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Thanks to being able to take 5 sorcerers in a single formation... let's make a deathstar!

5 Sorcerers all with mastery level 3, spell familiars, force axes, 4+ invul. Give one the reroll invul saves of 1 relic (-1 toughness doesn't matter since majority is 4).
Cypher for hit and run, shrouded.
Kharn for hitting invisible units
A single spawn

All in a land raider with Belakor slinging invis and shrouding on it.

Once the god squad is in the back field, it will want to roll up powers such as:
Hammerhand, Iron Arm, Endurance, Warp Speed, Force, prescience, etc.

Tons of strength 8-10 AP 2 Instant death goodness. Should easily fell a riptide per turn.

Oh and they can also cast Shroud of Deceit if need be.

::Edit:: It's likely you'll be rolling biomancy. Life leech is excellent here, healing any of the characters as they take damage, including the wound soaking spawn!

How many points is all that

IIRC, spawn can't go in land raiders.

Also, why are you not doing this with a conclave and casting on a 2+

Also also, you know land raiders are bad, right? Especially CSM ones?

Also also also, you've got 3 HQ's there, so that's at least a CAD and a daemons allied detatchment.

750 - 5x Sorcerors, ML3, Sigil, Spell familiar

350 - Belakor
45 - 3x Nurglings

160 - Kharn
190 - Cypher
50 - 10x Cultists
50 - 10x Cultists
230 - Land Raider

1825

You've got enough points to put extra armour, a dozer blade and a dirge caster on the raider, but that's it.

Enjoy losing, hard, against anyone that can kill 20 cultists and 3 nurglings.

Not to mention belakor is dead if he's not invisible and your opponent has any ignores cover available.

Conclave?

**EDIT: Turns out Cypher doesn't take up force org slots. So yeah you can have these 3 HQs.

-I think if you put the land raider behind anything + shrouding for 3+ cover, make it invisible w/ Belakor (have B fly and jink so he lives), and it has AV 14, you should be ok.
-After some thought, you only really need 3-4 sorcerers I think. 4 would be preferable.

If you go with 3, you could snag some zerkers or khorne CSM and make the unit objective secured. An icon would be nice for the unit too.
If you go with 4, you could grab some multilators (LOL). This might be the one instance where they're decent. They soak up 2 wounds, good armor, and their flexible weaponry do a lot of good for the unit. I'm not sure if they can hit and run though.

I think the 3 sorcerers + good assaulty troops might be best. You just might sweat a little more when rolling up powers. Getting a second invisibility might be high priority as a back up when belakor fails.

Here's a potential list (1750 points exactly)

PRIMARY
-------------
Belakor
Kharn
Cypher (no force org)

5 Berserkers, power axe for champ
10 Cultists
10 Cultists

Heldrake

Land Raider

**Cabal Formation**
Sorcerer (ML3, spell familiar, sigil of corruption, force axe)
Sorcerer (ML3, spell familiar, aura of dark glory, force axe)
Sorcerer (ML3, spell familiar, force axe)

Why cant the sorcerers have bikes? If they can take bikes then i would put them on bikes and use spawns as escorts.

Why force axe when iron arm gives smash for ap2? I would take a force Maul sinch its +1 Str. Iron Arm buff is +3 str and ap2. So now its Str+4 ap2. Essentially a Power fist at full initiative. You just need to activate force for instant death.

edit: wait is the mual +1 str or is it +2? Is the axe +2 str?

Like the ideas!

Well, I thought Cypher and Kharn were excellent additions to the star, so I opted out of the bikes + spawn.

The Maul does give +2 strength. I think if you went with 3 sorcerers, they would be divided between 3 disciplines: Santic Daemonlogy, Telepathy, and Biomancy. (Looking for Hammerhand, Invisibility, and.. well anything from Biomancy). So you can't bank on getting iron arm consistently for your one sorcerer.

**Edit**: Smash also is just one attack. Terrible imo. Stick with axes.

my bad but I thought that having the keyword Smash granted all attack besides Hammer of Wrath at ap2. It also allows for the option to trade all attacks for 1 single attack at 2x the Str.

Why do you need santic daemonology?

You need Telepathy for invis?

@crimson-caesar, no idea how you play it, but be'lakor got a new data sheet in the curse of the wulfen supplement, which states which faction he can be taken in, it's only chaos daemons now, so you can't take him as a CSM hq. I play it as you use the most upto date rules.

Minimanj wrote:
@crimson-caesar, no idea how you play it, but be'lakor got a new data sheet in the curse of the wulfen supplement, which states which faction he can be taken in, it's only chaos daemons now, so you can't take him as a CSM hq. I play it as you use the most upto date rules.

Do you also play that CSM can't take chaos space marines, cultists, maulerfiends, soulgrinders, daemon princes, rhinos, and chaos lords? Because those are in KDK and their entries don't say they can be taken in other armies. The same would apply to Chaos Daemons not being allowed to take bloodletters, flesh hounds, or bloodthirsters any more.

 lessthanjeff wrote:

Minimanj wrote:
@crimson-caesar, no idea how you play it, but be'lakor got a new data sheet in the curse of the wulfen supplement, which states which faction he can be taken in, it's only chaos daemons now, so you can't take him as a CSM hq. I play it as you use the most upto date rules.

Do you also play that CSM can't take chaos space marines, cultists, maulerfiends, soulgrinders, daemon princes, rhinos, and chaos lords? Because those are in KDK and their entries don't say they can be taken in other armies. The same would apply to Chaos Daemons not being allowed to take bloodletters, flesh hounds, or bloodthirsters any more.

Dataslate: Be'lakor is still for sale and still lists Be'lakor as available for Chaos Daemons or Chaos Space Marines. You'd need that version of the Datasheet to be able to take him in a Chaos Space Marines army. The Curse of the Wulfen version of the Datasheet is only available to Chaos Daemons. Both are viable, current rules as both can be purchased today from Games Workshop.

 crimson_caesar wrote:
Like the ideas!

Well, I thought Cypher and Kharn were excellent additions to the star, so I opted out of the bikes + spawn.

The Maul does give +2 strength. I think if you went with 3 sorcerers, they would be divided between 3 disciplines: Santic Daemonlogy, Telepathy, and Biomancy. (Looking for Hammerhand, Invisibility, and.. well anything from Biomancy). So you can't bank on getting iron arm consistently for your one sorcerer.

**Edit**: Smash also is just one attack. Terrible imo. Stick with axes.

Nope, smash hands out AP2 and the option to trade all your attacks for 1 at double strength.

Base str (4) + Maul (+2) + Iron Arm (+3) = Str 9 AP2 at initative. Have the fun times when you also roll warp speed and become a lascannon on space crack. Add force for the lulz.

I can't believe I missed that. Awesome. Still, on a single sorcerer, you only get 3 attempts to get iron arm. What happens if you don't get it? No AP 2. You could spend 15 more points and snag a quick power axe I suppose.

Santic
Hammerhand from Santic is huge. Now your iron arm sorcerers are striking with the power of a demolished cannon, axe or maul. It's brutal.

Weakness with the Raider
I only fear the invisible, shrouded land raider might not even be enough. It's totally possible, though unlikely, that a single D cannon hits, rolls a 6, and you fail your 3+. Now your transport is gone and you're foot slogging.

Bikers?
As such, a biker version of this looks a bit less appealing. You can't include Kharn... So no direct counter to invisibility or unbeatable AP (strength 9 gorechild would probably have Kharn cleaving through Knights by himself! :O). It's also nice he gave everyone hatred. I suppose you'd stop the opponents invisibility with your own dice?

Bike Version (would this be better?):

Sorcerer x4 on bike, spell familiar, sigil of corruption, 2 force axes, 2 Force staves, 2 power axes for Staff wielding sorcerers, ML 3.
5 (or as many as you can take) Bikers, MoK, Icon of Wrath, melta guns (maybe?)
Cypher

Cypher's hit and run is essential. He'd have to tag along behind the rest of the Death Star, but the formation could string along in a Congo line. I chose bikers over spawn just because of their Icon and meltaguns. Perhaps furious charge isn't worth it. You could swap them out for Nurgle spawn, making the majority toughness of the unit 6. Nasty.

The incredible power of this formation
I love the idea of hitting a wraithknight at full initiative, AP2, instant death, Strength 10. I'm certain it would wipe it off the map pretty easily.
This formation's offensive ability is some of the strongest I've ever seen in war hammer. It can kill invisible units (Kharn), It can kill wraith Knights with massed high strength AP2 ID attacks, it can hack through imperial Knights even.

NOT ONLY THAT, but you also will have plenty of offensive powers to use with the devastating close combat ability.

Since you have 3-5 sorcerers, with spell familiars, you always have the option to cast shroud of deceit for free if you need to. When pointed at the right target, you'll likely take out another enemy unit.
You also will have plenty of other powers. Psychic shriek, cleansing flame, smite, life leech, etc. These all can be shot at different targets, drastically increasing the damage output of this unit past annihilating a single unit in close combat.

This is truly the god squad. At least in offensive output and on paper lols. I'm only concerned about survivability a little.

 crimson_caesar wrote:
It can kill wraith Knights with massed high strength AP2 ID attacks, it can hack through imperial Knights even.

What's your plan when you don't get Hammerhand and Warp Speed, or only get Iron Arm on one or fewer guys.

Blessings cast by a unit of psykers that "Target the Psyker" effects the ENTIRE unit, so one guy with Iron Arm is enough iirc.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 crimson_caesar wrote:
It can kill wraith Knights with massed high strength AP2 ID attacks, it can hack through imperial Knights even.

What's your plan when you don't get Hammerhand and Warp Speed, or only get Iron Arm on one or fewer guys.

Here is the order of priority:
1. Hammer hand. Try it with 4 attempts then move on.
2. Endurance / Iron arm.

If you get them early, then you can try for a second invisibility if you feel like it. But most likely, you'll keep throwing dice at Biomancy. If you're running the bike/beast version, you'll have an extra psyker for more attempts. You're mainly shooting for Endurance and Iron Arm/Hammer hand, and you'd have 12 tries to get just one instance of each. You will most likely get them.

 Swampmist wrote:
Blessings cast by a unit of psykers that "Target the Psyker" effects the ENTIRE unit, so one guy with Iron Arm is enough iirc.

That would awesome, but I don't think that's how it works. The power specifically states "Whilst the power is in effect; THE PSYKER has +3 to his strength and toughness..." Compare that to Hammerhand, which specifically states "Whilst the power is in effect; THE PSYKER AND HIS UNIT have +2 strength." I wish it worked that way though.

Ah, so you have no plan then.

How many games are you willing to lose when you don't get/can't cast the powers you're counting on?

Also, hope you like eating a lot of perils with Sanctic. How will you lessen that impact?

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Ah, so you have no plan then.

How many games are you willing to lose when you don't get/can't cast the powers you're counting on?

Can't cast? Everyone minus Belakor have spell familiars. There are some spells you need to have cast, and so throw enough dice at it and you will almost certainly get it off.

A more reasonable critique is the getting powers that I don't want/need. But the good news is that most of the powers are useful in each discipline! Here are the worst combinations for each discipline:

Biomancy: Hemmorage + any other 2.
Just about everything in here is good. Sure, iron arm is better than enfeeble for our purposes for example, but each spell does the star a service. Ideally we'd like endurance and iron arm, but it's ok if we don't get them.

Essentially Biomancy options can be summarized from our spective as:
P: No bad to throw out with an extra warp charge (smite)
1. Major offensive buff (iron arm)
2. Minor offensive and defensive buff (enfeeble)
3. Healing (life leech)
4. Medium offensive buff (warp speed)
5. Major Defensive buff (endurance)
6. Bad (Hemmorage)

Santic Daemonology Purge Soul, Gate of Infinity, any non-Hammerhand.
If Santic flops and we get both of the two named above, the other spells are still quite useful. Sanctuary is a powerful buff. Cleansing flame is probably the best nova power in the game. Vortex of Doom is solid and devastating, and viable our spell familiars, but not ideal.

P: ...
1. Mobility buff (good for objectives if need be)
2. Strongest offensive buff (hh)
3. Major defensive buff (sanctuary)
4. Bad (purge soul) - best use would be a character sniper. Hopefully
5. Strong offensive spell (cleansing flame)
6. Strong offensive spell (vortex)

EDIT: After some thought, I think you keep rolling biomancy until you get 1 iron arm and one endurance. After that you attempt Santic for Hammerhand until you can't anymore.

I think on average the section of spells will be flexible enough to win the game as a death star. The more sorcerers, the better.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Perils: Life leech can heal the sorcerers back up. Another wise thing to do might be to take a roll on telepathy if you fail to get Hammerhand for your first two rolls. This gives the sorcerer at least psych shriek to toss out when he runs low on wounds. The player can use him to cast that and focus more on shroud of deceit if he got unlucky with his rolls.

You could also roll once on Bio first (hopefully get iron arm), if you fail to do so, roll again, if you don't roll on Santic. If both fail to do their job, roll on telepathy as your backup. Repeat for all three.

I could at some point this weekend write all possible combinations out and determine how likely it is to get the minimum powers you'd like, and how bad the worst spell combos are along with how I'd deal with them. That sounds a little excessive though xD

Its not really a deathstar when you have to rely on another unit for invisibility, if Belakor fails to cast invis or dies, your star will be in trouble. Unlike SM deathstars, the lack of apothecary makes your guys very soft, even with endurance. Without bikes, it is not very mobile and a sorcerer can get one shotted by S8 unless you get endurance off ofc.

And in ITC, invis is nerfed, so you can't really depend on that either. There are no models that can truly serve as a pure tank like a IH Smashfether, Draigo, or DA Black knights with re-roll jinks.

 SonsofVulkan wrote:
Its not really a deathstar when you have to rely on another unit for invisibility, if Belakor fails to cast invis or dies, your star will be in trouble. Unlike SM deathstars, the lack of apothecary makes your guys very soft, even with endurance. Without bikes, it is not very mobile and a sorcerer can get one shotted by S8 unless you get endurance off ofc.

And in ITC, invis is nerfed, so you can't really depend on that either. There are no models that can truly serve as a pure tank like a IH Smashfether, Draigo, or DA Black knights with re-roll jinks.

Yeah maybe you're right. What you could do then is instead make it more of a traditional calvary sort of death star.

4 Sorcerers, ML 3, bike, spell familiar, sigil of corruption, force axe/force stave, powermaul/poweraxe (pair opposites)
Cypher

5 Nugle Spawn

This would be the expensive load out, costing 1050 points.
Budget version, cutting some corners would look something like this:

3 Sorcerers, ML 2, bike, force axes, 1 has a spell familiar for the cabal spell
Cypher

4 Nurgle Spawn (for that majority toughness 6)

This costs 628 points. You'd really want to make use of the spawn to soak up hard hitting shots. Getting invisibility is a must, and after that you probably would go all biomancy. You could go even more cheap by putting the sorcerers in jump packs, saving 15 points.

I wouldnt bother using it as pure offense unit and invest too many pts into it.

Best go with option #2, use it as a utility unit. that mind control spell is pretty sick and has a whopping 30" range and is a malediction so you don't need LOS. Move Bike Sorc up 12", cast spell on a WK or Stormsurge for some laughs, summon some daemons, then turboboost back 12" into a ruin out of LOS and repeat process for subsequent turns. I'd probably drop cypher altogether, and roll some dice on telepathy and hope to get shroud or invis.

For less than 500 pts, the cabal unit can really do some nasty damage and supplement the rest of your army.

That's a great idea. Have it be aggressive, or act as a flexible unit.

Now the question is what would one use as a core to this army? Perhaps Khorne Daemonkin. Use it for buffing, summoning, MC slaying, what have you.

Honestly, Cypher isn't even necessary. Anything you won't win combat with in the first round is probably killing you in the second round. Might as well save points for another Sorcerer or a Lord.

 crimson_caesar wrote:
That's a great idea. Have it be aggressive, or act as a flexible unit.

Now the question is what would one use as a core to this army? Perhaps Khorne Daemonkin. Use it for buffing, summoning, MC slaying, what have you.

Whatever is the current top Daemon/CSM options that will help you win. Belakor, Fatey, screamerstar, Khorne IK, D-thirsters, heldrakes etc etc

What about just using the Sorcs as a ShriekStar? Join them to either Spawn or KDK Dogs and act like Scatbikes, move 12 Shriek move 12. For power generation roll once on Tele, if you get Invis take another to swap for shriek and roll the rest on Bio to give them melee game.

 Roadhouse wrote:
What about just using the Sorcs as a ShriekStar? Join them to either Spawn or KDK Dogs and act like Scatbikes, move 12 Shriek move 12. For power generation roll once on Tele, if you get Invis take another to swap for shriek and roll the rest on Bio to give them melee game.

Good stuff. Spamming psychic shriek is much more effective than one would think.

Maybe run this formation with KDK? I'll test to tomorrow and get back to you guys.