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.

Warpflame Host
- 3 Flamers
- 3 Flamers
- 3 Flamers
- 3 Flamers
- 3 Flamers
- 3 Flamers
- 3 Flamers
- 3 Flamers
- 3 Flamers
- Herald, level 3 psyker w/Paradox

Burning SkyHost
- 3 Screamers
- 3 Screamers
- 3 Screamers
- 3 Screamers
- 3 Screamers
- 3 Screamers
- 3 Screamers
- 3 Screamers
- 3 Screamers
- Blue Scribes

CaD
- Herald w/Level 2 Psyker (warlord)
- Herald w/Level 2 Psyker
- 11 Horrors
- 11 Horrors

Initial Thoughts
I playtested something like this over the weekend and found it highly effective with lots of threats on the table. I brought 2 helldrakes and found them just not that useful, and the heralds were easy to kill since 3 man squads can't protect them. This approach uses a CaD for some objective secured and a reroll on the warlord trait.

It has 11 psychic dice plus the scribes. 5 of the dice will get off one summoning/incursion a turn with the paradox. The scribes will poop out something useful from maleific 2/3 of the turns -- and will hopefully survive due to the threat of 54 screamers/horrors. That should be 2-3 units pooped out a turn.

What are your thoughts?

Fifteen Points
I have 15 points floating. Any suggestions for it's use?

I don't know why you'd want ObSec when you have the option for Corruption. IMO that's better.

MSU galore with all that ignores cover shooting should give Eldar and Tau a run for their money!

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
I don't know why you'd want ObSec when you have the option for Corruption. IMO that's better.

That's a great question. It's because they stack.

The Rules Behind Corruption
Objective markers controlled by units from this Detachment count as controlled for the rest of the game, even if the controlling player has no units within 3″ of them. This effect lasts until an enemy scoring unit cleanses the objective by controlling it. -Curse of Wulfen p58

You control an Objective Marker if there is at least one model from one of your scoring units and no models from enemy scoring units with 3″ -BRB p134

A unit with this special rule (Obsec) controls objectives even if an enemy scoring unit is within range, unless the enemy unit also has Objective Secured. -BRB p122

Looking at these three rules, you can determine the following about objectives. The concept of ‘controlling’ objectives is binary. You either control an objective or you do not. When the Daemonic Incursion player has met the criteria of ‘controlling’ an objective, then the effects of ‘Daemonic Corruption’ take place. This effects lasts until an enemy scoring unit ‘controls’ the objective.

This means that if you have a squad of screamers on an objective, and a scoring unit of Sternguard in a pod next to them, the Daemonic Incursion list will still control the objective, as the criteria for ‘controlling’ has not been made by the marine player — therefore the ‘Daemonic Corruption’ rule still holds, giving control to the Daemonic Incursion list.
However, if the marines in the above example have Objective Secured, they will meet the criteria for controlling the objective, as the Daemonic Incursion list does not have the Objective Secured special rule. At this point, the objective will no longer have rule ‘Daemonic Corruption’ applying to it.

If the screamers would leave within 3″ of the objective, the objective would continue to count as ‘controlled’ by the daemon player until any enemy scoring unit got with in 3″ of it

This means that the Daemonic Corruption is really good, but can be bested by Obsec units in specific situations. Last turn objective grabs by scat bikes could be a real problem for Daemonic Incursion lists.

This is where the horrors come in. Because the horrors are Obsec, the objective cannot be controlled by the opposing player until all the horrors are wiped out. This means that for those back 2 objectives, things like scat bikes cannot take them with last minute objective grabs. This means the daemon player is guaranteed to hold those last objectives unless all the horrors within 3" are killed.

My thoughts are that summoning and cursed earth make this list broken as hell!

Throw in a portal glyph on one of the CAD heralds. Have him toss it somewhere and maybe you'll get a few units over the course of the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
HOLY gak the blue scribes are fething amazing for Malefic powers how has no one seen this?

 changerofways wrote:
My thoughts are that summoning and cursed earth make this list broken as hell!

Throw in a portal glyph on one of the CAD heralds. Have him toss it somewhere and maybe you'll get a few units over the course of the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
HOLY gak the blue scribes are fething amazing for Malefic powers how has no one seen this?

The blue scribes isn't an independant character so is easily killed because he has to be by himseld

 CrownAxe wrote:
The blue scribes isn't an independant character so is easily killed because he has to be by himseld

That's why the scribes are priced at 81 points. Every turn the scribes have a 1/2 chance of pulling off a summoning. It might be a 70 point herald, a 131 point plague drone squad, or a 275 point D-thirster. Averaged out, the point value of those summons is 158.6 points, or 79.1 points of summoned models per turn. Given that the scribes also can cast cursed earth, it averages out that one turn of the scribes being alive will result in the scribes "Summoning their cost back"

The more turns the scribes are alive, the more points they summon and the better the RoI gets. This, of course, stops if a possession is rolled -- but getting a D-thirster for 81 points is not bad. This means if the scribes live for 4 turns, they will have summoned an average of 316.4 points, a net advantage of 390% of their points value!

Most opponents will see the scribes early and ensure that you only get one turn of effect from them. If the daemon player is going second and has the scribes on the table, they might not even get that.

What makes this work is the huge threat that 27 screamers and 27 flamers presents. If the daemon player is going first, your opponent will likely be preoccupied with the horde of screamers and STR 5 flamers coming straight for them. From my experience this tends to create a 'tunnel vision' in my opponents -- and for good reason. The burning host averages 81 STR 4 hits per turn, and the flamers can easily have that many STR 5 hits. Since the army does not roll 'to hit' rolls and those all auto-hit, it's the same as 122 STR 4 and 122 STR 5 shots fired at BS4. Let that sink in for a second about how much firepower that is. Remember, these are all on fast moving platforms too, with a 20" range on the flamers and a 36" range on the screamers.

That is why I'm thinking of bringing the scribes. My opponent is probably going to be scrambling to kill all the daemons eating his face off, allowing the support units to pump out more daemons to throw at them.

Yeah the diversity of these two units are astounding. With the bonus stats from these special formations, this army seems like its 10/10 burritos. Tell me how the games go, this seems like it will win a lot.
High toughness monstrous creatures might give the screamers and flamers trouble, but perhaps you can get some psychic shrieks or high strength psychic spells with your mages.

The Scribes was priced at 81 points before Malefic existed. Prior to 7ed's malefic summoning, the Blue Scribes was terrible.

 CrownAxe wrote:
The Scribes was priced at 81 points before Malefic existed. Prior to 7ed's malefic summoning, the Blue Scribes was terrible.

Agreed.

I was with my friend this past weekend and helping him start a Tzeentch army. He picked up the scribes and I knee jerked a reaction saying "Their awful, don't take them"

It was this past Monday while looking at the rules I started pondering how they could combine with Malific, and how that might actually make them decent. Not great -- if they are punked in turn 1 they still bad -- but still, not horrible. Every turn there is a 1/6 chance they make a D-thirster. 1/6 of making a herald, and 1/6 of incursion. Those are not horrible odds.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 changerofways wrote:
High toughness monstrous creatures might give the screamers and flamers trouble, but perhaps you can get some psychic shrieks or high strength psychic spells with your mages.

I do wonder how it will do against something like riptide spam. I'll play some games and let you know how it goes.

Being that the scribes are a jetbike and too terribly large it should be decently easy to hide them out of LOS for a couple turns. Given that and the nature of the list i think its a good fit.

Really interesting concept and Id love to hear how it plays out. Id love even more to see it on the table

You give a good breakdown of its damage output but with the amount of stuff out there today that is functionally immune to small arms fire (GMCs, IKs Riptides, FNP Buffed CMs etc) its definitely going to face quite a few challenges. Then again youve got A LOT of fast relatively durable daemons with which to gum up the works of even the hardest hitting of lists.

Im most interested to see how this would pan out against
Wolf Stars, Gladius, and SS Tau. Eldar (be it Spider or Scat bike spam) I think you have a good answer to with the Screamers and Youve got plenty of bodies to hold up a WK indefinitely even with stomps. Wolf Star seems like it would come down down to excellent positioning/movent blocking but is probably doable in a progressive scoring. Just pray to Tzeentch for low rolls on DI with which the Incursion bonus will help. Speaking of, how do you allocate attacks from the slash attacks? If its random theres always hope of whittling the star down a bit by bypassing the tanks/bullet sponges ang getting to the libbies or apothecary. Against Gladius, well that would just be an epic and tactical battle of awesomeness. I think the Daemons would have the edge since all those Power Armored bodies are the kind of thing the slashes and flamers are good at killing and the fact that alot of the damage output from most Gladii comes in the form of Grav which will obviously struggle against your Daemon Horde. Cracking all the cans will prove troublesome but some guaranteed S7 Flickering Fire from the Paradox Herald should help with that. Good choice on putting the paradox there.

Good luck and post BatReps!

 astro_nomicon wrote:
How do you allocate attacks from the slash attacks? If its random theres always hope of whittling the star down a bit by bypassing the tanks/bullet sponges ang getting to the libbies or apothecary.

They are randomly allocated.

 astro_nomicon wrote:
Against Gladius, well that would just be an epic and tactical battle of awesomeness. I think the Daemons would have the edge since all those Power Armored bodies are the kind of thing the slashes and flamers are good at killing and the fact that alot of the damage output from most Gladii comes in the form of Grav which will obviously struggle against your Daemon Horde. Cracking all the cans will prove troublesome

Each screamer has a lamprey's bite. STR 5, AP2, armorbane attack. That means each screamer has a 83.33% of having each hit cause a hull point or more. I'm not that worried about the candy coated shells.

I've ran something similar for a while, and I found that riptide heavy armies are very hard to dislodge. Each screamer has a 1/36 per hit to wound a riptide. That's less than 3 wounds a turn -- not good odds. I think in those cases my best bet is to try and swarm them with lamprey bites and hope to win some combats.

I'll play some games and let you all know how it goes.

Note that for screamer slashes, wound allocation is done based on the final position of the screamers. Similar to shooting, the models closest to the screamers get wounded first.

If you have a bit of luck, the bluescribes are awesome. So why haven't we seen them at all ?

Well, there is multiple reasons for that. First as other pointed out, they're not IC. So you can't protect them other than putting them out of LoS (which is not always feasible, and even when it is, barrage weapons exists, deep strikers too, etc...). So they're easily killable.
Second, you also have to think about your detachment composition. We have a lot of very good HQ choices in this codex, and very often you need 2 big dudes (Fatey, Thirsters, Princes...) or one big dude and 1-4 heralds. Very rarely will you have a spare HQ choice to spend for the Scribes. And if you want to have more HQ choices, very often it means paying more "tax" units (usually troops).
Even if you do have an empty HQ slot to spare, do you prefer to invest 81pts into a random spell for a couple turns and an easy KP ? Or into a lvl2 herald of Tzeentch that knows FlickerFire and 2 other fixed powers, grant you a couple more dices and that you can easily protect ?
And finally, because of it's sheer randomness, it is not a unit you can count on. It might do wonders, it might do nothing. But you can't base your strategy around them.

The Scribes kinda works in this list (which I really like BTW) because it trumps a lot of those downsides: you do have an HQ slot that cost no extra "tax" unit (screamers/flamers are awesome, you're happy to take them), and it's a MSU heavy list, so you don't care a lot about including yet another squishy unit that is probably less of a threat than those screamers.
Also this list does not rely heavily on costly psychic powers. So having less dices in the psychic phase is not a big deal.