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So, with the TS and SW rules leaked we can think of the best loadouts for their units. Looking at their culta and special wargeir one unit realy stands out - Veteran Tactical squads. They can become a Brotherhood of psykers for 25 pts and get Shred on their bolters for 20 pts. Combining that with taking the Corvidae cult they can roll on Divination, wich gives them rerolling To Hit as primaris. So for 225 pts we can have a squad of 10 guys, that rerolls To Hit, To Wound, has AP2 on 6s, has a Vexill and Artificer armour on the Sarge . Prety badass IMHO. The Corvidae cult does also well for Heavy supprt squad, as they don't move often, so they can reroll 1s when shooting. A shame Dreadnoughts don't have Legiones Astartes, as they would deffinitly benefit from the Raptora cult, but the new Osirion Dread seems like benefiting from Divination, rerolling To Hit and potentialy getting the 4++ power. Any other ideas for synergy within the new legions?

As of the latest FAQs powers that target 'the psyker' affect all models in a Brotherhood of Psykers unit, which makes Iron Arm (S/T 7 and AP2 melee attacks to the unit) and Precognition (reroll all to-hit, to-wound, and save rolls for the whole unit) the obvious powers to fish for.

(I fully expect the release of more Sisters of Silence alongside the Thousand Sons was planned that way.)

How do they compare with the other legions ?
The pinning tests when the HQ dies seems to be a huge drawback, and they look to be an expensive legion.

 godardc wrote:
How do they compare with the other legions ?
The pinning tests when the HQ dies seems to be a huge drawback, and they look to be an expensive legion.

The pinning test is if you suffer a perils wound, not when an IC die. You lose 1 Ld and Sweeping Advance if your lose all your ICs. So you either buff up one IC to be nigh-indestructible or you get a lot of cheap ones to avoid that fate...
...and also buy the upgrade to avoid first perils/game to stop the pinning test too. And/or use only 1 dice for powers

 godardc wrote:
How do they compare with the other legions ?
The pinning tests when the HQ dies seems to be a huge drawback, and they look to be an expensive legion.

The pinning test happens when they take an unsaved wound from Perills, killing all HQ gives them -1 leadership. They have ways to ignore thouse wounds and can manifest warp charges on a 3+, so not that big a deal.

Yeah, too much informations and not enough sleep, sorry^^
So, it's not such a big drawback, in deed.

I just played a 1000p test game and one thing that really stuck with me was my massive pile of warp charges, most of which went unused. To be fair every model in my army (Ahriman, lv. 2 Libby, Termies and Vets with POTL) was Psychic, so I was getting 8 extra charges per turn, but I managed to kill almost everything by spamming Flame Breath and Spontaneous Combustion. I didn't do so well against my enemy's contemptor, failing my only Malta Bomb and getting my Libby killed. Also Hammer of Wrath (from Pyrae cult) is useless on single characters.

I'm pretty happy that I've managed to acquire 15 Sisters of Silence, yet have heard nothing about their rules in Book VII. :( I'm thinking I'll be taking an allied detachment in all my Loyalist armies. Except the Space Wolves, because for some reason they can't take an allied detachment with their best Rite of War.

What do you mean we've heard nothing?
There is practically a full spoiler of the talons army list out there, just like 1ksons and woofs.

Don't think I'm allowed to post them here though...

 Tamwulf wrote:
I'm pretty happy that I've managed to acquire 15 Sisters of Silence, yet have heard nothing about their rules in Book VII. :( I'm thinking I'll be taking an allied detachment in all my Loyalist armies. Except the Space Wolves, because for some reason they can't take an allied detachment with their best Rite of War.

Well, then you just go here and start getting high - https://imgur.com/a/emdin/

The extra warp charge is making me think... Ally in word bearers and get summoning..

Idea with some merit- shattered legion sons with zardu and gal vorbak. Biomancy + maelific + gal vorbak make for a great unit

I'm thinking that the way to go is with Pride of the legion to make those Veteran Tacticals compulsory troops. This also gives you access to Sekhmet troops since they're in the elite's slot. Veteran loadout runs you around 300ish points depending on wargear, but I'd say the vexilla, a rhino, a mastery level, artificer, 3x force weapons and 2x assault guns of your choice would do nicely, running you ~315 points +/- which guns you want if any. Rolling bio for iron arm/warp speed or div for precog would be the order of the day I think, though pyro also has the same 4++ but better since it affects the whole unit and handing out a 4+cover and causing everything eithin 6" to be dangerous terrain is also nice, telekinesis has the 5++ dome and the 12" move while telepathy still has invis and shrouded. There's not a bad choice amongst all the diciplines except maybe sanctic.

Assault/Breacher squad with raptora arcana and combat/boarding shields are running/plodding around with a 3+/5++ that goes to a 4++ in combat and that's not terrible, but they're also not psychers :( You can fix that by jamming an HQ choice in there however.

I feel that the HQ psycher dread is a bit of a red herring since you want 2-3 IC psychers to avoid that -1ld, no sweeping adv. penalty and he's ~250 odd points that's not an IC and is only a single AV13 chassis in a meta full of spartans, typhons and leviathans.

The Sekhmet are pretty good since they have a bunch of arcana options for tartaros (the obvious ones being Pavoi for +1 to sweep or raptora to be cataphractii without the downsides) or basically just picking Raptora for catas to be 2W psychic hammernators for relatively minimal points.

The 25 point plasma cannon would still have been junk at 15 points, so that's a hard pass. Shredding bolters would have been passable on tactical squads if the could have taken them, or on a heavy bolter support squad again, if they could have taken them. They might have some use on a veteran tac squad with marksman (is there any other choice?), but I doubt it.

135 points for a 4W T7 distraction carnifex is not terrible, but given how often you're casting, and perilsing means eventually he's going to eat d6 no save wounds and keel over instantly. You could definately do worse than a pair in the heavy support slot and just run them at things.

The Khenetai Occult Blade Cabal Blade Boyz are a glass hammer, 5x WS6 attacks each on the charge with force swords will cause critical existance failure on almost anything without a 2+ save ... unless they roll smash, then even a primarch is going to have a rather bad time. Put 10 into a land raider and point at something with a 3+ while cackling madly.

The sniper scout look a bit expensive at 27 / 20 ppm for 4+ armour and sniper riles, but twin linked, shredding and ignores cover is a pretty decent power to have. Infiltrate will always be good though, so that's nice.

Ahriman is a good deal compared to a similarly kitted out praetor, but it does "force" you to roll Div insead of something else, but you could do a lot worse than hanging out with a heavy weapons team throwing out ignores cover and misfortune.

Speaking of heavy weapons, there's no reason to ever choose anything other than Corvidae since it's half of twin linked for doing what you were already doing for free.

Magnus is a powerhouse. Wrathmind combined with cleansing flame/sunburst/shockwave is crazy, likely handing out 2d6 str D hits to every enemy unit in 18". 1 cast of either of those 3 at full power will deal ~20 hull points to anything in range. Have fun with your parking lot. Even basic stuff like smite will on average be str D, with the bonus of being ap2 and 4 shots as well. Definately worth his 495 point price tag. Gate is a good escape mechanism because you probably don't want him in combat where his psychic dakka is nullified, even if he is str 9 ap1, he's got better things to do than punch people in the face.

Having said all of that, I still can't seem to build a list I like, so take the above with a massive grain of salt.

@Drasius

Why not the Guard of the Crimson King Rite of War? It makes Sekhmet Troops, gives all Terminators, Independent Characters and Magnus the Deep Strike rule; gives them Fear and re-rolls of 1s for invulnerable saves for a game turn; makes Magnus a HQ and, crucially; unlike Primarch's Chosen it still lets you take a Lord of War. The limitations are virtually non-existent. A lot of people are rightfully calling it the most powerful Rite of War in the game now as it gives you so much for almost no down-side.

The Osiron is just a really cool thematic choice, however where it shines is in some kind of Drop Pod. Slinging out Smite/Psychic Shriek/some other type of witchfire power and then having a Strength 10 AP2 Force weapon to sling around is plenty scary.

Sekhmet are amazing, a maxed out unit is barely more expensive than a comparable Terminator unit with phenomenal buffs. Having actual Force weapons unit-wide makes them a legitimate counter to Mechanicum monsters and even Custodes. Also note the wording of how they get psychic powers compared to other Thousand Sons units, rules-as-written (and agreed upon by most other 30K players) is that the Sekhmet actually pick their powers. You can guarantee something like Psychic Maelstrom and Levitation or Sunburst and Molten Beam, all of which stack nicely with the Deep Strike they get from the Rite of War.

The Plasma Cannon is only good for the Castellax-Achea where it's priced like a normal Plasma Cannon, even though you may just want to stick with the Mauler Bolt Cannons instead. What you're missing with the Bolt shells is that they apply to Rotor Cannons which are now conveniently a free upgrade for Tactical Support Squads. Shredding Rotor Cannons are actually fairly nasty and comparable to Volkite Calivers from having read other people's maths done on the subject. It's well worth considering!

I think you're underselling the Castellax quite a bit. Paired power fists (per the guys at the event), Strength 6 AP3 shots with Shred (or upgrade to Soul Blaze Plasma Cannons for not too many points) and in-built 5+ invulnerable saves is super good. Compared to normal Castellax, you get nastier melee, tankier models (the invulnerable plus It Will Not Die) and they arguably get less penalties for being away from controllers (you can't charge but you can still fight in combat and can still shoot what you want to shoot). Note that you only need a psyker within 24" of them to keep them in line, whereas the perils = death stuff only happens within 12" of them, so just don't put your psykers within 12" of the bad boys and they'll be perfectly fine. This also works out really well because the Castellax can be used for line of sight and range purposes by friendly psykers....which means they will crush in Zone Mortalis, though obviously using this rule runs the risk of Perils. Again, though, it's hard for us to Perils and we have items that stop that from happening. The Achea are really good dude!

Agreed on the Khenetai, unlike the Sekhmet they have no restriction on what powers to generate but this balances out by not being able to choose the powers. I'm tempted to just stick to Biomancy with these guys for the chance at Iron Arm/Warp Speed/Endurance, and even without those Smite is an ok Primaris as it gives them some AP2 and Enfeeble is always powerful. Come to think of it, if you get Warp Speed, even with only AP3 the unit should still have enough attacks to simply power through 2+ saves right? Against lower Weapon Skill Toughness 4 opponents you should average about 4 unsaved wounds against 2+ armour, that's not too bad I guess.

One thing to note with the Snipers is giving them Plasma Guns makes them pretty much a hard counter to monstrous creatures. Re-rolling to-hit and to-wound with Rending weapons is no joke, just as it is with Plasma Guns. They're actually a really dirty assassin unit as getting 6s and 6s with them shouldn't be too hard at all, it can really screw with a lot of Legion lists that are super reliant on the tanking Sergeant or Apothecaries.

Ahriman is super valuable in terms of warp charge generation alone. Being restricted to Divination isn't as bad as being restricted to something like Telekinesis, there's a lot you can do with Divination and especially when he casts those powers on 3+. As he has a Force Axe Precognition is still fairly nasty for him and he should theoretically win out against many combat Praetor builds if you can get that power up (they strike first and might get one Instant Death wound through against you which you should pass with the 4++ re-rollable, then with all your re-rolls you should average three Instant Death wounds back at them). He's actually super nasty if you look at him like that. Otherwise, he's a pure buff machine and can be plugged into pretty much any unit you want.

Magnus is over-powered, pure and simple. The worst part is that you can combine his -1 To-Hit aura with Invisibility to make him and his unit impossible to hit without Beams/Novas/Warlord Titans/Volkite Carronades/Ulators/etc. That he denies any other psyker on a 3+ means two of those are out of the question. The best part is that even if you somehow don't roll up Invisibility on Magnus, you can easily get it from your many other psykers in the army. I'm thinking having Magnus roll on disciplines like Pyromancy and the like for all the various Witchfires would be ideal, then have say a Mastery Level 3 Praetor and maybe a few other units/characters fish around for Invisibility. Also of note, even without his powers Magnus still has a pretty good Primarch stat-line with his only real weakness being his low Attacks characteristic; with Force activated, his weapon is devastating to pretty much anything that isn't an Eternal Warrior (Gargantuans will cry though). Denying powers on a 3+ means trying to weaken him that way doesn't work, and if you don't want to go the cheesy Invisibility route you can just troll Biomancy for Iron Arm + Warp Speed + Endurance to give him the best stats of any Primarch. If Lorgar Transfigured was considered super powerful before, Magnus surely must take the cake now.

Caederes wrote:
Why not the Guard of the Crimson King Rite of War? It makes Sekhmet Troops, gives all Terminators, Independent Characters and Magnus the Deep Strike rule; gives them Fear and re-rolls of 1s for invulnerable saves for a game turn; makes Magnus a HQ and, crucially; unlike Primarch's Chosen it still lets you take a Lord of War. The limitations are virtually non-existent. A lot of people are rightfully calling it the most powerful Rite of War in the game now as it gives you so much for almost no down-side.

It's good, but I'm not sure If I want to blow >500 points on 10 terminators with no upgrades. I suppose I can still take vet tacs with a nuncio for 10 points so I have some hope of not having them all scatter and die, but then they'll just eat interceptor fire I imagine. Still, you don't have to DS them, but again, then you're walking them up the board (unless you can just pick Levitate, in which case, problem solved) and I can't imagine that ends well for them. I will love announcing the rule that let's them deep strike though, that's another major draw for taking that rite.

Caederes wrote:
The Osiron is just a really cool thematic choice, however where it shines is in some kind of Drop Pod. Slinging out Smite/Psychic Shriek/some other type of witchfire power and then having a Strength 10 AP2 Force weapon to sling around is plenty scary.

I know, but I've got enough stuff in 40k that just sits on the shelf because it's cool but unsuable, I don't need more. I would love to take one of these and a pair of TSons contemptor bodyguards as they're the first contemptors that I don't hate but I can't seem to make a workable list with them and all the other stuff I want to take.

Caederes wrote:
Sekhmet are amazing, a maxed out unit is barely more expensive than a comparable Terminator unit with phenomenal buffs. Having actual Force weapons unit-wide makes them a legitimate counter to Mechanicum monsters and even Custodes. Also note the wording of how they get psychic powers compared to other Thousand Sons units, rules-as-written (and agreed upon by most other 30K players) is that the Sekhmet actually pick their powers. You can guarantee something like Psychic Maelstrom and Levitation or Sunburst and Molten Beam, all of which stack nicely with the Deep Strike they get from the Rite of War.

Custodes have EW if I'm not mistaken (or is that 40k only?), so they won't care in the slightest, not to mention that everything is 2+ armour, so you're going to have to be swinging force axes to matter, at which point you're basically the same thing as powerfists, but don't wound on a 2+ and have to cast force to ID T4 or less. As for picking powers, there's no way in hell my group will allow that, RAW or not.

Caederes wrote:
The Plasma Cannon is only good for the Castellax-Achea where it's priced like a normal Plasma Cannon, even though you may just want to stick with the Mauler Bolt Cannons instead. What you're missing with the Bolt shells is that they apply to Rotor Cannons which are now conveniently a free upgrade for Tactical Support Squads. Shredding Rotor Cannons are actually fairly nasty and comparable to Volkite Calivers from having read other people's maths done on the subject. It's well worth considering!

I forgot to add that here yes, though I hadn't forgotten they had access to it. As for damage, vs MEQ,please see the chart below:


Yes, they're basically on par with the volkites and getting better the larger the squad gets, though they will easily surpass them with things like misfortune on a target which isn't obscenely unlikely. Note that the numbers assumed that the plasma and flamers moved while the rotors and volkites took Corvidae arcana and stayed still (because why wouldn't you?). Plasma cannon is still trash tier though.

Caederes wrote:
I think you're underselling the Castellax quite a bit. Paired power fists (per the guys at the event), Strength 6 AP3 shots with Shred (or upgrade to Soul Blaze Plasma Cannons for not too many points) and in-built 5+ invulnerable saves is super good. Compared to normal Castellax, you get nastier melee, tankier models (the invulnerable plus It Will Not Die) and they arguably get less penalties for being away from controllers (you can't charge but you can still fight in combat and can still shoot what you want to shoot). Note that you only need a psyker within 24" of them to keep them in line, whereas the perils = death stuff only happens within 12" of them, so just don't put your psykers within 12" of the bad boys and they'll be perfectly fine. This also works out really well because the Castellax can be used for line of sight and range purposes by friendly psykers....which means they will crush in Zone Mortalis, though obviously using this rule runs the risk of Perils. Again, though, it's hard for us to Perils and we have items that stop that from happening. The Achea are really good dude!

I'm not underselling them at all, I think they're great rules-wise in addition to being fantastic looking models, just pointing out that given the nature of the lists, you're going to peril at some stage and it's going to be within 12" of a robot. That 21% chance to simply delete him every time you perils within 12" is quite the downside. Keep in mind that not only do you have to be within 12" to use them as a focus (and therefore opening them up to destruction if you peril), it also tries to self destruct if an enemy psycher within 12" perils as well, so be careful around those word bearers or various other legions who don't mind spamming psychers.

One question though - If I am within 12" of a robot who is in combat and cast, say, Sunburst - can I chose him as the point of origin even though he's locked in combat?

Caederes wrote:
Agreed on the Khenetai, unlike the Sekhmet they have no restriction on what powers to generate but this balances out by not being able to choose the powers. I'm tempted to just stick to Biomancy with these guys for the chance at Iron Arm/Warp Speed/Endurance, and even without those Smite is an ok Primaris as it gives them some AP2 and Enfeeble is always powerful. Come to think of it, if you get Warp Speed, even with only AP3 the unit should still have enough attacks to simply power through 2+ saves right? Against lower Weapon Skill Toughness 4 opponents you should average about 4 unsaved wounds against 2+ armour, that's not too bad I guess.

Shouldn't be too bad as long as you don't lose more than 1 to overwatch so you still get the 2 bonus attacks. Prescience can fix a lot of problems however. As for Iron arm, well, 1/6th of the time it works every time, right?

Caederes wrote:
One thing to note with the Snipers is giving them Plasma Guns makes them pretty much a hard counter to monstrous creatures. Re-rolling to-hit and to-wound with Rending weapons is no joke, just as it is with Plasma Guns. They're actually a really dirty assassin unit as getting 6s and 6s with them shouldn't be too hard at all, it can really screw with a lot of Legion lists that are super reliant on the tanking Sergeant or Apothecaries.

True, but LOS! is a thing. They're also rather fragile for anyone who can ignore cover themselves or who can just get into charge range. 10x Sniper rifles with re-roll to-hit and to-wound with ignores cover averages 1.11 rends and another 1.85 unsaved wounds with ~1.47 prescision hits, so the likelihood of popping a sarge or apoth is relatively small, but not insignificant either. I'm sure they'll work for someone, but they won't be seeing table time or even shelf time for me.

Caederes wrote:
Ahriman is super valuable in terms of warp charge generation alone. Being restricted to Divination isn't as bad as being restricted to something like Telekinesis, there's a lot you can do with Divination and especially when he casts those powers on 3+. As he has a Force Axe Precognition is still fairly nasty for him and he should theoretically win out against many combat Praetor builds if you can get that power up (they strike first and might get one Instant Death wound through against you which you should pass with the 4++ re-rollable, then with all your re-rolls you should average three Instant Death wounds back at them). He's actually super nasty if you look at him like that. Otherwise, he's a pure buff machine and can be plugged into pretty much any unit you want.

Yep, anyone who thinks Ahri is only a buff bot is in for a rude surprise, but he can definately do that too. Against a "normal" ML3 praetor, Ahriman brings a bit to the table for the handful of points and slight loss of flexibility. You aren't even forced into taking Corvidae arcana since IIRC, he doesn't have anything stating he MUST be your warlord. As long as you've got another Ld 10 character around (read Praetor or Magnus), you can hand out a different arcana to your troops if that's super important to you.

Caederes wrote:
Magnus is over-powered, pure and simple. The worst part is that you can combine his -1 To-Hit aura with Invisibility to make him and his unit impossible to hit without Beams/Novas/Warlord Titans/Volkite Carronades/Ulators/etc. That he denies any other psyker on a 3+ means two of those are out of the question. The best part is that even if you somehow don't roll up Invisibility on Magnus, you can easily get it from your many other psykers in the army. I'm thinking having Magnus roll on disciplines like Pyromancy and the like for all the various Witchfires would be ideal, then have say a Mastery Level 3 Praetor and maybe a few other units/characters fish around for Invisibility. Also of note, even without his powers Magnus still has a pretty good Primarch stat-line with his only real weakness being his low Attacks characteristic; with Force activated, his weapon is devastating to pretty much anything that isn't an Eternal Warrior (Gargantuans will cry though). Denying powers on a 3+ means trying to weaken him that way doesn't work, and if you don't want to go the cheesy Invisibility route you can just troll Biomancy for Iron Arm + Warp Speed + Endurance to give him the best stats of any Primarch. If Lorgar Transfigured was considered super powerful before, Magnus surely must take the cake now.

I'm not sure that's how it works, since invis just sets your to-hit rolls a a certain number just like snap shots are BS1 (unless you're Tau). I would have thought you'd take the -1 and then be reduced to hitting on 6's if you weren't already. Probably need a FAQ on that one. As a psychic beatstick, yeah, Magnus can break you over his knee which is what you'd basically expect. I think that not utilising his ability to spew out str D (or even "just" str8/9/10) attacks by the bucketfull with wrathmind is definately wasting his potential, though I think I would always roll at least 1 on Bio since the only bad thing on there for him is the same old trashy Haemorrage as always, and you can just take Smite and try and make it str D for the lulz. Having said that, I think I'd be a little underwhelmed by Magnus without wrathmind, but YMMV.

The one thing about the Sekhmet that's bothering me is the weapon options.

"May exchange their force weapon for a power fist with one of the following:

Lightning claw, power fist, chain fist"

Doesn't that mean that they have both a Power Fist and a Lightning Claw? What does a Power Fist with a Power Fist mean?

It means there's a typo from a copy-paste job most likely.

@Drasius

That roughly 500 points of Sekhmet "tax" comes with the ability to take both Magnus and a Lord of War though And that's two separate Mastery Level 2 Brotherhood of Psyker units, two-wound Terminator models that can have 4+ or 3+ invulnerable saves for no extra cost. The Rite of War has virtually no downside as it's not like Sekhmet are a below par unit, and being able to combo Magnus with a Super Heavy is almost unfair. To my knowledge, no other Legion can do that right?

I'll admit, compared to the other unique stuff the Sons have, the Osiron is the weakest of the bunch. I think he's only suited to big games where he can scrape by without the other HQ tax breaking the bank. However, good lord is he a nightmare for some armies Like a lot of Sons' stuff, he's fairly terrifying for their robots with Toughness values.

Custodes in 30K don't have Eternal Warrior as standard, no. They can get characters with it though, notably their generic HQ and Valdor. However, outside of those, the thing to remember is that all Custodes are T5. Power Fists won't inflict Instant Death on them, but have the trade-off of wounding on 2s rather than 4s. I'm not sure which is better, I just think it's cool that you don't have to spend any extra points on the Sekhmet themselves to have something that could realistically compete with Custodes. The Force Axes obviously come into their own against other targets though.

As far as the power picking thing goes, it actually is rules-as-written Think about it logically; why do Sekhmet only have access to Pyromancy and Telekinesis? Sure, Sekhmet with Iron Arm might be harder to kill than the Khenetai with Iron Arm, but the latter would still hit harder and actually has access to that power. Picking powers from Pyromancy and Telekinesis is strong but it's not as strong as it would be for any of the other disciplines with regards to their Brotherhood of Psykers classification. Biomancy gives them four brutal powers - two of which would make them beyond over-powered - Divination gives them the strongest power a Brotherhood of Psykers could possibly have (given their stats and saves), and Telepathy gives them Invisibility. Even picking powers like Psychic Maelstrom or Sunburst is still nasty only if you combine them with Levitate or Deep Strike.

All-in-all, Sekhmet are fantastic if you do decide to let them pick powers in your group. Not much more than a normal unit of Terminators gets you Force weapons (useful in a lot of situations, can save you points on things like Power Fists), Mastery Level 2, 2 Wounds per model, Stubborn, 4+ or 3+ invulnerable saves at no extra cost for either Tartaros or Cataphractii armour and the ability to pick their powers. And hey, you can still buy power fists/chainfists for them as needed!

I'm just glad the Rotors actually have a place now, I think it's a bit odd that Thousand Sons are the ones that get the most out of them but I guess that might make a bit of sense given that 40K Thousand Sons make use of modified Rotor Cannons. They're going to look so good with red marines!

Ah fair enough, it seemed like you weren't really rating the Castellax that highly from your post, my bad! I think the best way to use the Castellax will be to use psykers that can take Arcane Litanies for the Psi-Locus ability, perhaps having them tag-team with a melee character in a nearby Rhino or foot-slogging? In my experience, Perils isn't *that* common either and if players use the Cult system properly it shouldn't be necessary to throw as many dice at powers as would normally be the case. At least you should only ever lose one Castellax to that rule if it happens, and even that isn't too likely to happen depending on how unit placement and board size are.

For your Sunburst question, I had a look at the rulebook and I think it would actually work. It only says that the psyker cannot be locked in combat to cast a Witchfire. As your psyker wouldn't be locked in combat and the Castellax rules just say you use it as the origin point, I'm thinking you actually can pull that trick off. Wow, that's brutal!

That's a really good point, Prescience is definitely the safe choice for Khenetai. You can risk getting Haemorrhage (shudder) for a chance at four awesome powers with a nice Primaris or ensure you get a mega-buff Primaris for your unit and another possibly cool power to taste. If the Khenetai had invulnerable saves and AP2, Precognition would probably be even better for them than Iron Arm. Alas.

Yeah I guess that's true, thankfully Look Out Sir for normal characters is fairly unreliable. The Sniper Scouts look like fun though and, other than Mor Deythan, they're the only Scout unit I really like the feel of. They're not nearly as good as Mor Deythan but I think that's to be expected lol.

Yep, Ahriman is awesome. He doesn't have anything that forces him to be the Warlord so opening up other Cults for your Troops is too easy. One thing to note is that he can upgrade a Command squad for a respectable amounts of points to Mastery Level 2, doesn't seem like a bad option though those are actually forced to take Divination and Corvidae as I guess is expected. The only thing that might sting is that his Warlord Trait is so darned good that it might be hard to pass up. Hmm.

With Magnus, per the strict working of the rules, while set modifiers (like Invisibility) come last it doesn't indicate that it would override Magnus' -1 to-hit aura. This is why Power Fists with Furious Charge give Strength 9 rather than just Strength 8, the set modifier complements the other modifier rather than outright override it. With Snap Shots, they are always resolved at Ballistic Skill 1; this is why abilities that increase your Ballistic Skill don't affect Snap Shots unless specifically stated otherwise (like with Tau Markerlights). However, Magnus' rule doesn't affect Ballistic Skill, it's just a flat -1 to-hit. Similarly, you need 6s to-hit in combat against a unit with Invisibility. Add the -1 to-hit in and any 6s you roll become 5s. In this case, the order in which you apply the modifiers doesn't actually matter; you need -1 to-hit, nice. Now, you need a flat 6 to-hit. That -1 to-hit is still there though, so add that back in. You can use the same logic with Power Fists and Furious Charge; that's a cool +1 Strength you have there! However, your *base* Strength is doubled to Strength 8. Aww, but you do still get that tasty +1 Strength. Now you're Strength 9! I might be horribly wrong, of course, but as someone who dabbles in Age of Sigmar and has to deal with dice roll modifiers regularly this would be how I'd interpret it, and it's how everyone else seems to be interpreting it. If you're right though, that would save everyone a crap load of headaches!

Without Mind Wrath, Magnus is still a better Lorgar Transfigured. Two extra Mastery Levels so that not being able to pick his powers doesn't matter as you can get 6/7 powers from any single discipline anyway, casts more powers, ignores line of sight and cover for casting powers, makes enemies subtract 1 from their to-hit rolls against him and an attached Infantry unit, nearly impossible to Perils, provides some similar (but not as good from memory) buffs to his army, better in combat, harder to kill overall from what I can tell, a better shooting attack, also Denies the Witch on a 3+ against anyone. He even gives you the awesome Sekhmet and Terminators as Troops and doesn't force you take a particular Cult for them. Even without Mind Wrath, I'd argue he's easily a top Primarch and is probably under-priced for what he does.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Something to consider with the Ammitari Occult, stick Amon with them (he can Infiltrate). Automatic 2+ cover saves in ruins! He can take Divination and Telepathy so there's some good stuff you can do there.

Caederes wrote:
That roughly 500 points of Sekhmet "tax" comes with the ability to take both Magnus and a Lord of War though And that's two separate Mastery Level 2 Brotherhood of Psyker units, two-wound Terminator models that can have 4+ or 3+ invulnerable saves for no extra cost. The Rite of War has virtually no downside as it's not like Sekhmet are a below par unit, and being able to combo Magnus with a Super Heavy is almost unfair. To my knowledge, no other Legion can do that right?

I'll admit, compared to the other unique stuff the Sons have, the Osiron is the weakest of the bunch. I think he's only suited to big games where he can scrape by without the other HQ tax breaking the bank. However, good lord is he a nightmare for some armies Like a lot of Sons' stuff, he's fairly terrifying for their robots with Toughness values.

Custodes in 30K don't have Eternal Warrior as standard, no. They can get characters with it though, notably their generic HQ and Valdor. However, outside of those, the thing to remember is that all Custodes are T5. Power Fists won't inflict Instant Death on them, but have the trade-off of wounding on 2s rather than 4s. I'm not sure which is better, I just think it's cool that you don't have to spend any extra points on the Sekhmet themselves to have something that could realistically compete with Custodes. The Force Axes obviously come into their own against other targets though.

As far as the power picking thing goes, it actually is rules-as-written Think about it logically; why do Sekhmet only have access to Pyromancy and Telekinesis? Sure, Sekhmet with Iron Arm might be harder to kill than the Khenetai with Iron Arm, but the latter would still hit harder and actually has access to that power. Picking powers from Pyromancy and Telekinesis is strong but it's not as strong as it would be for any of the other disciplines with regards to their Brotherhood of Psykers classification. Biomancy gives them four brutal powers - two of which would make them beyond over-powered - Divination gives them the strongest power a Brotherhood of Psykers could possibly have (given their stats and saves), and Telepathy gives them Invisibility. Even picking powers like Psychic Maelstrom or Sunburst is still nasty only if you combine them with Levitate or Deep Strike.

All-in-all, Sekhmet are fantastic if you do decide to let them pick powers in your group. Not much more than a normal unit of Terminators gets you Force weapons (useful in a lot of situations, can save you points on things like Power Fists), Mastery Level 2, 2 Wounds per model, Stubborn, 4+ or 3+ invulnerable saves at no extra cost for either Tartaros or Cataphractii armour and the ability to pick their powers. And hey, you can still buy power fists/chainfists for them as needed!

Again, don't get me wrong, I think Sekhmet are the dog's danglies, I just don't want to be forced to take 2 squads of 5 since there's so much other stuff I want to fit in a 3k list. Magnus and a LoW? For a 5k game maybe, but not before. Depends on how cheese you want to go. Personally I think just putting Magnus on the table to start with is enough to determine the outcome of many games before they even begin, let alone shoving a Typhon or something into the mix as well as 2W psychic hammernators as troops. As for picking rather than generating, yeah, RAW, they choose, but even then, I won't be allowed to do it in my group, so that doesn't help me. Even then, I'd probably still make the case that them being restricted to rolling on pyro/telekinesis is the price for having 2W and a 2+/3++, otherwise you're just going to pick levitation and [anything you feel like] every game.

Caederes wrote:
Ah fair enough, it seemed like you weren't really rating the Castellax that highly from your post, my bad! I think the best way to use the Castellax will be to use psykers that can take Arcane Litanies for the Psi-Locus ability, perhaps having them tag-team with a melee character in a nearby Rhino or foot-slogging? In my experience, Perils isn't *that* common either and if players use the Cult system properly it shouldn't be necessary to throw as many dice at powers as would normally be the case. At least you should only ever lose one Castellax to that rule if it happens, and even that isn't too likely to happen depending on how unit placement and board size are.

I dunno, I've been playing TSons in 40k for quite a few years now and I generally find that I perils far too often for my liking. Maybe I'm overestimating how often I'm going to be failing my pinning checks (hooray for vexillas!) but from the one army I play consitantly that actually cares about morale, I fail A LOT of checks on ld 8/9.

Caederes wrote:
That's a really good point, Prescience is definitely the safe choice for Khenetai. You can risk getting Haemorrhage (shudder) for a chance at four awesome powers with a nice Primaris or ensure you get a mega-buff Primaris for your unit and another possibly cool power to taste. If the Khenetai had invulnerable saves and AP2, Precognition would probably be even better for them than Iron Arm. Alas.

Prescience can come from another unit, Iron Arm/Warp Speed only works for the unit casting it.

Caederes wrote:
Yep, Ahriman is awesome. He doesn't have anything that forces him to be the Warlord so opening up other Cults for your Troops is too easy. One thing to note is that he can upgrade a Command squad for a respectable amounts of points to Mastery Level 2, doesn't seem like a bad option though those are actually forced to take Divination and Corvidae as I guess is expected. The only thing that might sting is that his Warlord Trait is so darned good that it might be hard to pass up. Hmm.

Are you really going to want that expensive fragile command squad to be enven more expensive than it already is though? His WL trait is very good, and a nice callback to his 40k WL trait too. Maybe it's just because I've played 40k Sons for so long but the more I look at them, the more they play like a weird mix of pre- and post- traitor legion Sons. It's actually kinda cool.

Caederes wrote:
With Magnus, per the strict working of the rules, while set modifiers (like Invisibility) come last it doesn't indicate that it would override Magnus' -1 to-hit aura. This is why Power Fists with Furious Charge give Strength 9 rather than just Strength 8, the set modifier complements the other modifier rather than outright override it. With Snap Shots, they are always resolved at Ballistic Skill 1; this is why abilities that increase your Ballistic Skill don't affect Snap Shots unless specifically stated otherwise (like with Tau Markerlights). However, Magnus' rule doesn't affect Ballistic Skill, it's just a flat -1 to-hit. Similarly, you need 6s to-hit in combat against a unit with Invisibility. Add the -1 to-hit in and any 6s you roll become 5s. In this case, the order in which you apply the modifiers doesn't actually matter; you need -1 to-hit, nice. Now, you need a flat 6 to-hit. That -1 to-hit is still there though, so add that back in. You can use the same logic with Power Fists and Furious Charge; that's a cool +1 Strength you have there! However, your *base* Strength is doubled to Strength 8. Aww, but you do still get that tasty +1 Strength. Now you're Strength 9! I might be horribly wrong, of course, but as someone who dabbles in Age of Sigmar and has to deal with dice roll modifiers regularly this would be how I'd interpret it, and it's how everyone else seems to be interpreting it. If you're right though, that would save everyone a crap load of headaches!

I could tell that you were an AoS player when you started talking about 6's becoming 5's. That's not how it works in 40k. I'm just gonna talk it out with my regular opponents, but really, Magnus is plenty strong already without being invincible, so unless he's having a dual against Russ, I'll be saying that it doesn't work over and above invis to make him invincible. Russ can suck a big bag of dreadnaughts though.

Caederes wrote:
Without Mind Wrath, Magnus is still a better Lorgar Transfigured. Two extra Mastery Levels so that not being able to pick his powers doesn't matter as you can get 6/7 powers from any single discipline anyway, casts more powers, ignores line of sight and cover for casting powers, makes enemies subtract 1 from their to-hit rolls against him and an attached Infantry unit, nearly impossible to Perils, provides some similar (but not as good from memory) buffs to his army, better in combat, harder to kill overall from what I can tell, a better shooting attack, also Denies the Witch on a 3+ against anyone. He even gives you the awesome Sekhmet and Terminators as Troops and doesn't force you take a particular Cult for them. Even without Mind Wrath, I'd argue he's easily a top Primarch and is probably under-priced for what he does.

Each to their own I guess.

One thing, that should also be noted is that the Ts have a ROW, that allows to comvine them with other legions and gives nice defensive buffs. Maxing out troops and taking less vehicles than infantry isn't a big deal. But automaticaly passong morale and pinning while camping on objectives plus overwatching at BS2 is realy great for objective based games.

Yeah.. I'm looking at that one "axis of dissolution". Thinking maxed out troops works well with ahriman as you can scout them forward.
Still, generally prefer to spend points on stuff other than troops .

Caederes wrote:
The Plasma Cannon is only good for the Castellax-Achea where it's priced like a normal Plasma Cannon, even though you may just want to stick with the Mauler Bolt Cannons instead. What you're missing with the Bolt shells is that they apply to Rotor Cannons which are now conveniently a free upgrade for Tactical Support Squads. Shredding Rotor Cannons are actually fairly nasty and comparable to Volkite Calivers from having read other people's maths done on the subject. It's well worth considering!

Yep, and if you take Corvidae you get to re-roll to hit AND to wound, making Rotor Canons really quite good. Which is just the reason i needed to justify buying FW rotor canons to combine with the Rubric marine one.

Honestly, I'm not sure that the maxed out troops is that much of an issue.

Ahriman scouts forward your Corvidae Asphyx Rotor Cannon support squads seems like a decent way to start any fight-by having lots of guns in range that will hail fire on the enemy.
Asphyx Rotor Cannons are decent enough, and in high number that is placed relatively forward can be quite nice.
Asphyx Rotor Cannons that are shooting on a misfortuned target? poor bastards.
(if you even need to scout forward, most players are likely to deploy forward and then rush forward anyway, so you can sit back and shoot your rotors while camping objectives with your BS2 overwatch and autopass moral/pinning. its actually a pretty good objective camper!)
So, the "tax" ain't that bad (actually, support squads you probably WANT to max out, becuse if my battlescribe is accurate they pay a heavy buy-in tax, but additional bodies are too cheap to not max out)



Raptora Achea take the midfield to ruin the hopes and dreams of anyone/thing that thinks he can just waltz into your gunline.


Sekhmets seems like the additional dude price has a typo of a 3 rather than 4, don't they? Raptora Sekhemts flying on wings of Levitation and packing a tactical molten beam/objuration/dome/sunburst as required (because these guys apperantly just PICK powers, holy hell.) can go forward to break anyone who is hanging back, possibly scouted forward by ahriman so they can do it even faster.



Honestly, other than Pavoni Khenetai, is there EVER a reason to take anything not Corvidae or Raptora?

It also feels like the majorety of the legion army list isn't relevant to 1ksons, because "simple" veterans/terminators and our uniques do pretty much whatever we need, from firebase to objective takes, living blenders or heavy assault war machines.

On the amusing side, Pride of the Legion, The Axis of Dissolution and The Guard of the Crimson King might as well have no requirements for them, as your average 1ksons army has a decent chance to qualify to all three by the sheer virtue of units you will take anyway.

I can see the appeal of Athanean units immune to fear.
Getting some rolls on telepathy to make sure invisibility remains in the toolbox.

Maxing out support squads is fine, but they can't be compulsory.. the other troop units are less appealing maxed out. Ok but a points sink and need morale and resilience support. All achievable and possibly quite strong.

The Court of the Crimson King looks great tho.
I think I'm going to run armoured breakthrough with Magnus and some psychic units supporting.

The Pyrae cult seems ok with assault marines. Basicly 2 attacks befere the enemy gets to swing and then another 3.
My thoushts on cults right now:
Tactical marines with Ahriman - Corvidae (they scout forward and don't need to move the first turn, so they can reroll 1s when shooting);
Assault marines - Pavoni for +1 run and sweep or Pyrae for 2 HoW;
Tactical Vets with Sniper - Corvidae;
Tartaros termies - Pavoni or Raptora;
Cataphractii - Raptora;
Tactical and heavy support squads - Corvidae all the way;
Breachers - Raptora;
Sekhmet termies - Raptora;
Khenetai - Pavoni or Atheneans if facing armies with widespread fear like Night Lords or Word beared with their deamons;
Amatara - Corvidae.
So it seems that Corvidae is the go-to cult in most occasions as the Sons tend to favor shooting over melee. CC units without an invuln save, but with a good punch will want to take Pavoni for running down the enemy or take Pyrae if they have HoW to deal more damage before the enemy gets to hit them when they charge. CC units with an invuln or withot the ability to run and sweep will take Raptora for being a true anvil, especialy with a Primus Medicae with them.

 hordrak wrote:
The Pyrae cult seems ok with assault marines. Basicly 2 attacks befere the enemy gets to swing and then another 3.
My thoushts on cults right now:
Tactical marines with Ahriman - Corvidae (they scout forward and don't need to move the first turn, so they can reroll 1s when shooting);
Assault marines - Pavoni for +1 run and sweep or Pyrae for 2 HoW;
Tactical Vets with Sniper - Corvidae;
Tartaros termies - Pavoni or Raptora;
Cataphractii - Raptora;
Tactical and heavy support squads - Corvidae all the way;
Breachers - Raptora;
Sekhmet termies - Raptora;
Khenetai - Pavoni or Atheneans if facing armies with widespread fear like Night Lords or Word beared with their deamons;
Amatara - Corvidae.
So it seems that Corvidae is the go-to cult in most occasions as the Sons tend to favor shooting over melee. CC units without an invuln save, but with a good punch will want to take Pavoni for running down the enemy or take Pyrae if they have HoW to deal more damage before the enemy gets to hit them when they charge. CC units with an invuln or withot the ability to run and sweep will take Raptora for being a true anvil, especialy with a Primus Medicae with them.

I dissagre with the Vets one, if you're taking a Mastery level on them then Diviniation isn't the best idea, especially if you're bringing Ahriman. Although you could take another discipline, but the +1 to casting is pretty good. I'd give them either Raptora for Telekinesis or Pavoni for CC squads. Its hard to choose a cult for Vets, considering you need to choose the best buff AND the best Psychic discipline, and balancing the two is hard.

Captyn_Bob wrote:
I can see the appeal of Athanean units immune to fear.
Getting some rolls on telepathy to make sure invisibility remains in the toolbox.

Maxing out support squads is fine, but they can't be compulsory.. the other troop units are less appealing maxed out. Ok but a points sink and need morale and resilience support. All achievable and possibly quite strong.

The Court of the Crimson King looks great tho.
I think I'm going to run armoured breakthrough with Magnus and some psychic units supporting.

Supports can't be compulsory?

Wat. I mean, it makes sense but I did NOT know that.
Well, just goes to show I have yet to actually PLAY 30k, and I'm just theorycrafting there.

 EmberlordofFire8 wrote:

 hordrak wrote:
The Pyrae cult seems ok with assault marines. Basicly 2 attacks befere the enemy gets to swing and then another 3.
My thoushts on cults right now:
Tactical marines with Ahriman - Corvidae (they scout forward and don't need to move the first turn, so they can reroll 1s when shooting);
Assault marines - Pavoni for +1 run and sweep or Pyrae for 2 HoW;
Tactical Vets with Sniper - Corvidae;
Tartaros termies - Pavoni or Raptora;
Cataphractii - Raptora;
Tactical and heavy support squads - Corvidae all the way;
Breachers - Raptora;
Sekhmet termies - Raptora;
Khenetai - Pavoni or Atheneans if facing armies with widespread fear like Night Lords or Word beared with their deamons;
Amatara - Corvidae.
So it seems that Corvidae is the go-to cult in most occasions as the Sons tend to favor shooting over melee. CC units without an invuln save, but with a good punch will want to take Pavoni for running down the enemy or take Pyrae if they have HoW to deal more damage before the enemy gets to hit them when they charge. CC units with an invuln or withot the ability to run and sweep will take Raptora for being a true anvil, especialy with a Primus Medicae with them.

I dissagre with the Vets one, if you're taking a Mastery level on them then Diviniation isn't the best idea, especially if you're bringing Ahriman. Although you could take another discipline, but the +1 to casting is pretty good. I'd give them either Raptora for Telekinesis or Pavoni for CC squads. Its hard to choose a cult for Vets, considering you need to choose the best buff AND the best Psychic discipline, and balancing the two is hard.

You are free to disagree, but I still think that they should take Corvidae. The buff isn't the best, but they get a good pimaris that they cast on 3+. If you take them with a divination character then yu can go for an other cult. Also interesting to ote is the possibility to put a Pavoni Praetor or Librarian with the Sekhmet termies to turn them into the bane of anything in charge range.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BoomWolf wrote:

Captyn_Bob wrote:
I can see the appeal of Athanean units immune to fear.
Getting some rolls on telepathy to make sure invisibility remains in the toolbox.

Maxing out support squads is fine, but they can't be compulsory.. the other troop units are less appealing maxed out. Ok but a points sink and need morale and resilience support. All achievable and possibly quite strong.

The Court of the Crimson King looks great tho.
I think I'm going to run armoured breakthrough with Magnus and some psychic units supporting.

Supports can't be compulsory?

Wat. I mean, it makes sense but I did NOT know that.
Well, just goes to show I have yet to actually PLAY 30k, and I'm just theorycrafting there.

Here's an overview of the Legions Astartes armies. Might help you with that - https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Space_Marine_Legion_List_(30k)

That's actually the major place I'm theorycrafting from, I just missed that part x_x

The Sekhmet termies are godly
ML2 with 2 Wounds!
Plus the Special Bolt shells AND Force Weapons included in base wargear!

They're up there with Tyrant Siege and Fulmentarus for the "Best Unit to Steal with Alpha Legion"

 hordrak wrote:

 Tamwulf wrote:
I'm pretty happy that I've managed to acquire 15 Sisters of Silence, yet have heard nothing about their rules in Book VII. :( I'm thinking I'll be taking an allied detachment in all my Loyalist armies. Except the Space Wolves, because for some reason they can't take an allied detachment with their best Rite of War.

Well, then you just go here and start getting high - https://imgur.com/a/emdin/

Thank you! One of the interesting things I've read so far about the Space Wolves is the Wolf Priests that can be taken as a level 2 Psyker, and due to the 1 HQ/1000 points requirement, I can see more Psykers in a Space Wolf army then most Legions. The Thousand Sons though... so many psykers! Not really sure I want to play against an army that gets an entire phase of the game in which I can basically do nothing but watch them roll a lot of dice.