up the field, and target either my crusaders or my opponents stuff... which ever is the better option at the time. You could also ally the force with some IG and run expendable small platoon units up the field as target for his attack and say the guardsmen are the personal guard of the navigator house.