Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Thoughts on running Ahriman with Sanctic Daemonology?

My thoughts are, he'd have a squad of Thousand Sons for protection and a backup sorceror(s) for warp charge generation and more sanctic.
He's trying to get Vortex of doom, though Sanctuary benefits Rubrics and Purge soul is another nice witchfire.
To work, this also needs Gate of Infinity- which Ahriman or the other Sorceror could get, ideally both.

Start of the psychic phase, Ahriman and co gate somewhere on the board, close to enemy lines near something valuable.

Ahriman drops as many vortexes as possible ( he can cast one witchfire that he knows up to 3 times) and then either gate out to safety or weather the storm with 9 invulnerable marines standing between him and the enemy's wrath.
The problem is that it requires a lot of warpcharge to pull off, is likely to get him periled and he cannot take a familiar.

Is there anyway this could work? I don't know of any way to improve his chances of success with sanctic perils.

Thousand Sons are way overpriced and die pretty easy- even with that 4++. The last thing I would call them is invulnerable. 8 TS with an Aspiring Sorcerer, on foot- costs almost 250 pts. They can never run or fire overwatch because of Slow and Purposeful... And they can't take any special weapons.

To throw Ahriman in a Rhino (no upgrades) with a squad of 1K sons (8 TS and a naked aspiring sorcerer) will cost over 500 pts.... I mean, that's a lot of points for not much killing power at all... You can bring 3 Heldrakes for the same points.

As an experienced Chaos player, I see Ahriman killing himself with perils with this strategy. And your 1K Sons dead due to bolter fire.

 KhorneontheCobb wrote:
Thousand Sons are way overpriced and die pretty easy- even with that 4++. The last thing I would call them is invulnerable. 8 TS with an Aspiring Sorcerer, on foot- costs almost 250 pts. They can never run or fire overwatch because of Slow and Purposeful... And they can't take any special weapons.

To throw Ahriman in a Rhino (no upgrades) with a squad of 1K sons (8 TS and a naked aspiring sorcerer) will cost over 500 pts.... I mean, that's a lot of points for not much killing power at all... You can bring 3 Heldrakes for the same points.

As an experienced Chaos player, I see Ahriman killing himself with perils with this strategy. And your 1K Sons dead due to bolter fire.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I meant marines with invuln saves.
I play Thousand Sons and I'm all too aware of how crunchy and overpriced they are.

They're the bodyguard I have though, unless I want to pull Obliterators through the warp for 6 terminator wounds. The problem there is sanctuary would actually hurt the oblits, rather than buff them.

I agree that Ahriman is likely to kill himself with repeated sanctic use- though it would take 3 perils to do that, and he'd have to roll 'bad' results (1 in 3 chance of nothing bad happening on a successful ld check). He could attempt to drop 2 vortex templates in one turn and assuming he still had 2+ wounds left, go for a third- leaving between zero and three small D blasts wandering around on my opponents side of the table. He could then switch to 'safer' witchfires for the rest of the game like the aforementioned purge soul- or the ones he's gotten from tzeentch discipline (hopefully doombolt, failing that the flamey one)

The thousand sons are there to provide 9 wounds between him and immediate retribution- knowing that we can teleport to safety next turn if need be.


What I need is some way to make it viable. Is there a (non familiar) way to lessen the chance of perils either directly or by making psychic tests easier to pass (rerolls, pass on 3+, 2+ etc)?


TLDR-

Ahriman has no access to rerolling psychic tests or the sort.

 CrownAxe wrote:
Ahriman has no access to rerolling psychic tests or the sort.

Not natively.

However one of the new daemon warlord traits for tzeentch allows you to ignore the first perils of a psychic phase. (I don't know if that just applies to the warlord, or any units in the army)
Stuff like that may be able to keep Ahriman alive. This particular example is awful because it relies on you getting one result from a table of 6 results and requires you to have daemons as your main detachment.

I'm looking for something I may have missed.

There's no way you'd generate enough Warp Charges to make this practical.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
There's no way you'd generate enough Warp Charges to make this practical.

I have run Ahriman, a ml3 sorceror and two thousand sons squads. That's 9 warpcharge, plus a d6 roll. To have a decent chance at this, yeah I'd need more charge, but also a way to make passing tests easier/less perilous. Plus I don't need to be chucking out small blasts all game. A few at the start and one or two as opportunity allows.

You're gonna need 21 warp charge to make it semi-likely, even more to make it reliable.
And throwing 6 dice to statistically get it each time means you are going to perils all the time, like 99%. 100% if you use 7 dice per cast.
Ahriman will explode. And that's even assuming you get vortex.
Purge soul could be cool, point at a squad and remove 2 heavy weapons and the sergeant? could be pretty good.
Or use it to remove 3 wounds from the tank before opening up with your bodyguards.

If you get vortex, and you get enough warp charge, and you get into range (maybe gate) then it will be hysterical. Nowhere near competitive, but Ahriman will explode and take half of the enemy army with him (over 3 turns with the vortexs running rampant)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Honestly, you'd be better off triple tapping someone with psychic shriek or smite, even assail (you could put half to all of his army through difficult terrain)

Depends what disciplines you can use.

The most obvious use of his multiple witch fire power is psychic shriek. You can get him close by using his infiltration warlord trait (although now it's harder because both the unit and the character will need to have infiltrate so you need to roll 2 or 3 on his d3 roll). Alternatively, stick him into the dreadclaw drop pod and that will get him closer.

I've had it work great, like when I killed half a bike army turn one with psychic shriek. However, it has an even better chance to fail horribly.

If you're dead set on this, inquisitorial henchmen squads are 18 points per warp charge.

The only way your going to get any where near the charges you need for this is to ally in pink horrors. TS are to expensive to be used for warp charge batteries

Psychic shriek is decent alright, but my experiences with it haven't been great. Mostly because I'm either fighting high leadership marines or mid leadership guard and there are better powers/tools for killing humans in flak jackets.

Plus, 18 inch range is now within extreme charge range- if I have to get my 240pt bookworm that close to an enemy unit I'd want the payoff to be good enough that there shouldn't be anyone standing there to hassle him(that a few inferno bolts couldn't erase).

I'm not worried about being super competitive, just trying to eke the best I can out of an overpriced army.

I already suspected that triple vortex was a lost cause but I was hoping there was something I'd missed. It's a pity, because it would be an excellent use of his 3x witchfire ability.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

bogalubov wrote:
The most obvious use of his multiple witch fire power is psychic shriek. You can get him close by using his infiltration warlord trait (although now it's harder because both the unit and the character will need to have infiltrate so you need to roll 2 or 3 on his d3 roll).

Is that the case? I'd been playing it so that I join a character to a unit before the game and give the whole unit infiltrate.
I usually outflank a Terminator sorcerer with either oblits or terminator retinue as the situation demands.

 =Angel= wrote:

Is that the case? I'd been playing it so that I join a character to a unit before the game and give the whole unit infiltrate.
I usually outflank a Terminator sorcerer with either oblits or terminator retinue as the situation demands.

Yup. GW actually provided a FAQ to this. Both the independent character and the unit need to have "infiltrate" to be deployed together.