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I have always loved Obliterators. Their ability to conjur up any weapon needed for a certtain situation was always awesome, be it t-l lascannon, multi-melta, plasma cannon.......

But now it's all changed, and i'm not sure if it's for the better..

Now their weapons are 24" Assault 4 S6+3 AP-D3 Damage D3.........which is really nice......except they;ve lost the lascannon!!

are they now a better version of shooty terminators?

They are exceptionally good, especially if Slaanesh and use the strat to shoot again at end of phase. They have decent range and can deep strike so are not eliminated first.

They can be pretty good, especially with stategms. Coupleof points to consider is that they are now pretty useless in close combat and there will be turns when you roll low on there stats. Last game i had, the turn i deep struck and use cacophony, i rolled five 1s for the stats out of six.

 Corennus wrote:
I have always loved Obliterators. Their ability to conjur up any weapon needed for a certtain situation was always awesome, be it t-l lascannon, multi-melta, plasma cannon.......

But now it's all changed, and i'm not sure if it's for the better..

Now their weapons are 24" Assault 4 S6+3 AP-D3 Damage D3.........which is really nice......except they;ve lost the lascannon!!

are they now a better version of shooty terminators?

Honestly? Them being able to switch weapons was heavily overrated. You only ever used the same couple of them anyway, and they were being priced like they were firing multiple profiles at once.

Yeah it sucks they don't have the Power Fist anymore, but this is an iteration where they make sense and are actually good.

Worth taking more of over say Hellbrutes?

First things first: i Play in a casual meta. That said i love my oblits. They are the bane of my opponents and im never "allowed" to field more than 3.

Yes you will sometimes roll low - but with votlw and endless cacophony they become one of my Favourite units in the Codex.

I think 1 squad is awesome, especially in AL for the -1 to hit... Endles cacophany makes them really pokey. But hey, they die easily enough.

Obliterators are awesome because bare bones they're good, but their keywords means they can stack a lot of bonuses.

#1 - They're Heretic Astartes <Legion>, so your Legion Trait applies. Alpha Legion is clearly the best here, but there are possible uses for the other Legions. Use Prescience from a Sorcerer if you can, and you hit on 2's instead of 3's.

#2 - They're Infantry. There are things that Infantry can do that non-Infantry can't, like climb buildings and walk through walls. Importantly, they can benefit from Veterans of the Long War for a +1 to their wound rolls. Since you're often wounding on 3's or 4's with Oblits, this means you'll instead often be wounding on 2's or 3's! A big boost!

#3 - They get a Mark of Chaos. So much awesome here, as there's many stratagems and psychic powers that benefit units based on their Mark. Go Nurgle and a Sorcerer can make them -1 to being hit with Miasma of Pestilence (combo with Alpha Legion to be -2 to being hit!), and use Grandfather's Blessings to heal an injured one d3 wounds. Go Slannesh and you can get Endless Cacophany to shoot again, while Delightful Agonies psychic power gives you a 5+ Feel no Pain.

#4 - They're Daemons. Okay, you can't use the Daemon stratagems on them, but everything else is fair game! Alongside Thousand Sons with access to 3 disciplines, and you're laughing. -1 to being hit from Glamour of Tzeentch, and +1 to wound rolls from Flickering Flames!


Oblits work great because they're good on their own, but synergize with almost anything you bring with them!

Obits are good, but they cannot solo anything by themselves. You still need traditional heavy weapons to take chunks out of enemy Armor, and then send the Oblits in to finish things off.

I would recommend one unit Slaanesh, one (or two) units Nurgle, and then drop the Nurgle ones with a Feculent Gnarlmaws and a Herald to give them extra durability and the Nurgle locus. Then, you Endless Cacophony one, and can heal the Nurgle ones with either psychic powers or the Grandfather's Gift stratagem. That's how I play them anyhow.

Let's put it this way, if I were to make a CSM list and wanted it to be strong, I would immediately look to:
Daemon Princes
Sorcerers
Cultists
Obliterators

.... and then I would start having to think hard. Maybe some Berzerkers? I think after those it's just down to taste for what will be fun to take that day. With the core above you have a great backbone in your list.

I also strongly disagree with the above post re; Obliterators as anti-tank. I think that they are the ONLY effective and reliable anti-tank in the CSM codex. For about six months after the codex came out I used to run Predators, Havocs, and Obliterators equally in frequency for anti-tank. Not once did Predators or Havocs ever impress me. Not once did Obliterators fail to impress me.

Just to expand on why, I find them better than Predators because of their weight of fire. Even if they roll badly on their weapon profile dice, they're still shooting 12 times. They're also something of a waste for anti-tank weapons, while Predators are easily taken down. As for Havocs, they're mere Marines, and we know that's an issue this edition. Obliterators are significantly tougher, and their shooting rate doesn't drop with models as quickly as Havocs. They do have shorter range than these other options, but that's not really a big deal against most armies, which already outrange CSM pretty easily. It does open them to assault, but assault really isn't that reliable, can be easily screened, and for those that can't, well, those armies have the means of getting to your back line just as easily as your mid.

 Yarium wrote:
Obliterators are awesome because bare bones they're good, but their keywords means they can stack a lot of bonuses.

#1 - They're Heretic Astartes <Legion>, so your Legion Trait applies. Alpha Legion is clearly the best here, but there are possible uses for the other Legions. Use Prescience from a Sorcerer if you can, and you hit on 2's instead of 3's.

#2 - They're Infantry. There are things that Infantry can do that non-Infantry can't, like climb buildings and walk through walls. Importantly, they can benefit from Veterans of the Long War for a +1 to their wound rolls. Since you're often wounding on 3's or 4's with Oblits, this means you'll instead often be wounding on 2's or 3's! A big boost!

#3 - They get a Mark of Chaos. So much awesome here, as there's many stratagems and psychic powers that benefit units based on their Mark. Go Nurgle and a Sorcerer can make them -1 to being hit with Miasma of Pestilence (combo with Alpha Legion to be -2 to being hit!), and use Grandfather's Blessings to heal an injured one d3 wounds. Go Slannesh and you can get Endless Cacophany to shoot again, while Delightful Agonies psychic power gives you a 5+ Feel no Pain.

#4 - They're Daemons. Okay, you can't use the Daemon stratagems on them, but everything else is fair game! Alongside Thousand Sons with access to 3 disciplines, and you're laughing. -1 to being hit from Glamour of Tzeentch, and +1 to wound rolls from Flickering Flames!


Oblits work great because they're good on their own, but synergize with almost anything you bring with them!

Can't use glamour on Oblits, they aren't thousand sons and glamour is TS only.

Oblits will never not be good.

It's a fundamental law of the universe.

nareik wrote:
Oblits will never not be good.

It's a fundamental law of the universe.

Hrm, they've definitely had their stretches of being not good. Their first 3.0 incarnation was not great, most of 5E, especially after the 2009/2010 books they really started to lose luster, and outside of some Nurgle stuff (to get ID resistant T5) and formation shennanigans hey were mostly nonexistent in 6E/7E armies

Take 9 and bully your casual meta..

I ran Oblits in every event I played in at Adepticon, and they were MVPs in just about every game. The Big FAQ changes to reserves hurt them a little, but they are still solid.

Another vote for exceptionally good (in a non-tournament setting). I only have three and likely won't build more because three squads of three borders on unfun in many instances. Teleporting in with a Lord and using some stratagems they become exceptionally deadly.

At the very worst you have 3-wound Terminators who produce 12 Strength 7, -1, 1 damage shots. That's if you flub your entire roll. Add to that they have Strength 5 and a couple of attacks and they can even vaguely defend themselves in combat. They have nine wounds compared to 10 of a normal Terminator squad and cost less.

The only thing I can see them not being good against is perhaps hordes or cheap infantry, and even then they can put a dent in them. Excellent against things like heavy infantry, terminators, tyranid warriors, dreadnoughts, light vehicles, characters, etc.

PS: The models are complete gak...but there are ways around it. I made mine out of the easy-to-build Aggressors box.

Also used Aggressors for my Oblits

Khorne Obliterators made from Deathguard terminators and assorted bits.


One thing about Khorne Obliterators is the synergy with the Crimson Crown Khorne Daemon relic. With some good rolls and their +1 wound stratagem they can pump out almost as many shots as the Slaanesh double shot stratagem for 1cp.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
Obits are good, but they cannot solo anything by themselves. You still need traditional heavy weapons to take chunks out of enemy Armor, and then send the Oblits in to finish things off.

I would recommend one unit Slaanesh, one (or two) units Nurgle, and then drop the Nurgle ones with a Feculent Gnarlmaws and a Herald to give them extra durability and the Nurgle locus. Then, you Endless Cacophony one, and can heal the Nurgle ones with either psychic powers or the Grandfather's Gift stratagem. That's how I play them anyhow.

Weird, we've clearly not played the same game, because mine routinely solo'ed magnus, whole squad of hiveguards and other ''heavy'' choice. They just don't do so well against horde.
even without support, shooting twice, +1 to wound, reroll the damage roll, they can do excellent damage. Now starts adding 5+ FnP, reroll 1's, +1 to hit. They are the backbone of any (pure) competitive chaos army along with cultist ATM.

 Elbows wrote:
Another vote for exceptionally good (in a non-tournament setting). I only have three and likely won't build more because three squads of three borders on unfun in many instances. Teleporting in with a Lord and using some stratagems they become exceptionally deadly.

A friend of mine does this, but they're so beautifully scratch built, his opponents are usually too busy staring

Of course I use the term "friend" very loosely here. Anyone setting a mauler fiend loose while 2 warpsmiths are babysitting a hellbrute each behind the cultist screen, all while holding 12 oblits and a chaos lord in reserve will have a hard time making friends

There is a lot of points for them to fail. They can rule too low on strength, too low on damage, too low on AP, miss, or just fail to wound. You only have to roll badly on one of these things often for them to faceplant, and it's pretty unreliable for consistent wins, even if they will make magic happen sometimes.

I really enjoy the degree of randomness with obliterators. They don't always do exactly what you want, but worst case scenario they are still pretty killy. Feels like chaos to me.

 SHUPPET wrote:
There is a lot of points for them to fail. They can rule too low on strength, too low on damage, too low on AP, miss, or just fail to wound. You only have to roll badly on one of these things often for them to faceplant, and it's pretty unreliable for consistent wins, even if they will make magic happen sometimes.

I'll pretty much disagree with this wholesale.

At the very worst you have 12 Strength 7 shots with -1, and 1 damage...assuming you roll as bad as possible. You then mention "miss" or "fail to wound". Yeah, it's a dice game. Everything in 40K can miss or fail to wound. Why would you bring that up as a point of discussion? You're still having a Deepstriking unit with terminator armour, 9 wounds, 12 shots (Assault to boot, so no penalties for moving), Strength five models with - at minimum, very reasonable shooting. That's worth 195 points all day every day.

"hurr it's a game of chance to why bring up probability"

Not excellent logic.

S7, AP1, D1 is not reliable AT. That's a big fail. Even with 1 good roll two poor ones, easily in the realm of common occurrence, say S9 or AP3, you're doing about 2-2.5 wounds to a vehicle. That is not good numbers for a 200 pt AT unit with 24" range. Your minimum roll is doing a fraction of that again.

It's brought up because while all units can miss, and can fail to wound, that's it. Obliterators have a bunch of chances to whiff on top of that. Nobody is saying its impossible for them to deliver, but to just ignore the added risk is ignoring how the unit works. It's not great design. You pay for a gun that shoots at least with the average profile of 2s across the board, but that will rarely be what you get. Not to mention the issue of getting a statistically average roll but landing the good rolls in the wrong slot, e.g. S9 vs T6 -7, or AP3 vs 3++, etc. and 1s elsewhere.

Doing well in 40k is about minimizing the possibility of luck ruining your day, hence is why the same players consistently make top 8s even though it's a dice game. And why even though CSM is also constantly in those top 8s, I'm yet to see a single unit of Obliteraters there for anything that counts.

 SHUPPET wrote:
"hurr it's a game of chance to why bring up probability"

Not excellent logic.

S7, AP1, D1 is not reliable AT. That's a big fail. Even with 1 good roll two poor ones, easily in the realm of common occurrence, say S9 or AP3, you're doing about 2-2.5 wounds to a vehicle. That is not good numbers for a 200 pt AT unit with 24" range. Your minimum roll is doing a fraction of that again.

It's brought up because while all units can miss, and can fail to wound, that's it. Obliterators have a bunch of chances to whiff on top of that. Nobody is saying its impossible for them to deliver, but to just ignore the added risk is ignoring how the unit works. It's not great design. You pay for a gun that shoots at least with the average profile of 2s across the board, but that will rarely be what you get. Not to mention the issue of getting a statistically average roll but landing the good rolls in the wrong slot, e.g. S9 vs T6 -7, or AP3 vs 3++, etc. and 1s elsewhere.

Doing well in 40k is about minimizing the possibility of luck ruining your day, hence is why the same players consistently make top 8s even though it's a dice game. And why even though CSM is also constantly in those top 8s, I'm yet to see a single unit of Obliteraters there for anything that counts.

The reason oblits are good is precisely because of probability. You get 4 per model shots, a lot of options open to Chaos don't have that. Normal anti-tank such as a Lascannon has a higher chance to 'whiff'
Even if you take two Lascannons Havocs to one Obliterator to even it, the chance the two Lascannons do nothing to most vehicles is a fair bit higher than the Obliterator doing nothing.

 SHUPPET wrote:
"hurr it's a game of chance to why bring up probability"

Not excellent logic.

S7, AP1, D1 is not reliable AT. That's a big fail. Even with 1 good roll two poor ones, easily in the realm of common occurrence, say S9 or AP3, you're doing about 2-2.5 wounds to a vehicle. That is not good numbers for a 200 pt AT unit with 24" range. Your minimum roll is doing a fraction of that again.

It's brought up because while all units can miss, and can fail to wound, that's it. Obliterators have a bunch of chances to whiff on top of that. Nobody is saying its impossible for them to deliver, but to just ignore the added risk is ignoring how the unit works. It's not great design. You pay for a gun that shoots at least with the average profile of 2s across the board, but that will rarely be what you get. Not to mention the issue of getting a statistically average roll but landing the good rolls in the wrong slot, e.g. S9 vs T6 -7, or AP3 vs 3++, etc. and 1s elsewhere.

Doing well in 40k is about minimizing the possibility of luck ruining your day, hence is why the same players consistently make top 8s even though it's a dice game. And why even though CSM is also constantly in those top 8s, I'm yet to see a single unit of Obliteraters there for anything that counts.

Ah, snide internet insults...always fantastic. Excellent addition to the conversation.

 Elbows wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
"hurr it's a game of chance to why bring up probability"

Not excellent logic.

S7, AP1, D1 is not reliable AT. That's a big fail. Even with 1 good roll two poor ones, easily in the realm of common occurrence, say S9 or AP3, you're doing about 2-2.5 wounds to a vehicle. That is not good numbers for a 200 pt AT unit with 24" range. Your minimum roll is doing a fraction of that again.

It's brought up because while all units can miss, and can fail to wound, that's it. Obliterators have a bunch of chances to whiff on top of that. Nobody is saying its impossible for them to deliver, but to just ignore the added risk is ignoring how the unit works. It's not great design. You pay for a gun that shoots at least with the average profile of 2s across the board, but that will rarely be what you get. Not to mention the issue of getting a statistically average roll but landing the good rolls in the wrong slot, e.g. S9 vs T6 -7, or AP3 vs 3++, etc. and 1s elsewhere.

Doing well in 40k is about minimizing the possibility of luck ruining your day, hence is why the same players consistently make top 8s even though it's a dice game. And why even though CSM is also constantly in those top 8s, I'm yet to see a single unit of Obliteraters there for anything that counts.

Ah, snide internet insults...always fantastic. Excellent addition to the conversation.

Ah, the declaration that you feel attacked so you can duck out of having to respond to stronger logic.

Nowhere in my post did I insult you at all. And calling anybody snide is rich coming from the guy who punctuated his initial response with things like "why would you even bring that up?"

Amazing conversion, really like the look of these

On topic, Oblits are very good. If they when they come down they have a very good chance of deleting what they shoot at (Endless Cacophony all but guarantees this). Afterwards they put a very hard decision on your opponent - divert half their army to remove the threat and thus leaving the rest of your army unharmed for another turn, or ignore them and let them bully another unit.

 Stux wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
"hurr it's a game of chance to why bring up probability"

Not excellent logic.

S7, AP1, D1 is not reliable AT. That's a big fail. Even with 1 good roll two poor ones, easily in the realm of common occurrence, say S9 or AP3, you're doing about 2-2.5 wounds to a vehicle. That is not good numbers for a 200 pt AT unit with 24" range. Your minimum roll is doing a fraction of that again.

It's brought up because while all units can miss, and can fail to wound, that's it. Obliterators have a bunch of chances to whiff on top of that. Nobody is saying its impossible for them to deliver, but to just ignore the added risk is ignoring how the unit works. It's not great design. You pay for a gun that shoots at least with the average profile of 2s across the board, but that will rarely be what you get. Not to mention the issue of getting a statistically average roll but landing the good rolls in the wrong slot, e.g. S9 vs T6 -7, or AP3 vs 3++, etc. and 1s elsewhere.

Doing well in 40k is about minimizing the possibility of luck ruining your day, hence is why the same players consistently make top 8s even though it's a dice game. And why even though CSM is also constantly in those top 8s, I'm yet to see a single unit of Obliteraters there for anything that counts.

The reason oblits are good is precisely because of probability. You get 4 per model shots, a lot of options open to Chaos don't have that. Normal anti-tank such as a Lascannon has a higher chance to 'whiff'
Even if you take two Lascannons Havocs to one Obliterator to even it, the chance the two Lascannons do nothing to most vehicles is a fair bit higher than the Obliterator doing nothing.

If you're taking 2 Lascannon Havocs for every Obliterater, that's 6 dice, it's kinda past the point where 1 unlucky roll is likely to screw your day, you have 5 more shots behind it. At that point a flubbed roll to hit there is not really more likely than a bad roll to hit for the Oblits either. And you're hitting harder with the Havocs and more consistently. And from turn 1 onwards instead of needing to wait to DS into your optimal, and without needing to put yourself in assault range of most assault armies. And I don't even think Havoc are that great either, they play the role every single time though at least, and Obliterators simply have way more avenues to fail, and that's a problem from a competitive stance.

 SHUPPET wrote:

 Stux wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
"hurr it's a game of chance to why bring up probability"

Not excellent logic.

S7, AP1, D1 is not reliable AT. That's a big fail. Even with 1 good roll two poor ones, easily in the realm of common occurrence, say S9 or AP3, you're doing about 2-2.5 wounds to a vehicle. That is not good numbers for a 200 pt AT unit with 24" range. Your minimum roll is doing a fraction of that again.

It's brought up because while all units can miss, and can fail to wound, that's it. Obliterators have a bunch of chances to whiff on top of that. Nobody is saying its impossible for them to deliver, but to just ignore the added risk is ignoring how the unit works. It's not great design. You pay for a gun that shoots at least with the average profile of 2s across the board, but that will rarely be what you get. Not to mention the issue of getting a statistically average roll but landing the good rolls in the wrong slot, e.g. S9 vs T6 -7, or AP3 vs 3++, etc. and 1s elsewhere.

Doing well in 40k is about minimizing the possibility of luck ruining your day, hence is why the same players consistently make top 8s even though it's a dice game. And why even though CSM is also constantly in those top 8s, I'm yet to see a single unit of Obliteraters there for anything that counts.

The reason oblits are good is precisely because of probability. You get 4 per model shots, a lot of options open to Chaos don't have that. Normal anti-tank such as a Lascannon has a higher chance to 'whiff'
Even if you take two Lascannons Havocs to one Obliterator to even it, the chance the two Lascannons do nothing to most vehicles is a fair bit higher than the Obliterator doing nothing.

If you're taking 2 Lascannon Havocs for every Obliterater, that's 6 dice, it's kinda past the point where 1 unlucky roll is likely to screw your day, you have 5 more shots behind it. At that point a flubbed roll to hit there is not really more likely than a bad roll to hit for the Oblits either. And you're hitting harder with the Havocs and more consistently. And from turn 1 onwards instead of needing to wait to DS into your optimal, and without needing to put yourself in assault range of most assault armies. And I don't even think Havoc are that great either, they play the role every single time though at least, and Obliterators simply have way more avenues to fail, and that's a problem from a competitive stance.

They have 24" guns. They need not deepstrike.

And let's compare 3 Oblits (195 points) to a 4-Las Havoc Squad (165 points). We'll shoot, say, a Knight. And remember-the difference in points is less than 20%.

Havocs do, with a Lord, the following:
4 shots
28/9 hits
56/27 wounds
112/81 unsaved
392/81 damage, or 4.84 damage

Obliterators do, with a Lord, the following, assuming they rolled nothing but 1s:
12 shots
28/3 hits
28/9 wounds
14/9 unsaved
14/9 damage, or 1.56 damage

But that's unlikely. 1/27 chance of happening. Let's take a more even spread, of S9, AP-2, D1.
12 shots
28/3 hits
56/9 wounds
112/27 unsaved
112/27 damage, or 4.15 damage

Oblits are a little worse, but not a ton, and they're one HECK of a lot more durable.

Let's check the other end! Perfect rolls, nothing but 3s.
12 shots
28/3 hits
56/9 wounds
112/27 unsaved
112/9 damage, or 12.44 damage

So, on a fantastic roll, the Oblits do MASSIVELY better.

And, if you check the math on the first one, a single CP spent to reroll the damage from 1 to 3 increases them to about the same as the Lascannon crew.

Then, as a reminder, if you're fighting a Warden, here's what he does BACK to your units.

Against Havocs:
12 shots
8 hits
16/3 wounds
32/9 unsaved, or a little over 3.
Two dead lascannons (halving your firepower and potentially eating some morale).

Against Oblits:
12 shots
8 hits
16/3 wounds
8/3 unsaved, or a little under 3.
One dead Oblit (decreasing firepower by a third and no morale needed).