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So many people seem so psyched about the Screamerstar. I asked myself the question, is the Screamerstar something to be feared?

The main reason for this question is the Grimoire. The nature on this item lets the unit get better 2/3 of the times, and worse 1/3 of the time. A 5++ round will basically let the unit get killed in one single round of shooting.

Also the unit is easily tarpitted, unless it Turbo Boost, and wastes a whole valuable round of shooting. Wraithknights, Wraitlords, Riptides, Rotflies, Scarabds etc will ruin the units day.

You also have 800 pts invested in a units that is only able to kill a single unit every round. Any time they turbo boost, you waste 4x2 Phsycic powers. Which in turn can be denied at a 6+ by any ordinary unit and a 5/4 + if there is a Librarian within 12". I for one would think that a unit that dosent score, need to take their points back with killingsmanship, ige kill 133 pts every round for 6 rounds.

And example could be killing a wave seprent. If I saw a screamerstar aproching, I would turbo boost the hell out of there. If he follows, he risk being in a posistion he cant shoot next round, wasting over half his army in a silly position.

The nature of daemons and their items, makes 1/6 rounds with a 5++ and 1/12 round a 3++ with the grimoire.

I for one, do not fear the Screamerstar.

The scremerstar is a bit tougher than you think. They have the grimoire, which boosts their invul to 3++ from the base of the daemon rule. However, where the star shines is the fact that it rolls a ton of psykers that roll on divination for the 4++ invul to a squad power. This changes the grimoire buff to a 2++, and because of the Tzeentch special rule turns into a 2++ with re-roll fails. This makes it almost impossible to remove the unit. As for the grimiore itself, the screamer star usually takes the special character that allows one single die re-roll per turn, and it's saved for the grimiore. Also, being that everything that makes the scream star scary is a blessing, it cannot be denied.

You should also read the screamer entry in the daemons book. They have a nifty rule allowing them to hit stuff they turbo-boost over. Being that they're all jetbikes, that's a really big turbo boost.

 knightofkob wrote:
So many people seem so psyched about the Screamerstar. I asked myself the question, is the Screamerstar something to be feared?

The main reason for this question is the Grimoire. The nature on this item lets the unit get better 2/3 of the times, and worse 1/3 of the time. A 5++ round will basically let the unit get killed in one single round of shooting.

Also the unit is easily tarpitted, unless it Turbo Boost, and wastes a whole valuable round of shooting. Wraithknights, Wraitlords, Riptides, Rotflies, Scarabds etc will ruin the units day.

You also have 800 pts invested in a units that is only able to kill a single unit every round. Any time they turbo boost, you waste 4x2 Phsycic powers. Which in turn can be denied at a 6+ by any ordinary unit and a 5/4 + if there is a Librarian within 12". I for one would think that a unit that dosent score, need to take their points back with killingsmanship, ige kill 133 pts every round for 6 rounds.

And example could be killing a wave seprent. If I saw a screamerstar aproching, I would turbo boost the hell out of there. If he follows, he risk being in a posistion he cant shoot next round, wasting over half his army in a silly position.

The nature of daemons and their items, makes 1/6 rounds with a 5++ and 1/12 round a 3++ with the grimoire.

I for one, do not fear the Screamerstar.

This is why you have Fateweaver to always ensure that you have that reroll, and forewarning to turn that 3++ into a 2++ rerollable with someone to bring on the presience for rerolls to hit. Along with four pimped out heralds in the unit because feth you. Not to mention they get free hits against anything caught in their massive turboboost range.

This makes for a death star that defeats anything it touches whenever it wants unless someone snipes the herald out.

The tubo boost charge only does s5 ap - hits, which is bad for 800 pts. And even though it kills everything it touches, it will not be enough in most cases, MSU and so on with a lot of scoring bodies will make them not do much most of the battle. And against T 8 and swarms, they dont have much going for them.

 knightofkob wrote:
The tubo boost charge only does s5 ap - hits, which is bad for 800 pts. And even though it kills everything it touches, it will not be enough in most cases, MSU and so on with a lot of scoring bodies will make them not do much most of the battle. And against T 8 and swarms, they dont have much going for them.

You essentially force the enemy to have to deal with this unit before it gobbles up their army one unit at a time, which it can when you pimp out the heralds with gear. And when your scoring units are horrors going to ground for a 3++ save they can reroll on ones you can be reasonably sure in their safety.

I threw 2k points of nothing but Biker Nobs at this 800 pt unit. The result was I believe one wound on the Screamers, and all the Nobs died

I echo Mulletdude on how it's harder to kill than you think, but with regards to missions and actually winning the game, there's more to it than just 'moar troops!'

The Screamerstar is excellent in Purge the Alien. It denies a lot of kill points for the opponent and has the mobility, fire power and close combat ability to wipe out vulnerable units.

It's also scoring in The Scouring. So, there's that.

In The Relic, you can park the Screamers on the relic to basically deny it to your opponent, and then win on secondaries. Or, you can pull the ultimate dick move, and do the "That Can't Possibly be Right, Let Me Check the Rules Book" move. Join an IC to a scoring unit, grab the relic with the IC, leave the unit and join the Screamers, win game.

In The Emperor's Will, you can basically deny one of the objectives to your opponent without him being able to do anything about it.

That's four out of six missions, where the Screamerstar provides serious support for mission objectives.

As for the two others, at the very least you are guaranteed linebreaker plus most likely also denying one objective.

I'd say all that makes for 800 points well spent.

The star can also shoot 12d6 s6 ap4 shots that will most likely reroll to hit and ignore cover. It has lots of ap2 close combat attacks, can throw out huge numbers of str4 attacks (4 attacks and a hammer each on the charge). And to top it all off, the only real counter to it is space wolves.

And luck. The star doesn't function in 1 in 9 games. And the grimoire fails 1 in 9 rounds.

As for "getting its points back", it should be able to delete 1 unit a turn, 2-3 if they can get a multi charge.

So, question here: does anyone actually enjoy playing with or against this unit, or is this one of those balance/playtesting mistakes that you only bring when you need to win a major tournament?

Actually SW are not the only answer to the screamer star.
- a vindicare assassin with icarius can one shot the herald
- if the daemon player does not start, either he keeps the unit in reserve (then it will do less damage as it will arrive T2 at best) or keep it on the board where i will be heavily focused by any army with at least some Alpha Strike capacity.
- A GK Stormraven for the missiles on the heralds
- barrage to snipe the herald (manticore comes to mind^^)

 Peregrine wrote:
So, question here: does anyone actually enjoy playing with or against this unit ?

Did anyone enjoy playing Starcraft with "Power Overwhelming" on ? Well, when I was 15 I did... Then I grew up. So I guess some people probably enjoy having an unkillable unit that will destroy anything it touches. Hopefully, they'll grow up too.

I can see it being a pain in tournaments since you have no choice but to play the game, but in friendly games I would simply refuse and find another player.

2+ rerollable is no joke. For all intents and purposes 2++ rerollable is invulnerable to taking wounds.

That being said the list has weaknesses.

Without fateweaver it has a 1/3 chance of the grimoire failing, and the grimoire can't protect fateweaver if it's protecting the screamer star. Killing fateweaver is a heavy blow.

Space wolves, nids, and fiends offer powerful stops to psychic shenanigans. Nids is a huge uphill battle because flyrants can waste fateweaver or dump the star into shadow of the warp. A dogpile list with fiends disruptive song can also be difficult to deal with. A slaneesh herald can also force the herald with the grimoire to accept a challenge

A riptide with it's 3++ invo can tarpit the screamer star. It takes 9 hits from lamprey's bite or 18 s4 ap2 hits to inflict a single wound. It's also pretty futile to try to injure a TMC with Iron arm, and failing to kill it in cc places the star in shadow of the warp.

The star is really tough when it works, but it has some real hard counters that wreck it. In a GT the only real defense it has against being eaten by nids is dumb luck in not having to play nids.

Fateweaver will start in reserve and fly off as soon as he can. His rerolls still work while off the table. A riptide should expect 8-12 str5 ap2 attacks hitting on 3s and retooling to hit. This works out to around 3-5 wounds a round of combat and should force morale checks most rounds.

Fiends will be the first target to kill, and at best they will stop the 2++, but this will not be enough to stop them. Even 3++ with rerolling 1s is really hard to kill. Shadows in the warp will stop forewarning as well, but is again going to be the priority.(as it almost always is).

Vindicares are not hard to kill, and once down the heralds won't be threatened, just deploy out of line of aight with theimportant heralds. Barrage does present a problem as this can snipe the herald, which means they will probably be reserved and can impact their effectiveness.

Heralds of slaanesh can be a problem, but if you let it near your unit you are doing something wrong, screamers move faster. Not to mention the many ways to avoid challenges.

Gk stormravens are rarely seen (at least in my area) and can be avoided by locking into combat quickly. But they do pose a threat I didn't think of.

I see space wolves being the only real threat, and nids an inconvinience. The 4+ shutdown on psychic powers in a 24" bubble on 4 models in the army will stop the shooting as well as blessings. 2+ wounding daemon force staves, and decent basic troops with enough attacks to drown the screamers in wounds once they reach combat.

But this is besides the point, screamerstar doesn't work in a gt becaus if you don't get forewarning (only around 90% chance), it falls apart quickly. There is ~400 points spent in heralds that are only there to give better odds of forewarning

Fateweaver is necessary to make the ScreamerStar effective. 1/9 failed Grimiore thanks to his reroll plus a reroll on the Warp Storm Table.

That being said, ScreamerStar is not a reliable list for winning large tournaments for a couple of reasons.

The Star is unreliable: Listed in order of liklihood.

50% chance opposing player gets to go first and shoot the ScreamerStar.

Forewarning is not a guarantee. Maximum chance of success assuming two rolls and a Flickering Fires Primaris for the third choice on four ML3 Heralds(510pts minimum). 20% of not getting Forewarning. Can be higher at the cost of Flickering Fire, Maximum of 94% chance for forewarning at the cost of all Flickering Fires. Most will not be running four Heralds, 3 is more likely, 30% and 12% respectively.

11% chance of failing the Grimiore.

LD10 Psychic test has a 8% chance of failure. Yes, they manifest at Ld+3, but Ld can not be increased beyond 10.

A single RunePriest stands a strong chance of stopping the list and what SW player is bringing only one?

A single GK Stormraven is capable of sniping the Grimiore Holder thanks to PitW, two is very likely to.

An opposing Grimiore can just as easily nullify your ScreamerSstar.

SitW hurts.

Grimiore Holder can be sniped out and does not benefit from the Increased Invulnerable Save.


Now, in games where everything goes as planned the ScreamerStar is virtually unstoppable, difficult to tarpit, and capable of pacmanning an opposing list. It takes a very good player to be able to mitigate all of those potentials to fail ie deployment, placement, tactical retreats, etc.

Over the course of a 5 game GT, the Screamerstar is likely to fail against one opponent and good opponents will capitalize upon that mistake. In standard, the Screamerstar is 890-1035pts for the Screamers, Fateweaver, and three or four Heralds.

IMO FMC spam and Grimiore multi Khornedog Rush is scarier and more reliable IMO.

Large tourney with 6+ games will be hard to win. One bad round and your screamerstar falls on its face.

For local 3 round RTTs, you might be in for a big surprise if you face one. Its not uncommon to get that luck on your side for 3 games in a row.

xera32 wrote:
Fateweaver will start in reserve and fly off as soon as he can. His rerolls still work while off the table. A riptide should expect 8-12 str5 ap2 attacks hitting on 3s and retooling to hit. This works out to around 3-5 wounds a round of combat and should force morale checks most rounds.

Fiends will be the first target to kill, and at best they will stop the 2++, but this will not be enough to stop them. Even 3++ with rerolling 1s is really hard to kill. Shadows in the warp will stop forewarning as well, but is again going to be the priority.(as it almost always is).

Vindicares are not hard to kill, and once down the heralds won't be threatened, just deploy out of line of aight with theimportant heralds. Barrage does present a problem as this can snipe the herald, which means they will probably be reserved and can impact their effectiveness.

Heralds of slaanesh can be a problem, but if you let it near your unit you are doing something wrong, screamers move faster. Not to mention the many ways to avoid challenges.

Gk stormravens are rarely seen (at least in my area) and can be avoided by locking into combat quickly. But they do pose a threat I didn't think of.

I see space wolves being the only real threat, and nids an inconvinience. The 4+ shutdown on psychic powers in a 24" bubble on 4 models in the army will stop the shooting as well as blessings. 2+ wounding daemon force staves, and decent basic troops with enough attacks to drown the screamers in wounds once they reach combat.

But this is besides the point, screamerstar doesn't work in a gt becaus if you don't get forewarning (only around 90% chance), it falls apart quickly. There is ~400 points spent in heralds that are only there to give better odds of forewarning

12 swings will average 10.66 hits=3.5wounds=1.18 failed 3++ nova reactor invos. As long as the nova reactor doesn't flub it's roll that's a solid tarpit.

Fiends are a tricky unit. All they have to do is run close enough and disruptive song will stop the 4++ and prescience will fail. The fiends will probably have a 3++ invo from their own book, but even then a shooting phase would maul the unit. CC favors the fiends if they have a slaneesh herald. Herald o sla does a challenge against the herald o tze with the book, locus forces the herald o tze with the book to accept,and if he gets splattered the star loses its +2 to invos. A slaneesh herald with the locus that allows them to choose which herald must accept the challenge is doomsauce against a list dependent on the book being held by a fragile ic.

Im running it and I like it alot. One thing also to consider is it does alot of the heavy lifting, so if you concentrate on killing the rest of my army, you can possibly win the game. Of course thats easier said than done.

Im taking it to the Brawl in the Fall this weekend. Lets see how i do. It is only 3 rounds.

 Peregrine wrote:
So, question here: does anyone actually enjoy playing with or against this unit, or is this one of those balance/playtesting mistakes that you only bring when you need to win a major tournament?

Thats a negative. Right down there with the gunline builds, and anything else that relies heavily on a few lucky dice rolls (first turn etc)

 Peregrine wrote:
So, question here: does anyone actually enjoy playing with or against this unit, or is this one of those balance/playtesting mistakes that you only bring when you need to win a major tournament?

Nope,and the same goes with putting Grimmore on Fatewaver, to effectively stop this you need to get a lucky roll (yeah no tactics just one lucky roll to see if you can still have a chance of even competing for a full game) to get first turn and snipe the user who has the Grimmore, otherwise game effectively ends turn 1 and your watching yourself lose for 2-4 hours... and I'm a small daemons player

I have said, and will say again Competitive 40k is basically I-have-rules-hammer 40,000, does not reflect the spirit of 40k at all and because of how the rules are made, makes tourney experience a frustrating one, but then again this is just my opinion.

Putting a Grimoire on Fateweaver is not really a devastating result - you may not wound or kill him but you do not need to. You just need to ground him and then throw 100 points of meatshield into him and his 1 attack that hits most enemies on 5's. At that point he contributes his reroll, but that is about it.

The Screamerstar is more obnoxious, but no more so than the 10x Paladin lists and it is really bad against some armies. For example, Orks in a Battlewagon are going to run up, hope out and then chill for 4 turns while the miserable CC ability of the Screamers try to kill off 20 fearless models. Tyranids with Gaunts can accomplish the same thing.

That said, there are some armies it will just destroy which makes it really unfun to play against.

The top 2 finishers at Duel Con had screamer stars but it wasnt soley reliant on a giant death star. They didnt invest a whole ton of amount of points into them but kept their numbers up to be strong and ran khorne dogs/other support units. If you go against a player that doesnt miss a single grimoire/4++ cast then its going to be a rough game. Best advice for you is to try and limit how much they perform by not waste your shooting at them or assaulting them while they have everything up. The minute they fail grimoire/4++ cast/bad warpstorm roll is when you need to pounce on them.

It might be hypothetically scary, but realistically I think most demon lists rely on getting top notch invulnerable saves for a wider range of units than one deathstar. The really awesome thing about the grimoire is that if you feel like you don't need it one turn, you can use it to nerf your enemy's invulnerable save instead. I don't know how many people are aware of that

I dont know why people think screamerstar is so weak in CC...

they will CHEW threw ork boyz.

First they get an assload of S6 AP5 shooting that probably ignores cover. Almost 40 shots that are twinlinked and wound boyz on 2's. That will kill like a full 20 man squad of boyz.

Then they get almost 40 regular CC attacks also twinliked. Or almost 20 S5 AP2 twinlinked hits. Don't underestimate that offensive ability!

jakl277 wrote:

Then they get almost 40 regular CC attacks also twinliked. Or almost 20 S5 AP2 twinlinked hits. Don't underestimate that offensive ability!

Screamers can either take their normal attack (WS 3, S4) or make ONE S5 AP 2 attack (ohh I see you mean if thy charge a unit - debatable whether they get the bonus attack then)). A full 9 screamers does put out 3 attacks a turn - 27 attacks - but these are S4 and allow all saves.

With a lesser gift a herald can be better in CC, but those are S6 AP 4 attacks. The existence of this unit makes me want to run a Slaanesh Herald to force the Grimoire into a challenge.

The shooting attacks are AP 4 and will annihilate units in shooting, but for as many shots as you are talking, it is 600-800 points.

Lamprey Bite allows you to substitute your normal cc attacks for a single S5 AP2 attack. Normal attacks encompasses your A profile and any bonuses for multiple weapons, or charging, etc.

So you are getting only 9 S5 AP2 attacks, not almost 20.

I played against one for the first time and my opponent got 4++ Invuln from Divination. However, I won the roll to go first and he didn't steal. I had a Command Squad with 4 flamers attached to Vulcan with a Heavy Flamer. I got roughly 4-5 hits on each flamer and I had rerolls to wound.

Turn1, I dropped in and flamed the squad before Grim and before Psychic Power were casted. I killed all but 1 Screamer and the attached Herald. Those two models alone with 2++/reroll 1's kept a squad of Sternguard in combat for 2-3 turns and he rolled 1's and 2's for their strength all game.

For only being two models and rolling the worst strength possible, I'm terrified of that deathstar. I had the best possible outcome Turn1 and it still stopped a small portion of my army from shooting and required my Command and HQ's attention. Ugh.

My plan when facing them as Eldar is to throw a WK in there. Needing 6's to wound they should be occupied for a few turns. God forbid I roll Forewarning.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And to the poster above...2 regular Warp Spiders kept a 10 man Sternguard squad occupied in cc for the whole game. They were Fortuned and had a rerollable 3+.

If you have 4 heralds with disks all with greater etherblade you add a lot of s5 AP 2 attacks. Greater etherblade gives +1s and AP2. That totals to almost twenty on the charge.

The shooting attacks with a greater loci are s6. Divination gives ignore cover and rerolls.

Thud wrote:
In The Relic, you can park the Screamers on the relic to basically deny it to your opponent, and then win on secondaries. Or, you can pull the ultimate dick move, and do the "That Can't Possibly be Right, Let Me Check the Rules Book" move. Join an IC to a scoring unit, grab the relic with the IC, leave the unit and join the Screamers, win game.

Is that even possible? To hold onto the Relic when you are no longer scoring (i.e. when your IC leave a scoring unit to join the screamerstar)?

Saythings wrote:
I played against one for the first time and my opponent got 4++ Invuln from Divination. However, I won the roll to go first and he didn't steal. I had a Command Squad with 4 flamers attached to Vulcan with a Heavy Flamer. I got roughly 4-5 hits on each flamer and I had rerolls to wound.

Turn1, I dropped in and flamed the squad before Grim and before Psychic Power were casted. I killed all but 1 Screamer and the attached Herald. Those two models alone with 2++/reroll 1's kept a squad of Sternguard in combat for 2-3 turns and he rolled 1's and 2's for their strength all game.

For only being two models and rolling the worst strength possible, I'm terrified of that deathstar. I had the best possible outcome Turn1 and it still stopped a small portion of my army from shooting and required my Command and HQ's attention. Ugh.

Sorry, but your tactic was illegal. How did you "drop" in with them on Turn 1? It isn't possible unless you've got a librarian with Gate of Infinity with that unit as well.

 Peregrine wrote:
So, question here: does anyone actually enjoy playing with or against this unit, or is this one of those balance/playtesting mistakes that you only bring when you need to win a major tournament?

The screamerstar is about as much fun to play against as the deldar seer council.

jakl277 wrote:
If you have 4 heralds with disks all with greater etherblade you add a lot of s5 AP 2 attacks. Greater etherblade gives +1s and AP2. That totals to almost twenty on the charge.

The shooting attacks with a greater loci are s6. Divination gives ignore cover and rerolls.

For even more s5 ap2 attacks slap on a lesser reward for another etherblade to get an extra attack from having 2 specialist weapons


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jy2 wrote:

Saythings wrote:
I played against one for the first time and my opponent got 4++ Invuln from Divination. However, I won the roll to go first and he didn't steal. I had a Command Squad with 4 flamers attached to Vulcan with a Heavy Flamer. I got roughly 4-5 hits on each flamer and I had rerolls to wound.

Turn1, I dropped in and flamed the squad before Grim and before Psychic Power were casted. I killed all but 1 Screamer and the attached Herald. Those two models alone with 2++/reroll 1's kept a squad of Sternguard in combat for 2-3 turns and he rolled 1's and 2's for their strength all game.

For only being two models and rolling the worst strength possible, I'm terrified of that deathstar. I had the best possible outcome Turn1 and it still stopped a small portion of my army from shooting and required my Command and HQ's attention. Ugh.

Sorry, but your tactic was illegal. How did you "drop" in with them on Turn 1? It isn't possible unless you've got a librarian with Gate of Infinity with that unit as well.

Its called a drop pod