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Greeting all,

Lately I've been trying out the GM in a lot more of my games. While I still think the librarian is a more powerful HQ choice, I'm starting to warm up to the GM as a powerhouse on his own.

Like pretty much everyone else I've been focused on the scout and scoring abilities that grand strategy grants. And why not? Objectives and movement control are some of the most important things in the game so at least 1 of these options is going to be extremely useful in any game. But after reading a post on Hulksmash's blog (to give full credit to him), I decided to take a closer look at the "hammer of righteousness" part of grand strategy.

Re-rolling to wound rolls of 1 seems like a crappy upgrade compared to scout moves and scoring, which is probably why I never saw it mentioned or used before. But the thing is, there are a lot of units in the GK codex that can wound on a 2 or 3, making that upgrade a bigger deal than you might imagine.

Take for example a 5 man unit of paladins with 2 master crafted psycannons. Cannons normally wound anything below toughness 5 on a 2, but thanks to hammer of righteousness they now auto-wound on every hit, with a higher chance to rend as well. Hitting on 3s (with a re-roll on 1s) and auto-wounding anything below T5 means that the paladins are averaging 6 wounds a turn from the cannons alone.

Hammer of righteousness also makes incinerators more deadly than warp rift. The super flamers now auto-wound anything below T4 that is under the template, and no cover saves allowed. Point 1 at an infantry squad that just got out of a wrecked transport and you can wipe out the entire unit just by pointing the template at them.

The results are similar in close combat. Against T3 units you are auto-wounding if hammerhand goes off, or re-rolling half of your failed wounds against T4 units. Using rad grenades you are now auto-wounding anything below T4 on every hit. Best of all, a hammerhanded daemonhammer now auto-wounds ANYTHING it hits.

I have only tried this ability out in 2 games, but to give you an example of how powerful it is, consider this: In my game vs SWs I had a GM w/incinerator and rad grenades deep strike with a 5 man paladin team (double master-crafted psycannons, 4 halberds and a master crafted hammer). The grand strategy roll only gave 1 unit the upgrade, which I used on the paladins. The turn they dropped, they wiped out a long fang unit from shooting, and then proceeded to eat through a razorback and 2 grey hunter squads over the course of the game, losing only 1 paladin in the process.

Has anyone else tried out hammer of righteousness and found success? What kind of list would you build to best take advantage of it?

it is not an "auto wound"

You wound on a 2+
(rolls a 1)

re-roll
(rolls another 1)

No wound is dealt

"The nominated units re-roll to wound rolls of 1 for the duration of the game"- C:GK pg 22.

That wording says re-roll all 1s from wound rolls to me. Think of it this way, master crafted weapons specifically mention a limit on re-rolling 1 failed to hit roll with that weapon. Hammer of righteousness has no such limitation. All ones are re-rolled until they are not ones.

Ergo: auto-wounding. This hasn't been argued before because no one uses hammer of righteousness but trust me, the wording in the book supports my argument.

Bruteboss wrote:Ergo: auto-wounding. This hasn't been argued before because no one uses hammer of righteousness but trust me, the wording in the book supports my argument.

And the wording of the BRB refutes your argument.

Page 2, the box that talks about re-rolls.

I stand refuted, BRB is specific about allowing only 1 re-roll. Sad but I suppose only fair.

I've found the rerolling wounds on 1s to be quite useful in the game I've used it in thus far.

Scout shunting dreadknights is also crazily powerful, but depends on your interpretation if it is a legal move or not (hopefully will be cleared up in the FAQ).

Since I usually play team games, I haven't found the scoring as troops to be really useful, although that may have to do with playing Draigowing more than anything; and my friend-metagame doesn't have much assaulting, so taking counterattack is pretty useless most of the time.

thats an interesting find.

rerolling 1s basically means you reroll 1/2 your misses and then a variable number of your wounds.

It’s also particularly good re-rolling 1’s to wound with Storm bolters (or Psy ammo storm bolters). Paladins as sweet and good, just think of a strike squad. 20 SB (Psycannons aside) shots are no joke, but now your squad is causing 2-3 more wounds per shooting phase all because you are taking advantage of large number of re-rerolls. For me, the bigger the squad, the more reason to take the hammer strategy.

Grey Templar wrote:thats an interesting find.

rerolling 1s basically means you reroll 1/2 your misses and then a variable number of your wounds.

It doesn't re-roll ALL 1's... just 1's to wound.

I have been enjoying hammer of righteousness on my dreadknights and psyrifleman dreadnaughts. Heavy incinerator wounds most models on 2+. With the hammer GM ability, it generally gives me max wounds. Also, in CC it ups the effectiveness of S10 weapons.
As for the ven dreads, paying 195 points only to roll 1's to wound is a pain. The hammer ability makes them awesome at pumping out wounds.

Chubs wrote:It’s also particularly good re-rolling 1’s to wound with Storm bolters (or Psy ammo storm bolters). Paladins as sweet and good, just think of a strike squad. 20 SB (Psycannons aside) shots are no joke, but now your squad is causing 2-3 more wounds per shooting phase all because you are taking advantage of large number of re-rerolls. For me, the bigger the squad, the more reason to take the hammer strategy.

20 psybolt shots will score about 8.7 wounds against T4 normally. With hammer of righteousness, they score about 10.1. +1.4 wounds is a pretty minor upgrade if you ask me. So I probably wouldn't give hammer of righteousness to a strike squad.

Units that I would use hammer of righteousness on are things like purifiers and paladins. The reason is that these units can benefit hugely in both shooting and assault, and go from heavily damaging their target to wiping them outright off the board. Anyone can get a boost from hammer of righteousness, but I think its the elites with lots of accurate and high damage attacks that benefit the most from it.

somerandomdude wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:thats an interesting find.

rerolling 1s basically means you reroll 1/2 your misses and then a variable number of your wounds.

It doesn't re-roll ALL 1's... just 1's to wound.

o right


shows how much i have considered it

I have found shield of blades to be extremely helpful. Counterattack saved my 5 man interceptor squads from a massive squad of hormagaunts. I won combat and swept them.


Had I only had 6 attacks, Inc. the justicar, the squad would not have made it out to win the battle for me. And joy was it a glorious victory.

I personally have a few little tricks, though they are dependant on deployment and what kind of army you are facing. Scout moving purgation squads with incinerators in razorbacks means turn 1 you can potentially be hitting large blobs of IG or Ork hordes before they move. Combine with a Stormraven going flat out turn 1 with embarked dread and cc unit of your choice and your opponent has a lot in their face to deal with.