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A couple night scythes never hurt for AA, either.

Also, if you have any sentry pylons, they make great AA as well with the heavy gauss cannon versions.

Finally, a firestorm redoubt with 2 quad lascannons and a magos machine spirit will only set you back 230 points, and has a great defense vs skimmers and flyers.

 jasper76 wrote:

As soon as you add anything that's not a detachment (for instance, you add a triach stalker model to three destoyer cult detachments) the entire army becomes unbound and no one receives any command benefits what so ever.

This is not how it works.

"Formations can also be taken as part of Unbound armies (pg. 117). If they are, their units maintain the special rules gained for being part of the Formation." (pg.121)

That means you can take a Destroyer Cult Formation and recieve all the benefits of it, even when you add a single Triarch Stalker or a Bloodthirster or twenty Warhound Titans to your army, although these models do not gain command benefits from any Formations they are not part of. In this case, playing an Unbound army makes literally no difference at all (with the exeption that Detachments, like a Decurion, a CAD or Allied Detachment, may only be included in Battle-forged armies).

@Nekekhare: I think you got your quotes mixed up there

 jasper76 wrote:
In that case, let me put it this way. As a Tyranid 'NidZilla' player, nothing makes my stomach sink worse then playing against a bunch of AP2-3, and a bunch of AA.

AA, because I, like most everyone else, brings at least 1 FMC (as my Warlord). Mass AP2-3 because it basically turns my MCs into Guardsmen with lots of wounds.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It would be helpful for me to see what you have to work with. I don't know if that kind of thing is frowned upon on the Tactica boards.

I have:

3 overlords
9 lords
5 crypteks
44 warriors
5 immortals / gauss
10 snipers
3 fliers (either set up)
2 ghost arks
3 monoliths
nightbringer
6 tomb blades
9 wraiths
2 barges (either way)
1 stalker
1 spyder
11 scarabs
5 destroyers
1 destroyer lord
1 sentry pylon with heat ray


I am so tempted to buy deceiver and go double shard unbound with 2 monoliths as well!

The Monoliths would be death weight against Flyrants.

 Nehekhare wrote:

Ffyllotek wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:

As soon as you add anything that's not a detachment (for instance, you add a triach stalker model to three destoyer cult detachments) the entire army becomes unbound and no one receives any command benefits what so ever.

This is not how it works.

"Formations can also be taken as part of Unbound armies (pg. 117). If they are, their units maintain the special rules gained for being part of the Formation." (pg.121)

That means you can take a Destroyer Cult Formation and recieve all the benefits of it, even when you add a single Triarch Stalker or a Bloodthirster or twenty Warhound Titans to your army, although these models do not gain command benefits from any Formations they are not part of. In this case, playing an Unbound army makes literally no difference at all (with the exeption that Detachments, like a Decurion, a CAD or Allied Detachment, may only be included in Battle-forged armies).

While tournaments don't allow Unbound lists (for obvious reasons), most friendly games with people you know won't have a problem with it if you're just running Unbound because you either don't have the models or you want to run a theme list. I mean, don't abuse the friendship by bringing 6 Wraithknights, but no one at my FLGS bats an eye when someone says "Hey, I feel like loading up on Aspect Warriors and don't want to bring Guardians, Dire Avengers, or Jetbikes, so I'll be Unbound.", we just roll with it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tyran wrote:
The Monoliths would be death weight against Flyrants.

Not necessarily. If he's bringing mostly Flyrants and little else, the Monoliths are perfectly fine just sitting on an objective and holding it for free. If the Flyrants land to charge it, that's fine too, as I just made a Flyrant land and as long as the Particle Whip doesn't scatter, I probably took a free wound off it too.

Requizen wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tyran wrote:
The Monoliths would be death weight against Flyrants.

Not necessarily. If he's bringing mostly Flyrants and little else, the Monoliths are perfectly fine just sitting on an objective and holding it for free. If the Flyrants land to charge it, that's fine too, as I just made a Flyrant land and as long as the Particle Whip doesn't scatter, I probably took a free wound off it too.

If he brings 4 Flyrants, he could kill 1 in a shooting turn as the Flyrants are going to have E-grubs.

It's said that (Heavy) Destroyers can no longer use the Eternity Gate.
I always loved to use Monoliths to have alternative firing points.

"Ooh, you took cover against the models on my right flank? Luckily I have a Monolith on the left side."

Eternity Gate is infantry, and jump infantry, only now.

So no Destroyers, heavy or not, are porting through it anymore

 Tyran wrote:

Requizen wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tyran wrote:
The Monoliths would be death weight against Flyrants.

Not necessarily. If he's bringing mostly Flyrants and little else, the Monoliths are perfectly fine just sitting on an objective and holding it for free. If the Flyrants land to charge it, that's fine too, as I just made a Flyrant land and as long as the Particle Whip doesn't scatter, I probably took a free wound off it too.

If he brings 4 Flyrants, he could kill 1 in a shooting turn as the Flyrants are going to have E-grubs.

Gah, ok true, I forgot about those cursed things.

With those selection, I'd be inlclined to go CAD, and take DLord w/ Voidreaper and maybe Phase Shifter attached to the Wraiths. I'd take your Destroyers and get the most of their distance AP3.

And build from there...maybe 2 Troops of 10 Warriors in Night Scythes for AA. Or a couple ABs. The codex is new enough that I don't have all the points costs memorized, and I don't have it with me. so I don't know how close to 1000 I'm getting.

You could also go the Canoptek Harvest route, but at 1000 point game, I think the Spyder/Scarab tax would be very hefty and not sure if it would provide too much added value.

So.. I'm seeing a lot of people take the one heavy destroyer upgrade choice in Destroyer units. Is there a reason for that? As far as I can tell, normals and heavies still have completely different targeting priorities, so functionally on average you're basically just paying to either give that character one less shot that wounds on a 2+ instead of a 3+, or to have the rest of the unit plink away with gauss as the Lascannon does it's work.

What's everyone's thoughts on the transdimensional Beamer upgrade for wraiths?

In the Canoptek Harvest Formation they have the relentless special rule so they can fire them and then charge. Poor str but AP2 is nice especially against elite infantry, and the instant death potential seems really good against MC since Nidzilla is somewhat popular.

Do they cost too much or is it better to have the +3 initiative.

Punisher wrote:
What's everyone's thoughts on the transdimensional Beamer upgrade for wraiths?

In the Canoptek Harvest Formation they have the relentless special rule so they can fire them and then charge. Poor str but AP2 is nice especially against elite infantry, and the instant death potential seems really good against MC since Nidzilla is somewhat popular.

Do they cost too much or is it better to have the +3 initiative.

I like them now personally, but only with Relentless (so only as part of Harvest) I'm probably going to have a couple models with TB on hand to play with. If you like the TB, you can have the best of both worlds...1 or 2 models with TB, 2 or 3 in the back with WCs, and 1 - 3 vanilla to soak up fire from the front, just like old times.

I think i just realized that we cant take the Quad gun emplacement (or any fortification) with the Decurion detachment, right? Would we have to take a CAD on the side to unlock access to a fortification?

xpress907 wrote:
I think i just realized that we cant take the Quad gun emplacement (or any fortification) with the Decurion detachment, right? Would we have to take a CAD on the side to unlock access to a fortification?

Hadn't thought about this til now, but I think you are correct.

changemod wrote:
So.. I'm seeing a lot of people take the one heavy destroyer upgrade choice in Destroyer units. Is there a reason for that? As far as I can tell, normals and heavies still have completely different targeting priorities, so functionally on average you're basically just paying to either give that character one less shot that wounds on a 2+ instead of a 3+, or to have the rest of the unit plink away with gauss as the Lascannon does it's work.

I mean, that's true. But, at the same time, having 3 more lascannons on the board is never a bad thing. If they only shoot at Destroyer targets, like you said it's one less shot that wounds better and can ID many things. But if you don't bring them, and they opponent doesn't have 3+ or other good targets for the regular Destroyers, but has a lot of Vehicles, MCs, or 2+ characters, then the Destroyers aren't doing much and you'll really be wishing for that 10 point upgrade.

Basically, bringing 1 Heavy per squad grants flexibility. The Heavy's shot is always going to do damage (even if it's "wasted" on the Destroyer's target), and if there are targets for the Heavies, the Destroyers are keeping it safe and you'll be happy that Lascannon is there.

Requizen wrote:

changemod wrote:
So.. I'm seeing a lot of people take the one heavy destroyer upgrade choice in Destroyer units. Is there a reason for that? As far as I can tell, normals and heavies still have completely different targeting priorities, so functionally on average you're basically just paying to either give that character one less shot that wounds on a 2+ instead of a 3+, or to have the rest of the unit plink away with gauss as the Lascannon does it's work.

I mean, that's true. But, at the same time, having 3 more lascannons on the board is never a bad thing. If they only shoot at Destroyer targets, like you said it's one less shot that wounds better and can ID many things. But if you don't bring them, and they opponent doesn't have 3+ or other good targets for the regular Destroyers, but has a lot of Vehicles, MCs, or 2+ characters, then the Destroyers aren't doing much and you'll really be wishing for that 10 point upgrade.

Basically, bringing 1 Heavy per squad grants flexibility. The Heavy's shot is always going to do damage (even if it's "wasted" on the Destroyer's target), and if there are targets for the Heavies, the Destroyers are keeping it safe and you'll be happy that Lascannon is there.

I guess that makes sense, I'm just mostly going from mixing being a bad idea last edition and the weapons still having the same profile.

So.. At the moment I have 5 normals, 3 heavies and a Lord. Definitely getting four more to fit minimum requirements, but was considering getting an additional 9 after that for the full cult.

Sounds more like 6 and 3 heavy would be the best way to round out the Cult to max size.

changemod wrote:

Requizen wrote:

changemod wrote:
So.. I'm seeing a lot of people take the one heavy destroyer upgrade choice in Destroyer units. Is there a reason for that? As far as I can tell, normals and heavies still have completely different targeting priorities, so functionally on average you're basically just paying to either give that character one less shot that wounds on a 2+ instead of a 3+, or to have the rest of the unit plink away with gauss as the Lascannon does it's work.

I mean, that's true. But, at the same time, having 3 more lascannons on the board is never a bad thing. If they only shoot at Destroyer targets, like you said it's one less shot that wounds better and can ID many things. But if you don't bring them, and they opponent doesn't have 3+ or other good targets for the regular Destroyers, but has a lot of Vehicles, MCs, or 2+ characters, then the Destroyers aren't doing much and you'll really be wishing for that 10 point upgrade.

Basically, bringing 1 Heavy per squad grants flexibility. The Heavy's shot is always going to do damage (even if it's "wasted" on the Destroyer's target), and if there are targets for the Heavies, the Destroyers are keeping it safe and you'll be happy that Lascannon is there.

I guess that makes sense, I'm just mostly going from mixing being a bad idea last edition and the weapons still having the same profile.

So.. At the moment I have 5 normals, 3 heavies and a Lord. Definitely getting four more to fit minimum requirements, but was considering getting an additional 9 after that for the full cult.

Sounds more like 6 and 3 heavy would be the best way to round out the Cult to max size.

As much as I love Destroyers (and I do, I really do), I don't think I'm going to run it at full strength. That's a bit too much wrapped up in one unit type for my blood. I think I'll be running the 6 Regular + 6 Heavy version instead, still has all the Lascannons but relatively cheaper. My meta doesn't feature a lot of Marines or other 3+ saves, but we have a good amount of Nidzilla and Tank spam.

Well, the full Cult would pretty much be just for a theme list where I run them as the core detachment, but the priority is getting the base version.

Punisher wrote:
What's everyone's thoughts on the transdimensional Beamer upgrade for wraiths?

In the Canoptek Harvest Formation they have the relentless special rule so they can fire them and then charge. Poor str but AP2 is nice especially against elite infantry, and the instant death potential seems really good against MC since Nidzilla is somewhat popular.

Do they cost too much or is it better to have the +3 initiative.

Honestly I like the Beamer more than the Whip Coils in many cases. Going first is great and all, but when you're as durable as Wraiths (especially if they have Formation Spyder support), going second isn't a big deal at all. And it also doesn't help if you're going through cover anyway, which is a high possibility.

But having an AP2 gun that can auto-pen or auto-ID? That's a pretty big deal. Sure, it's not the best gun in the game - it's BS4 on a max squad size of 6, it's only S4 if you don't roll 6s, it's only 12" - but it gives Wraiths the capability to do damage even when they're not charging, and makes them a variable threat that can seriously make MCs and heavy vehicles afraid even before they charge in.

So I was thinking about our lack of AA in an increasingly Flyrant-filled world. Was thinking about the Gauss Sentry Pylon. I know that it can only hit skimmers and flyers on full ballistic skill, but I'm thinking about creative ways to get around that. I like the gauss variant (over the patently broken version) but obviously you want them to be able to target ground units if need be.

Is there a way around this? What do broadsides have that lets them get away with this? Or do they not any more? I was thinking we could use Zandrekh (sp?) to steal rules from a similar allied unit (since they could not be allies of convenience and that is what Necrons and tau are IIRC)

Gauss Cannons can never target non-FMC or -Skimmer ground targets at full BS. It kind of limits them a bit, but then you realize the every army has a least one of those things. Many armies bring at least one with regularity. The only armies you can regularly expect to not have a Flyer or Skimmer are Bike Marines or Orks.

Dark Eldar, Eldar, Necrons, Tau all have Skimmer vehicles. Daemons have Skimmer chariots and more FMCs than you can shake a stick at. Nids bring FMCs more often than not. Guard (or MT) will usually have at least one flyer. Chaos have Princes and Hellturkeys. And even Orks and SM occasionally have a flyer or two. So honestly, against many armies you go against, it'll not be snapshooting.

That said, they're still pretty expensive for what they do. 135 before upgrades for 2 situational shots is a lot to ask for, though it's paying that for the durability (T7 W3) and the range (120"!!!). I don't think it's a great investment, but it's not a useless one.

Requizen wrote:
Gauss Cannons can never target non-FMC or -Skimmer ground targets at full BS. It kind of limits them a bit, but then you realize the every army has a least one of those things. Many armies bring at least one with regularity. The only armies you can regularly expect to not have a Flyer or Skimmer are Bike Marines or Orks.

Dark Eldar, Eldar, Necrons, Tau all have Skimmer vehicles. Daemons have Skimmer chariots and more FMCs than you can shake a stick at. Nids bring FMCs more often than not. Guard (or MT) will usually have at least one flyer. Chaos have Princes and Hellturkeys. And even Orks and SM occasionally have a flyer or two. So honestly, against many armies you go against, it'll not be snapshooting.

That said, they're still pretty expensive for what they do. 135 before upgrades for 2 situational shots is a lot to ask for, though it's paying that for the durability (T7 W3) and the range (120"!!!). I don't think it's a great investment, but it's not a useless one.

Right, I agree on all counts.

EDIT I derped and misread Zandrekh's special rule.

Another potential combo - Doomsday Arks and Deathmarks

At least for me, as soon as I think about a Doomsday Ark, I think of Melta Drop Pods forcing the choice between jinking and exploding.

Deathmarks seem to be an answer to this. They automatically come in right after someone deepstriking, get to Intercept, and 6 of them should kill 3 marines on average.

Requizen wrote:

changemod wrote:
So.. I'm seeing a lot of people take the one heavy destroyer upgrade choice in Destroyer units. Is there a reason for that? As far as I can tell, normals and heavies still have completely different targeting priorities, so functionally on average you're basically just paying to either give that character one less shot that wounds on a 2+ instead of a 3+, or to have the rest of the unit plink away with gauss as the Lascannon does it's work.

I mean, that's true. But, at the same time, having 3 more lascannons on the board is never a bad thing. If they only shoot at Destroyer targets, like you said it's one less shot that wounds better and can ID many things. But if you don't bring them, and they opponent doesn't have 3+ or other good targets for the regular Destroyers, but has a lot of Vehicles, MCs, or 2+ characters, then the Destroyers aren't doing much and you'll really be wishing for that 10 point upgrade.

Basically, bringing 1 Heavy per squad grants flexibility. The Heavy's shot is always going to do damage (even if it's "wasted" on the Destroyer's target), and if there are targets for the Heavies, the Destroyers are keeping it safe and you'll be happy that Lascannon is there.

i think its also important to remember as well that although the ranges are different the gauss rule means no shots are ever wasted as they can still hurt the target the heavy D is aiming for.

Requizen wrote:


[... ]And it also doesn't help if you're going through cover anyway, which is a high possibility.

I posted about this in YMDC, and the majority of contributors in the thread agreed on the wraiths not losing their initiative when charging into difficult terrain, because the penalty condition is that you moved through diff. terrain when charging, and wraiths may always move over terrain as if it was open ground (which by definition of the BRB is a terrain type of its own, and thus cannot count as difficult terrain as well).

Here's the whole thread, locked now due the discussion having run its course, but all the valid points remain.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/633761.page

caelim wrote:
Another potential combo - Doomsday Arks and Deathmarks

At least for me, as soon as I think about a Doomsday Ark, I think of Melta Drop Pods forcing the choice between jinking and exploding.

Deathmarks seem to be an answer to this. They automatically come in right after someone deepstriking, get to Intercept, and 6 of them should kill 3 marines on average.

Potential Deathmark combo: Obyron in the Deathmarks, place Zahndrekh in the middle of your important units. Your Barges, your Doomsday Ark, Stalker, Heavy Destroyers, whatever you brought. Make sure he's there.

Then, when your opponent Deep Strikes onto a nice potential target, there's a nice 24" diameter bubble that you get a perfect Deep Strike Interception.

If they don't Deep Strike near that bubble, keep the Deathmarks in reserve. Then next turn, move Zahndrekh towards the enemy that just landed and have the Deathmarks come down perfectly there.

If you have the points, you can even include a Destroyer Lord for that nice PE(E!).

As for Flying Monstrous Creatures, Tomb Blades will put a serious hurt on them either just volume of fire if they get within 12" or straight up just murder them if they try to glide.Meanwhile the Tomb Blades are going to ignore most shooting from the Hive Tyrants, 3 + 5 + ( in the case of Decurion 4+)

At 24 inches , you decrease in ability but the thng with Hive Tyrants is they have to CLose in on AV13 to get haywire otherwise you can just shoot at them all day and they can't do nothing about it.

At 12 inches and if they're gliding, you'll straight up just murder a Hive Tyrant a turn with Tomb Blades. 20 AP4 ST5 , no cover save. I'm pretty sure Flyrants are T6. I don't have my book.

They also got a good chance of killing one a turn if they man a Quad gun which of course is the Cheaper Option. 3 Tomb Blades w/ One Aegis is less than 150 points and it's going to mow down Hive Tyrants more if you have a Destroyer Lord attached to the Tomb Blades to give Preferred Enemy.

Also, I don't think the Bargelord is kind of worth it any more unless done cheap.

Why would the Tyrant ever glide? BTW, Tyrants are T6 and 3+, with the occasional FNP.