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I'm wondering about the following Daemon unit. I know it comes up to an insane number of points (about 800!) but I was wonding if it's legal, and if so what sort of things would be able to take it out?

The unit would be:

4 * Herald of Tzeentch, Disc, Level 3 Mastery. 1 with Greater Locus, 1 with Grimoire
10 Screamers

Each of the four heralds would take the Tzeentch primaris power plus 2 rolls on the Divination table. The idea is to get the 4+ invulnerable power, and whilst I've not worked out the probabilities, four heralds each rolling twice on the table should pretty much guarantee at least one gets it?

The unit can then cast a 4+ invuln, boost it to a 2+ with the Grimoire and be rerolling the 1's, making it pretty much invincible on any turns that it has both the power and Grimoire in effect. It's a jetbike unit, which gives it good mobility, and in terms of offence, each of the Heralds can put out a minumum of 2D6 str 6 ap4 shots. There's a good chance they'll have access to most of the divination powers to help support the Tzeentch shooting attacks. Flyers can be threatened by weight of fire, although for the most part they could just be ignored. For close combat, the screamers put out a decent number of attacks, and they have their AP2 armourbane attacks against vehicles. If you wanted to target multiple units it's possible to have one or more herald detach from the unit (it would still keep it's boosted invulnerable for the rest fo the turn as far as I can work out) and rejoin and hide amoung the screamers till it get get buffed again.

So, is it a legal tactic, and if so what would cause it issues? Main one I can think of in anti psyker stuff (although with the loss of runes that's less of an issue) and heralds killing themselves with perils. Warpstorm table could also be an issue. You could run it with Kairos (and this would make the Grimoire more reliable too) but that's even more points.

Gromoire can fail, invo goes back to a 5+, and the unit gets slaughtered by volume ofirire.

Space wolves still have 24" on their nullify.

With this unit and Kairos Fateweaver, that's almost 2/3 of his army in 1 unit.

Before the Eldar codex it was pretty much nullified by a farseer with runes of warding.

Tyranids with Shadow in the Warp have a good chance too.

Still, volume of fire.. or run in and charge and challenge the heralds one by one, keeping it tied up.

It's only with the new Eldar codex that I've been looking at psyker based armies again, and yeah, it's a lot of points.

Shadow in the Warp is on 12" range, so less worried about that than the Space Wolves one at 24".

In close combat Screamers are 3 attacks each, so depending on what charges it, it might be tied up in CC less than you might think.

Grimoire fails then it's a jetbike unit that can go 36" to get out of range of volume of fire. Admittedly if it's in CC when it fails it's in trouble.

I meant charge a character in there and keep challenging the heralds. The heralds are quite bad in combat and a suitably buff character could keep the unit up forever.

I suppose a single character could cause trouble - especially a MC. Again, it's a fairly mobile unit that would hopefully be able to avoid that - def a risk tho.

Other than a select few special characters, you can always just refuse the challenge.
The real "weakness" is that the 800 point unit will be stuck with a 5++ 33% of the time. And although it's very likely, you'll only get Forewarning about 80% of the time (and then there's still a small chance to just fail the psychic test).

That unit works superb, i was playing with flying DP, and this is much better, but you must have some other things in lists. Mine is 3 heralds, with grim and port, and 9 screamers, 15 demonettes with herald ( so if im in combat he comes and helps, kairos (for reroll grim), DP ( with Black Mace), hell drake, 10 PB, 10 cultists. Played 7 games all won with tabling opponents ( TAU- all shooting with 3 riptides, and 3*3 broadside with missiles, SM with 3 land raiders with terminators, wraithwing, GK with 3 dexters and draigo bomb)

If it's just a single character that charges me, I'd be forced to accept the challenge and thus the whole unit would be tied up. Given it's a horrendously expensive unit anyway, I could give a Herald The Eternal Blade which would mean, along with the 'moral support' rerolls, he'd have a good chance of winning most challenges.

Including Fateweaver would reduce the chances of failing the Grimoire with his reroll. Even without forewarning the grimoire means a 3++ rerolling 1's which is pretty durable.

Probably more one to take for apocalype games tho...

Personnaly I prefer a herald/horror deathstar, aka the inspiration for Jy2's battle royale of deathstars, a few heralds in a 20 horror blob with grimoire and forewarning and a ton of str6 shots boosted with divination powers, yes it sucks in CC but with 2 plus re rollable they arent going to do, if you lose a few if the powers dont go off thats fine, you still have 19 more meat shield horrors there.

issue is going stuck in CC, which I usually send a greater or daemon prince in to help out ONLY if I have the grimoire on, multiple combats hurt prices and GD's with no grimoire on the gribbles.

RatGod wrote:
That unit works superb, i was playing with flying DP, and this is much better, but you must have some other things in lists. Mine is 3 heralds, with grim and port, and 9 screamers, 15 demonettes with herald ( so if im in combat he comes and helps, kairos (for reroll grim), DP ( with Black Mace), hell drake, 10 PB, 10 cultists. Played 7 games all won with tabling opponents ( TAU- all shooting with 3 riptides, and 3*3 broadside with missiles, SM with 3 land raiders with terminators, wraithwing, GK with 3 dexters and draigo bomb)

What points level was that at?

Sounds a good list. I'm always a bit relucatant to take Helldrakes tho - I was hoping to run a daemons only army.

I was thinking at 1750:

HQ
Kairos Fateweaver

Four Heralds of Tzeentch on Disc, Lvl 3 Mastery (one each with Greater Locus of Conjuration, Grimoire, Eternal Blade, 1 Lesser Reward) 580

Troops
10 Horrors 90

10 Horrors 90

Fast Attack
7 Screamers 175

Heavy Support
Demon Prince of Tzeentch, wings, Armour, Lvl 1 Psyk 255
Demon Prince of Tzeentch, wings, Armour, Lvl 1 Psyk 255





Automatically Appended Next Post:

MarkyMark wrote:
Personnaly I prefer a herald/horror deathstar, aka the inspiration for Jy2's battle royale of deathstars, a few heralds in a 20 horror blob with grimoire and forewarning and a ton of str6 shots boosted with divination powers, yes it sucks in CC but with 2 plus re rollable they arent going to do, if you lose a few if the powers dont go off thats fine, you still have 19 more meat shield horrors there.

issue is going stuck in CC, which I usually send a greater or daemon prince in to help out ONLY if I have the grimoire on, multiple combats hurt prices and GD's with no grimoire on the gribbles.

Idea of using Screamers and Heralds on Discs is it has a lot more mobility than Horrors. Screamers are also better in CC, so the Heralds do the shooting, Screamers for CC.

It's an All-In build in which one turn of not having grimoire or Warp Storm of 4 really screws over. Fatey somewhat mitigates this but it isn't quite as reliable as you think it will be.