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List, let me know what you think. What I'm more interested in though is, how would you go about beating this?


Here's the plan/unit breakdown:

One sorcerer joins my command squad, by the rules of the command net vox all renegade units nearby can use the units leadership for leadership tests (now I've got Ld 10 renegades)

Other two sorcerers join artillery units that I think are going to get shot at. Thanks to the artillery rules they are toughness 7, throw in some CSM power armor (and look out sir rolls if necessary) and I've got 3+ save T7 large blast squads.

Sorcerers fish on the traitors hate psychic tables, this could be opponent specific, but mostly I want Earthly Anathema. (WC1: 24" blessing that gives guns ignore cover). Now I've got earthshakers and medusa that can ignore cover (or quad launchers/heavy mortars if you don't have a lot of armor). Also possible that I get a 6 on the geomortis table, in which case I start throwing terrain around.

Zombies do their thing and run (shamble) at my opponent till they dead, alternatively zombies spread out to max unit coherency and act as layers to keep my artillery safe (vs zerg dog lists). Ordnance tyrant lets me drop pie plates on their head into combat if necessary.

Giant chaos spawn. It's 80 points for a monstrous creature/distraction carnifex, what's not to love? (I wish I could take moreeeee)

This army's win condition is to kill my opponent, failing that, hope I have enough zombies kicking around to get on an objective or two. But with the firepower my list can put out I'm not sure much is going to be able to stand against it?


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Some more tactics and thoughts:

If I'm facing off against a riptide wing: send a sorcerer forward in one of the 30 man zombie units. Roll on biomancy 3 times, hopefully get enfeeble, cast it, instant death his riptides with 3 medusa shots #value

All artillery carriages deliberately have 5 crew, this is so 2 have to die for a leadership check (they're 3 points/crew, hella worth)

When the new magnus spells come out, possibly roll on those if I can (they look a little op)

.. dont use sorcerors to tank hits for artillery.. that sounds horrible...

But no I'm not sure I could even attempt to beat this. I guess an invisible death star would cause the biggest issues. But the ordnance tyrant is a very good counter.

The biggest problem with Renegades is speed

Put your sorcerers in the zombies mobs and equipped them with bikes or jet-packs, you can move them out to the front of the mobs during your movement, cast your abilities, then turbo-boost or run back

@Captyn Bob I figured I'd do it against high volume high ap shots, cause T7 3+ seems pretty tough to kill, though in retrospect, probably a poor idea as I don't really want to be losing my sorcerers.

@Plague Planet Lord in previous lists I've considered solving the speed problem with chaos spawn spam. As beasts they get that sweet sweet 12" move. I removed them in this list to make room for the cabal.

Since I'm fielding a purge detachment I could include an extra sorcerer as my purges second HQ choice. I could then throw on the balestar of mannon onto him for rolling of the divination table. Worth it?

Alternatively, i scrap the cabal and just field the 1 balestar sorc. (and fill the rest of the points with speedy spawn)

Double alternative, I give the sorcerers bikes, one rolls on geomortis (going for that ignores cover, on artillery its super valuable, BUT with a 24" range I can be far up the field), one rolls on telepathy (going for that invis), and the last rolls on whatever I think I'll need (possibly biomancy). Stick all three into a 50 man zombie mob and make a giant invisible zombie blob. Towards the end of the game, or if I think my zombies are going to tarpit something, I turbo boost my sorcerers away and towards objectives.

How will you handle mass poison shots, such as from DE?

You can't mix and match csm And renegades in a purge detachment

Tbh the new sorcerer powers are better than divination anyway


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As an aside in regard to dark eldar, the new faq has confirmed you can't jink against blasts that didn't target you. Fun and games

I don't think DE would be a problem as he'll be put in a damned if he does, damned if he doesn't situation. As long as I layer my zombie blobs appropriately he won't be able to get close enough to rapid fire mass poison shots without also being in assault range of my zombies. The alternative is he tries to fight me from range. 9 twin linked lascannons should make short work of he vehicles, and heavy mortars (AP4)/earthshakers will make short work of his troops (wherever they try to hide).

It's unlikely he'll be able to kill off a full artillery carriage worth of crew from range with one tanks worth of shooting. That means to wipe one out he'll have to commit multiple units of shooting, which leaves more surviving. With multiple artillery carriages I'll hopefully still be able to put a high volume of fire back at him as things die.

The nice thing with mass troops/artillery is they counter high mobility armies pretty well. It doesn't matter how fast you are if I can hit you anywhere on the table. Also, with close to 200 models in my force I'm going to take up a pretty sizable footprint, which further limits opponent's room to maneuver.

The only way I see a dark eldar victory is if he goes full ham and gets up in my grill in force as fast as possible. Looking at an example list on frontlinegamings lista tactica I could expect to lose about half of my artillery in a turn of shooting. As mentioned, this would put him in a really compromised position. I don't really have enough experience vs DE to say how the rest would turn out, but with a few good blasts (like literally 3 large blasts of 9 total) I could wipe half his army.

@Captyn Bob you actually can! in the rules for the purge it says they can have the CSM faction. They just can't take any marks other than nurgle


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What I'm most fearful of, kindof, is units that can close fast and tear through my zombies quickly. Once they're in combat with my artillery I've probably lost. I can mitigate this by good zombie blob positioning (to buy me an extra turn or two of shooting) but it would basically come down to if I can shoot him to pieces before he mulches my zombies.

 Typhon wrote:
@Captyn Bob you actually can! in the rules for the purge it says they can have the CSM faction. They just can't take any marks other than nurgle

No. The rules for the Purge detachment say "Renegades OR CSM" which means you can't have both factions in the same detachment

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Typhon wrote:
@Captyn Bob you actually can! in the rules for the purge it says they can have the CSM faction. They just can't take any marks other than nurgle

No. The rules for the Purge detachment say "Renegades OR CSM" which means you can't have both factions in the same detachment

well there goes that idea


.... wait a minute "All units in this detachment must have the CSM faction or chaos renegades faction" I don't think that means they all must be one or the other, rather that the detachment can only contain CSM and renegade factions, but not say, tyrannid factions.

Just for fun, how do you handle the following list?

@JNA-productions All four units of zombies (without sorcerers in them) arrayed around my artillery at max coherency in layers (such that you can only charge one unit of zombies at a time) and can't move around them to get at my artillery.

That way you have to spend at least 2 -4 turns in combat, not counting the turns it takes you to get to combat. Then I'd hope my quad launchers could put on enough wounds to eventually just table you.

You do know they put out 25 attacks on the charge, right? Hitting on 3s, obliterating on 2s, that's 14 dead on the charge on average. For one squad.

But if you can only charge one squad of zombies at a time it doesn't matter. Sure you'll chew through them in the first round of combat but then you've still got two more squads of zombies (it takes about 30 zombies to form an effective bubble wrap daisy chain) to fight before you get to my artillery.

So essentially I've got 4 turns to kill 35-70 dudes (cause 2 wounds). Sure you have a 3++ but it doesn't matter if I put enough wounds down.

Quad launchers can put out a pretty decent volume of fire and my 6 artillery carriages (alongside 10 lascannons) will all cause instant death should you fail a save.


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Not to mention I'll probably be able to throw down invis on my leading zombie blob, so now you're hitting on 6s

I notice you have 93 zombies. In one turn, assuming no casualties (which is unlikely, admittedly) those 35 Wulfen put out 97 successful wounds. That mulches all your zombies.

Admittedly, I don't know a ton about the Renegades and Heretics, so I don't know exactly what they're capable of.

Edit: Ah, saw your Invisibility. In which case, one squad will charge them (to tie them up) while the rest move around.

The point is though, my zombies aren't a combat unit. They're a wall. I don't care if half of them can't attack, they're there to tie you up. Lay out 30 models at max coherency distance on a table top in a giant daisy chain. Now try moving around that.

You can use one unit to charge one squad of zombies but even with my pile in move I'm still going to be taking up at least 12" on either side of the combat (which makes it difficult to move around, which gives me more time to shoot you). Versus that list I'm all about buying time to shoot.


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Lascannons will mathematically kill 3/turn
Artillery carriages will kill 6-8
Quad launchers and heavy mortars will kill another 3-5

Best case you lose that army in 3 turns
Worst case 2 turns