Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Played against IG and DG yesterday, both tournament players of my team with GT list.

20-0 both, easy. Rubrics in cover, terrorist sorcerer and exalted sorcerer as damage dealers. Ahriman full buffer turn1 on volkite and turn2 moving into middle board for termies buffing. Daemon prince trying to fly from obscured to obscured to charge everything he can in turn 2/3 with conniving plate. No crystal and no sorcerous facade, all my team grouped for proper screening and no holes in my defense

Kebabcito wrote:
Played against IG and DG yesterday, both tournament players of my team with GT list.

20-0 both, easy. Rubrics in cover, terrorist sorcerer and exalted sorcerer as damage dealers. Ahriman full buffer turn1 on volkite and turn2 moving into middle board for termies buffing. Daemon prince trying to fly from obscured to obscured to charge everything he can in turn 2/3 with conniving plate. No crystal and no sorcerous facade, all my team grouped for proper screening and no holes in my defense

What did you use for screening? And how many rubrics and Occults squads did you run? Did you run warpflame rubrics or inferno bolter rubrics ?

The point is, I haven't.

When building my list, I realized I had the same problem as in 8th, no front line (bladeguards, 80 cultist, custodes, Chimeras+10 guardsman, Poxwalkers... So Drukhari could tabble me turn 2 if I would advance turn1 into the middle (beastmaster+anima vitae, hellions and then 20 wyches and 15 incubi...) So I decided to play cult of magic instead of duplicity for not dividing my army and try to make them advance slowly in ruins for the all is dust + cover protection.

I've got 4x5 rubrics, I send 2x5 of them in left and right flanks, avoiding turn2 charges with proper distance, but with enough space for moving 6" into the middle in turn 2 in case the opponent move too fast and I can nuke the full combo with range 18".

In case the opponent is good and respect your damage, he will wait longer or he will screen his army with vehicles so your magic power is not so good, but then you can abuse from the power of your terminators (I've got 10) buffed from ahriman for pushing.

The point is, if you move too fast and you are charged turn1 or turn2 by a melee army, you lose 100% because, in fact, we have no front line/screen.

Warpflame rubrics are very respectful and good but I'm not playing them at the moment, this kind of game is more for duplicity, as you can divide your forces and jump those marines and just destroy everything. Is very good but I'm playing this army more conservative as I'm afraid of being tabled actually. Maybe I find a way soon to play some warpflamers and worth his points

I am going to try out a deathball of 10 termies, 2 5 man termies and rubrics and sorcs to fill the slots. Msu creates better action economy. But you can make that 10 man suuuuper hard to kill.

I have found that buying a terminator sorcer the aether stride WL trait and witch warrior makes a fantastic jump around blaster. Hopping over units for better Astral blasts and baleful devolution then temp surging back to safety.

Say i roll a 8 for my psychic test for firestorm, can i use a cabal ritual to boost that up by 2, for trigger the 5+ mortal wounds version or does it have to be a natural 9+ before adding any modifiers like the +1 from brotherhood of sorcerers?

 odorofdeath wrote:
Say i roll a 8 for my psychic test for firestorm, can i use a cabal ritual to boost that up by 2, for trigger the 5+ mortal wounds version or does it have to be a natural 9+ before adding any modifiers like the +1 from brotherhood of sorcerers?

Unmodified 9. Our +1 from cabal or AA are modifiers.

Cool, thanks

Do you guys think it's a misprint between the GK and TS deny stratagem.

The GK stratagem is 3d6 drop the lowest - the TS on is 3d6 flat. Cost the exact same. Seems odd to me ESP considering the dynamics between the armies. TS supposed to be better at casting and GK better at denying.

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:
Do you guys think it's a misprint between the GK and TS deny stratagem.

The GK stratagem is 3d6 drop the lowest - the TS on is 3d6 flat. Cost the exact same. Seems odd to me ESP considering the dynamics between the armies. TS supposed to be better at casting and GK better at denying.

No, they are worded completely differently.

The Grey Knight's stratagem gives a 3d6 discard the lowest on any psyker.

The Thousand Sons stratagem requires two psykers to be in deny range of the enemy psyker and within 6" of each other. So is harder to pull off. But as a result you get a 3d6 deny.

 Mushkilla wrote:

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:
Do you guys think it's a misprint between the GK and TS deny stratagem.

The GK stratagem is 3d6 drop the lowest - the TS on is 3d6 flat. Cost the exact same. Seems odd to me ESP considering the dynamics between the armies. TS supposed to be better at casting and GK better at denying.

No, they are worded completely differently.

The Grey Knight's stratagem gives a 3d6 discard the lowest on any psyker.

The Thousand Sons stratagem requires two psykers to be in deny range of the enemy psyker and within 6" of each other. So is harder to pull off. But as a result you get a 3d6 deny.

Well the army is literally all psykers so - not really harder to pull off. Probably needs to cost 2 CP.

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:

Well the army is literally all psykers so - not really harder to pull off. Probably needs to cost 2 CP.

You say that, personally I much prefer the grey knights stratagem. It's easier to pull off making it more reliable.

The Sorcerous Master special rule means measure denies from our aspiring sorcerer models not from the unit, so it's harder to pull off than you think. The great powers of the game like doom are often 24" range so I find the trigonometry of the thousands sons stratagem makes the deny effectively much shorter range.

As an aside. Just because a stratagem is the same in two books doesn't mean they should be costed the same.

Auspex Scan in a book which has large units and lots of shooting is much stronger than in a book with small units and weaker shooting. Same for unit cost. A counter assault unit in a shooting faction is arguably more valuable than a counter assault unit in an assault based faction.

In the case of Grey Knights, making them counter psykers even harder than they already do probably isn't good for game balance.

You need to consider the faction holistically when pricing stratagems and units.

 Mushkilla wrote:

 IanMalcolmAbs wrote:

Well the army is literally all psykers so - not really harder to pull off. Probably needs to cost 2 CP.

You say that, personally I much prefer the grey knights stratagem. It's easier to pull off making it more reliable.

The Sorcerous Master special rule means measure denies from our aspiring sorcerer models not from the unit, so it's harder to pull off than you think. The great powers of the game like doom are often 24" range so I find the trigonometry of the thousands sons stratagem makes the deny effectively much shorter range.

As an aside. Just because a stratagem is the same in two books doesn't mean they should be costed the same.

Auspex Scan in a book which has large units and lots of shooting is much stronger than in a book with small units and weaker shooting. Same for unit cost. A counter assault unit in a shooting faction is arguably more valuable than a counter assault unit in an assault based faction.

In the case of Grey Knights, making them counter psykers even harder than they already do probably isn't good for game balance.

You need to consider the faction holistically when pricing stratagems and units.

Totally disagree. Stratagem does the same thing. Needs to cost the same and vice versa. Most GK spells are 18 or less. It is possible to maybe snipe for a corner with a spell but...Typically with 1 super deny - it is going to go on something that is important and therefor will have the practically superfluous requirement of having 2 psykers within 6" of each other in a book that practically every entry is a psyker unit.

Not complaining specifically. GK have the edge in some other areas. It just seems so silly that the same stratagem +1 does not cost more. I guess they feel the requirement to exist on the table is big but it's not. What is big is practically auto denying a power for 1 CP.

GK get +1 to deny.

Average of 3D6 D1 +1 is 10. Average of 3D6 is 10.5

@IanMalcolmAbs,

The only psychic army that can match GK is Tsons. Honestly, I don't think you should quibble that much. Both strategems will have a high chance of denying a psychic. Besides, just about every youtube video I have watched has seen GK armies stomping Tsons armies. Maybe you should try out some GK vs Tsons games before coming to a conclusion about whether this strategem is unfair or a misprint or something.

Not every codex's strategems is the same. Like hey, I think Tsons would love enriched rounds from Admech or Galvanic volley fire that increases the number of shots by a squad by so much. Instead, our Infernal Fusilade strategem increases our number of bolter shots by ... 10 shots max even with a full squad. So are we supposed to cry about how unfair that is? lol


Automatically Appended Next Post:
btw, what do you guys think about Nortilith crown? Its only 85 points and it gives a 6 inch aura that increases to 12 inches. We don't care much for the 5++ invul aura unless we run some cultists. But the other effect of the aura is that chaos psykers can reroll psychic tests.

Given the number of psykers we have in a Tsons army... that strikes me as pretty powerful. Imagine turning all our psykers within the Nortilith crown's aura into mini-Ahrimans.... lol

I mean, they can target and kill it, but its just 85 points. Its like the cost of a Rhino but with 14W and T8 instead.

Do we need to pay 1 CP for a fortification like Nortilith Crown? Or is a Tsons army also considered chaos and so we don't need to pay that 1 cp.

It breaks purity, so you'd really never want to use it, getting the occasional reroll isn't worth losing rituals. Even if you could, the aura isn't very useful, because it locks you down too much re: where your psykers can be to get the effect.

yukishiro1 wrote:
It breaks purity, so you'd really never want to use it, getting the occasional reroll isn't worth losing rituals. Even if you could, the aura isn't very useful, because it locks you down too much re: where your psykers can be to get the effect.

Ah, it breaks purity? Sad to know. Ah well, I guess that's only an option for soup chaos Tsons lists then. I have to say, having a massive 12 inch radius aura of psychic rerolls for a Tsons army sounds pretty powerful... lol That's easily a 27 to 28 inch diameter circle. Which would pretty much cover like two thirds of the board. lol

It has to be deployed in your deployment zone, and the deployment rules are really finicky re: where you can actually put it down due to having to be 3" or more from other terrain. And if you somehow do get it in a good spot, your opponent can always just kill it.

It's one of those things that looks good on paper but when you start actually trying to use it in practice, it just doesn't really work. If might be interesting if you could plunk it down in the middle of the table or something, but you can't.

Sooo... I was going through the TS part of the Kill team compendium and was wondering: which would be the best place to start a proper TS tactics thread for KT ?

I know not everyone is into the game mode and the army options still aren't very complex. But still, it would be nice to talk about it ! Especially since we look pretty strong from a bird's eye view (full reroll on the Tzaangor blades, the ability to shoot twice globally for a CP, mean looking psy powers, etc ...).

So where do you think we should post it ? Make a new thread in Tactics ?

Maybe rather in the specialist forum ?

For fluff and collection reasons, I probably won't be using Magnus, lots of daemon princes, or most of our other MCs and vehicles. My collection looks loosely like:

* Ahriman and some other sorcerers
* About 15 rubricae.
* 20 Tzaangor
* A whole bunch of cultists.
* 2 rhinos
* 1 land raider

Seems like I don't have much in the way of high-strength hammer blows, so my plan is to go Cult of Duplicity and use Sorcerous Facade, the Umbralethic Crystal, and strats to movement block the enemy with cultists/tzaangor while the rubrics and sorcerers pull off secondaries.

Around turn 2 or 3 when my speedbumps run out of steam, the sorcerers and rubricae will collapse in on the advancing enemy. Hopefully one good turn of focus-fired warp flamers and witchfire powers will leave me at enough of an advantage to win a more straight-forward fight from there.

To those of you with more experience with the army than a newbie like me, is this plan viable in a casual-but-sometimes-optimized environment? Or do I really need to invest in some heavy hitters?

P.S. My hope with the land raider and maybe rhinos is to use them to physically block line of sight to the rubricae while they Mutate Landscapes and Burn Empires. A landraider seems like it can be pretty tough if you spend a couple CP on it in your opponent's shooting phase.

Wyldhunt wrote:
For fluff and collection reasons, I probably won't be using Magnus, lots of daemon princes, or most of our other MCs and vehicles. My collection looks loosely like:

* Ahriman and some other sorcerers
* About 15 rubricae.
* 20 Tzaangor
* A whole bunch of cultists.
* 2 rhinos
* 1 land raider

Seems like I don't have much in the way of high-strength hammer blows, so my plan is to go Cult of Duplicity and use Sorcerous Facade, the Umbralethic Crystal, and strats to movement block the enemy with cultists/tzaangor while the rubrics and sorcerers pull off secondaries.

Around turn 2 or 3 when my speedbumps run out of steam, the sorcerers and rubricae will collapse in on the advancing enemy. Hopefully one good turn of focus-fired warp flamers and witchfire powers will leave me at enough of an advantage to win a more straight-forward fight from there.

To those of you with more experience with the army than a newbie like me, is this plan viable in a casual-but-sometimes-optimized environment? Or do I really need to invest in some heavy hitters?

P.S. My hope with the land raider and maybe rhinos is to use them to physically block line of sight to the rubricae while they Mutate Landscapes and Burn Empires. A landraider seems like it can be pretty tough if you spend a couple CP on it in your opponent's shooting phase.

You should be ok. Keep the buffs up on the landraider and it will take a ton of heat for you. Also, load those rhinos up with max guns and they'll do some good work.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Oh one other thing. I don't think you have enough to make Facade worthwhile since rhinos will be carrying you. Maybe consider a different cult.

Are Rhinos with a bunch of guns legit? My only experience with them was back in 5th ed when they were only like 40 points. So for like a hundo points now you can have a Rhino with 2 combi bolters and a havoc launcher?

 odorofdeath wrote:
Are Rhinos with a bunch of guns legit? My only experience with them was back in 5th ed when they were only like 40 points. So for like a hundo points now you can have a Rhino with 2 combi bolters and a havoc launcher?

I think for Tsons, running empty Rhinos is actually a feasible tactic. Even a Tsons empty Rhinos is great. Its got enough good guns at AP 2 to be decent in shooting, and its got a 5++ save plus possible smokescreen if you are willing to use 1CP for it. And it helps to shield your characters if need be and it has great mobility (12 inch move). Stop thinking of the wasted transport space and consider it like a cheap tank and its great. Nobody says we absolutely have to put units into our Rhinos. And imagine your opponents having to actually consider whether to shoot an empty Rhino or not. I know most opponents would not really want to shoot that if they had better targets for their anti tank guns. lol

 odorofdeath wrote:
Are Rhinos with a bunch of guns legit? My only experience with them was back in 5th ed when they were only like 40 points. So for like a hundo points now you can have a Rhino with 2 combi bolters and a havoc launcher?

As a poor man's Razorback, Chaos Rhinos can sorta do an ok job with that loadout. With 1KSons they get an Invul, so they're actually far better in that role than most people would think.

I wonder if a Tsons list with 4 Rhinos would be interesting. Just to have the 4 Rhinos rush up to the midboard and then clog it up with 40W T7 5++. If they take an extra combi melta, that's 6 inferno shots and 1 melta shot each turn from 1 Rhino. And these guns will keep firing even if the Rhino is engaged in combat. Meanwhile, as the Rhino provide a metal box wall, this will allow the list's psykers to smite and cast witchfire safely from a distance into whoever they are engaged in combat with.

Ultimately, if they die, they die. They are just Rhinos. But I am pretty sure our opponent would feel bad devoting his firepower towards killing them.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
@IanMalcolmAbs,

The only psychic army that can match GK is Tsons. Honestly, I don't think you should quibble that much. Both strategems will have a high chance of denying a psychic. Besides, just about every youtube video I have watched has seen GK armies stomping Tsons armies. Maybe you should try out some GK vs Tsons games before coming to a conclusion about whether this strategem is unfair or a misprint or something.

Not every codex's strategems is the same. Like hey, I think Tsons would love enriched rounds from Admech or Galvanic volley fire that increases the number of shots by a squad by so much. Instead, our Infernal Fusilade strategem increases our number of bolter shots by ... 10 shots max even with a full squad. So are we supposed to cry about how unfair that is? lol


Automatically Appended Next Post:
btw, what do you guys think about Nortilith crown? Its only 85 points and it gives a 6 inch aura that increases to 12 inches. We don't care much for the 5++ invul aura unless we run some cultists. But the other effect of the aura is that chaos psykers can reroll psychic tests.

Given the number of psykers we have in a Tsons army... that strikes me as pretty powerful. Imagine turning all our psykers within the Nortilith crown's aura into mini-Ahrimans.... lol

I mean, they can target and kill it, but its just 85 points. Its like the cost of a Rhino but with 14W and T8 instead.

Do we need to pay 1 CP for a fortification like Nortilith Crown? Or is a Tsons army also considered chaos and so we don't need to pay that 1 cp.

I think the situation is: Thousand Sons has army wide buff in casting psychic powers, and have very strong shooting. GK has army wide buff to denying Psychic Powers, and have certain stratagem in further enhancing their denying ability, they also has stronger melee capabilities and basically everybody is carrying mastercrafted power sword that is the ban of Rubric Marines.

So, I think Thousand Sons actually will do good against a much wider spectrum of opponent than GK, as their army wide buff will be much more useful than GK in most situation. However, if you are talking the specific match up of Tsons VS GK, then GK do have a slight edge. Well, the point is if GK sword units rushed into Tsons line (especially the Reapier Brotherhood), then Tsons are in great trouble, on the other hand, if GK failed that 9" charge, then GK is doomed in the face of hundreds of AP-2 shots.

With the rhinos don’t forget the havoc launcher. With melta that is six bolted one melta and d6 s5 blast shots. I think that is 95 points. Yea I think just two would be really good blocking lanes.

If only we could put tgors in them. Pray to tzeentch for that restriction to be an oversight not intended and for an faq.

DreadfullyHopeful wrote:
Sooo... I was going through the TS part of the Kill team compendium and was wondering: which would be the best place to start a proper TS tactics thread for KT ?

I know not everyone is into the game mode and the army options still aren't very complex. But still, it would be nice to talk about it ! Especially since we look pretty strong from a bird's eye view (full reroll on the Tzaangor blades, the ability to shoot twice globally for a CP, mean looking psy powers, etc ...).

So where do you think we should post it ? Make a new thread in Tactics ?

Maybe rather in the specialist forum ?

I would say start a thread in the Other GW games section would be the best place for Kill Team Id wager.

Hey there folks, quick question:

How viable is running an all or mostly dark-mechanicum list with the new codex? You know a lot of forgefiends, maulerfiends, hellbrutes, that sort of thing.

Can it be done in a reasonably competitive manner?

leerm02 wrote:

Hey there folks, quick question:

How viable is running an all or mostly dark-mechanicum list with the new codex? You know a lot of forgefiends, maulerfiends, hellbrutes, that sort of thing.

Can it be done in a reasonably competitive manner?

I think all the daemon engines have been improved and with hellbrutes now having a 5++, they are definitely viable. For thematic purposes, you could certainly try it out. Actually, if you want to at least have a good go at winning with VP. I think we can stick to a few strategies.

1. Have your psykers protected by a tough deathball (be it daemon engines or hellbrutes). You can even hide this deathball behind obscuring cover for most of the game. Venturing out only on turn 3/4 onwards. Once Tsons characters have 4 to 5 turns to do their thing, you should have done decent damage on your opponent in MW already.

2. This deathball then allows you to do two thing. One, have a fast psyker on a disk (Ahriman, exalted Rehati sorcerer) fly forward, cast multiple withfire spells and then temporal surge back into safety. This allows you to lob witchfire spells beyond 18 inches while staying in safety behind obscuring and protected by your deathball.

3. You can also have a dedicated psyker (like a shaman) do psychic actions every turn. Whether this is warp ritual, mental interrogation. It should be one of the warpcraft secondaries. Because if you are playing Tsons and not taking a warpcraft secondary... well.. lets just say it would be a waste.

4. Take cult of duplicity as one of your cults. This lets you cast sorcerous facade and yeet a rubric squad each turn where ever you want. One min rubric squad yeeted into your opponent's rear objective and cast doombolt for 3MW, and then follow up with a 3MW + 1d3 MW smite by spending 2 CP on two strategems: Malefic scroll and Great Sorcerer. That's 6+d3 MW damage plus shooting every turn if you yeet a rubric squad every turn. It allows you to keep the pressure on all parts of your opponent's zone. Unless he can spread out to cover his entire deployment zone, it is going to hard to stop this strategy. This strategy also allows you to take secondaries like engage on all fronts.

5. Depending on your army list, the deathball core mentioned in point 1 allows you to take the "To the last secondary". Because your most expensive units are likely to be your ahriman or Rehati sorcerors, and your deathball unit. Once you lose that deathball, you probably lose the game anyway. A Tsons army without its castors is just rough. And the zooming, teleporting exalted sorcerer means you don't need to risk this deathball in the open. Just keep it safe and let your MW do the work over time.

5. The rest can then be spent on whatever you want for flavour (in this case, it can be your dark mechanicum thematic daemon engines and hellbrutes).

So here's something I would suggest based on the above strategies.

Cult of Duplicity Patrol

Ahriman on disk -
Daemon Prince

Full Warpflamer Rubric squads x 3
Occult terminator squad with soulreaper cannon

Tzaangor Enlightened Shaman

Chaos Spawn

Maulerfiend with cutters x 2

Cult of whatever you want patrol

Infernal Master

Rubric squad = hold home objective

Tzaangor squads - hold home objective

2 Hellbrutes with Multimelta, infernal combi bolters

Mauler fiend with cutters.

So, with this list, you can have 2 Hellbrutes and 3 Mauler fiends. Your to the last is Ahriman, the DP, the Occult squad which you can keep behind obscuring as your deathball. The shaman does rituals like warp ritual. The cult of duplicity squads can be teleported into the back field for engage on all fronts and to trade inflict MW and trade. And your three Mauler fiends and the single chaos spawn can also run up the board for engage as well. And if they die, no harm done. They are meant to die. The 2 Hellbrutes can either stay with your deathball to further protect it, or move forward shooting and fighting when you have whittled your opponent down.

And the whole army has 3x Maulerfiends and 2 Hellbrutes for a "dark mechanicus" theme.

Even if you traded away all three rubric warpflamer squads, all your 3 Maulerfiends, 2 hellbrutes. As long as you sat on two objectives all game and did your three secondaries, and survive with your deathball. You should get pretty high VP and 40 in primary.

I suppose you could cut some points some places and go with forgefiends instead, but this complicates your to the last secondary. You would need to upgrade to a DP with wings. But its still doable. Just need to be creative and even more ruthless about cutting points from other parts of the list. I like the 3x Mauler fiend idea better. Because Maulerfiends are big and in your face. Your opponent can ignore a forgefiend but there is no way he can ignore a Maulerfiend charging into his army.

Hey Folks,

I played another game on the Weekend.
My List was like:
Magnus
Ahriman
Exalted
Prince with plate
2x5 termis
4x5 marines
15? Gors

I Played against Space Wolves and won 8x to 42.
I think Magnus is awesome….. ofc he is expensive, but he ate much Fire and killed 2 termi troups just with smite. (Yeah, i did not buff him cause i wanted that termis dead)

I shocked my termis into his side and dealt decent damage, but i thought they would be better in close combat….. 5 wulfen? Killed both troups in 2 rounds. They did there Job and got a lot of attention.
Was a Great game and i need a lot of Games to learn the new gimmicks!