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Ok, so I understand this and not cheat anyone come Saturday, the following apply:

All sorcerers get Tzeenthc's Firestorm because they have Marks of Tzeentch according to BRB Chaos Psychic focus. Does this mean if I pick all my ML's worth in say Telepathy, I still get it's Primaris as well? Or just the Chaos Focus effect?

So an Aspiring Sorc will have the Firestorm plus 1 more on the Tzeentch table meaning they cant' get anything else?

Other sorcs like Exalted will have the Firestorm, plus one from Tzeentch for the mandatory roll, plus whatever other Disciplines I give them, correct?

Marked sorcerers must generate one power from their god list so no easy for them to get the psychic focus free primaris. Everything else looks correct.

Explain a bit more? So they just get the chaos psychic focus because they have the mark of tzeentch and not the regular psychic focus.

You will not get the Telepathy primaris for free since you had to generate a power from the tzeentch table for having a MoT. You can switch one of your rolls on that table to the primaris though.

For example, my Scarab Occult Sorc is ML 2. He gets the tzeentch primaris for free, he has to roll on the tzeentch table once, and then I will usually roll on Telepathy and switch whatever I roll to Psychic Shriek. This will leave him with 4 powers in general (since he also gets force).

They get Chaos focus because they have the mark but that also requires generating at least one power from the Tzeentch list. Since one power must generate from Tzeentch (and no the chaos focus power doesn't count) there is no way to have all powers generated from the same list to gain psychic focus with any other discipline.

Gotcha. Ok, as long as I understand everything and not cheat Saturday I need all the help I can get. Turns out if you bring friends or "allies" they can buy things (this being a charity event) like orbital strikes (all the way up to Apocalypse) or even buy re-rolls for your dice (if they like you) or for your opponent, among a few other things. So this could get difficul seeing as how I'll have a whopping 19 models in my army.

topaxygouroun i wrote:

I found that occults at 300 pts are so much better than at 250 pts while in the War Cabal. They perform the same in the psychic and hth, but in the shooting phase it just looks like rubrics. Also, due to their bolters being TL already, the Occular Guidance is getting wasted if you don't purchase the stronger weapons. If they didn't have occular guidance I would agree that there is no need to spend the extra points. But rerolling 1's gives them so much more firing potential that it's actually worth it. Also, I can't see why someone wouldn't want to add a cheap auxiliary. Sure the bonuses of the grand cabal are not that great, but if you can have them for 100ish points then why not? Of course I understand that at 1850 you have to squeeze some points to make it work.

I have no idea what I could drop to fit another 150 points of wargear into an 1850 list while maintaining the casting power required due to said 150 points of wargear not really helping out against the 2 biggest weaknesses of a Sons army (anti tank and no ap2). 150 points is 5 mastery levels or all 3 suits of termie armour for the sorcs and still another 3 mastery levels on top of taking away their 2+ and dropping their 3++ down to a 5++ and I would consider both of those to be unacceptable tradeoffs. The mandatory 450 points wasted on the 3x thousand sons rubricae squads is a crying shame, not only because the basic troopers of our legion are still utterly worthless but that they simply duplicate what the termies do while also being pushovers in combat while losing the ObSec they would have had in a CAD. If it had of been 2 squads each of rubrics and scarabs with 3 sorcs to get the rr1's for saves it would have been fine, but 1500 points on the dot minimum before mastery levels or wargear is just too punishing in a "normal" sized game of 40k. I could easily drop a mastery level to include a heldrake aux choice (yes, just what I need, more ap3 *sigh*) in a 2k game, but that's a rare thing where I am with 1500 or 1850 being the name of the game and wasting 10 out of 13 psycher levels on the terrible tzeentch table is out of the question for a 1500 point game now that doombolt is a 1/6 chance instead of a 1/3 chance like it used to be.

Not to mention that if I do bring an Aux choice, it's going to be the only thing with an AV value on the field, and for what? I'm still a bound army and the only thing I miss out on is the re-roll on perils results since like every thousand sons army ever, there's not much chance that I'll have so much warp charge to spend that I'll be casting 4 powers per sorceror. Hell, I'd count myself extremely lucky if I had 3 powers worth casting per sorceror let alone 4 and the dice to cast them with.

The issue with the extra 50 points of wargear is that they still can't function as reasonable AV. on average, each 300 point squad will take 2 turns (1.56 HP per turn) to hull out a 3 HP AV11 tank, be that a rhino or the side of a predator, 3 turns (1.12 HP per turn) against AV 12, be it a dreadnaught or drop pod and a staggering 4 turns against AV13. While they can technically hurt AV14, it would take 1 squad 10 turns of shooting to hull out a land raider, or in other words, 2x 300 point squads doing nothing but shooting at a single land raider for 5 turns and then they've got a 50/50 chance of destroying it. On the other hand, if you're taking them for their shooting, 10 rubricae with a cannon will out damage them against anything with a toughness value under 8 on a point for point basis. I would suggest that measuring the scarabs on the basis of their shooting is a false economy as their shooting is sub par by modern 40k standards and insufficient for their points. A ~13 - 100% increase on a negligable number is still a negligable number, which is roughly the range you're looking at for the most common targets.

Well, yea.

The scarab ain't about the guns. They are about the true sorcerer leading the group.
The other dudes are extra wounds and added Ap3 oversaturation.

Thousand Sons gotta max the magic, for they are lacking elsewhere (Other than being the ultimate power armor "dare you to leave cover" army)

 Drasius wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

I found that occults at 300 pts are so much better than at 250 pts while in the War Cabal. They perform the same in the psychic and hth, but in the shooting phase it just looks like rubrics. Also, due to their bolters being TL already, the Occular Guidance is getting wasted if you don't purchase the stronger weapons. If they didn't have occular guidance I would agree that there is no need to spend the extra points. But rerolling 1's gives them so much more firing potential that it's actually worth it. Also, I can't see why someone wouldn't want to add a cheap auxiliary. Sure the bonuses of the grand cabal are not that great, but if you can have them for 100ish points then why not? Of course I understand that at 1850 you have to squeeze some points to make it work.

I have no idea what I could drop to fit another 150 points of wargear into an 1850 list while maintaining the casting power required due to said 150 points of wargear not really helping out against the 2 biggest weaknesses of a Sons army (anti tank and no ap2). 150 points is 5 mastery levels or all 3 suits of termie armour for the sorcs and still another 3 mastery levels on top of taking away their 2+ and dropping their 3++ down to a 5++ and I would consider both of those to be unacceptable tradeoffs. The mandatory 450 points wasted on the 3x thousand sons rubricae squads is a crying shame, not only because the basic troopers of our legion are still utterly worthless but that they simply duplicate what the termies do while also being pushovers in combat while losing the ObSec they would have had in a CAD. If it had of been 2 squads each of rubrics and scarabs with 3 sorcs to get the rr1's for saves it would have been fine, but 1500 points on the dot minimum before mastery levels or wargear is just too punishing in a "normal" sized game of 40k. I could easily drop a mastery level to include a heldrake aux choice (yes, just what I need, more ap3 *sigh*) in a 2k game, but that's a rare thing where I am with 1500 or 1850 being the name of the game and wasting 10 out of 13 psycher levels on the terrible tzeentch table is out of the question for a 1500 point game now that doombolt is a 1/6 chance instead of a 1/3 chance like it used to be.

Not to mention that if I do bring an Aux choice, it's going to be the only thing with an AV value on the field, and for what? I'm still a bound army and the only thing I miss out on is the re-roll on perils results since like every thousand sons army ever, there's not much chance that I'll have so much warp charge to spend that I'll be casting 4 powers per sorceror. Hell, I'd count myself extremely lucky if I had 3 powers worth casting per sorceror let alone 4 and the dice to cast them with.

The issue with the extra 50 points of wargear is that they still can't function as reasonable AV. on average, each 300 point squad will take 2 turns (1.56 HP per turn) to hull out a 3 HP AV11 tank, be that a rhino or the side of a predator, 3 turns (1.12 HP per turn) against AV 12, be it a dreadnaught or drop pod and a staggering 4 turns against AV13. While they can technically hurt AV14, it would take 1 squad 10 turns of shooting to hull out a land raider, or in other words, 2x 300 point squads doing nothing but shooting at a single land raider for 5 turns and then they've got a 50/50 chance of destroying it. On the other hand, if you're taking them for their shooting, 10 rubricae with a cannon will out damage them against anything with a toughness value under 8 on a point for point basis. I would suggest that measuring the scarabs on the basis of their shooting is a false economy as their shooting is sub par by modern 40k standards and insufficient for their points. A ~13 - 100% increase on a negligable number is still a negligable number, which is roughly the range you're looking at for the most common targets.

The scarabs are good because they can function above average in all the phases of the game, not just shooting. They are ok in the movement phase (good if astral grimoire), above average in the psychic phase, decent/ok in the shooting phase, above average in the hth phase, way above average in saves (if favoured). Now if AV is your problem, each single roll on the Heretech power gives you a 50% chance to get a hull point stripping power, either 1 or d3. Forget about piercing AV, that ain't happening. Well, it may happen if you purchase a cult of destruction formation and use astral grimoire on them. You know, oblits moving 12", shooting twice with lascannons and multi-meltas with potential prescience and then charging with 14 attacks with powerfists and power axes. Also, practically everybody in the list can take melta bombs. But the main form of anti-AV should always be haywire powers from heretech. 10 rubrics can out-shoot 5 termies, that's true, but they are practically the same points, and rubric marines are way worse in all the other aspects (psychic, hth, saves). I'm not saying scarabs are good. I'm saying that favoured of Tzeentch Scarab Occults are stupidly tough and they can perform in multiple phases of the game with above average results, which makes them a swiss army knife. And I'm not even considering their ability to deep strike with a psychic scream or a doombolt available.

topaxygouroun i wrote:
The scarabs are good because they can function above average in all the phases of the game, not just shooting. They are ok in the movement phase (good if astral grimoire), above average in the psychic phase, decent/ok in the shooting phase, above average in the hth phase, way above average in saves (if favoured). Now if AV is your problem, each single roll on the Heretech power gives you a 50% chance to get a hull point stripping power, either 1 or d3. Forget about piercing AV, that ain't happening. Well, it may happen if you purchase a cult of destruction formation and use astral grimoire on them. You know, oblits moving 12", shooting twice with lascannons and multi-meltas with potential prescience and then charging with 14 attacks with powerfists and power axes. Also, practically everybody in the list can take melta bombs. But the main form of anti-AV should always be haywire powers from heretech. 10 rubrics can out-shoot 5 termies, that's true, but they are practically the same points, and rubric marines are way worse in all the other aspects (psychic, hth, saves). I'm not saying scarabs are good. I'm saying that favoured of Tzeentch Scarab Occults are stupidly tough and they can perform in multiple phases of the game with above average results, which makes them a swiss army knife. And I'm not even considering their ability to deep strike with a psychic scream or a doombolt available.

None of that is influenced by taking their overpriced shooting options. They don't move any better in the movement phase for spending that extra 50 points, they don't do anything in the psychic phase anyway because the real sorcerors are using all the warp charge since they have familiars and more rolls on the BRB tables, their shooting is just adding more AP3 to an army with an overabundance of AP3 even when you spend those extra 50 points on extra AP3 guns instead of actual anti tank, they don't get extra CC attacks from the extra 50 points of guns and their saves don't get any better because they spent an extra 50 points on shooting more ap3. AV is always going to be a problem in a sons army, I already mentioned in my previous posts that you're always going to be forces to rely on heretek for AV and bio/telepthathy/tzeentch for your AP2 needs, you're not telling anyone anything new. Yes, you can jam in a pointless tax of the Cult instead of an Iron Warriors detatchment or 2 where they all get ObSec and yes, everyone can take melta bombs, but as orks have shown us, relying on power klaws melta bombs for anti tank is not an effective strategy.

As for rubrics outshooting scarabs, yes, I know they're worse at literally everything else, again, I've said as much in my previous posts, but you're the one touting the shooting prowess of the scarabs. I'm simply pointing out that the shooting afforded by the extra 50 points a squad is nothing special and in an army that is already desperately tight on points, if that's really what you're after, then rubricae do it better for cheaper.

Of course favoured scarabs are tough, 2+/3++ rr1's is a bit silly, but unless you play at greatly inflated points values compared to 95% of the community, you don't have the luxury of taking the gun options on the scarabs unless you want to sacrifice the casting or survivability of the actual sorcerors that do the vast majority of the work in your army. As for deep striking in an army with no scatter reduction (beyond a random warlord trait and the key that doesn't work properly) and is already stretched too thin for casting to rely on having scriers available for reserve manipulation and is already extremely thin on the ground for models, putting your expensive, indestructible unit into DS reserve to be left to the whims of the reserve, scatter and mishap dice is just pants on head crazy.

 Drasius wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
The scarabs are good because they can function above average in all the phases of the game, not just shooting. They are ok in the movement phase (good if astral grimoire), above average in the psychic phase, decent/ok in the shooting phase, above average in the hth phase, way above average in saves (if favoured). Now if AV is your problem, each single roll on the Heretech power gives you a 50% chance to get a hull point stripping power, either 1 or d3. Forget about piercing AV, that ain't happening. Well, it may happen if you purchase a cult of destruction formation and use astral grimoire on them. You know, oblits moving 12", shooting twice with lascannons and multi-meltas with potential prescience and then charging with 14 attacks with powerfists and power axes. Also, practically everybody in the list can take melta bombs. But the main form of anti-AV should always be haywire powers from heretech. 10 rubrics can out-shoot 5 termies, that's true, but they are practically the same points, and rubric marines are way worse in all the other aspects (psychic, hth, saves). I'm not saying scarabs are good. I'm saying that favoured of Tzeentch Scarab Occults are stupidly tough and they can perform in multiple phases of the game with above average results, which makes them a swiss army knife. And I'm not even considering their ability to deep strike with a psychic scream or a doombolt available.

None of that is influenced by taking their overpriced shooting options. They don't move any better in the movement phase for spending that extra 50 points, they don't do anything in the psychic phase anyway because the real sorcerors are using all the warp charge since they have familiars and more rolls on the BRB tables, their shooting is just adding more AP3 to an army with an overabundance of AP3 even when you spend those extra 50 points on extra AP3 guns instead of actual anti tank, they don't get extra CC attacks from the extra 50 points of guns and their saves don't get any better because they spent an extra 50 points on shooting more ap3. AV is always going to be a problem in a sons army, I already mentioned in my previous posts that you're always going to be forces to rely on heretek for AV and bio/telepthathy/tzeentch for your AP2 needs, you're not telling anyone anything new. Yes, you can jam in a pointless tax of the Cult instead of an Iron Warriors detatchment or 2 where they all get ObSec and yes, everyone can take melta bombs, but as orks have shown us, relying on power klaws melta bombs for anti tank is not an effective strategy.

As for rubrics outshooting scarabs, yes, I know they're worse at literally everything else, again, I've said as much in my previous posts, but you're the one touting the shooting prowess of the scarabs. I'm simply pointing out that the shooting afforded by the extra 50 points a squad is nothing special and in an army that is already desperately tight on points, if that's really what you're after, then rubricae do it better for cheaper.

Of course favoured scarabs are tough, 2+/3++ rr1's is a bit silly, but unless you play at greatly inflated points values compared to 95% of the community, you don't have the luxury of taking the gun options on the scarabs unless you want to sacrifice the casting or survivability of the actual sorcerors that do the vast majority of the work in your army. As for deep striking in an army with no scatter reduction (beyond a random warlord trait and the key that doesn't work properly) and is already stretched too thin for casting to rely on having scriers available for reserve manipulation and is already extremely thin on the ground for models, putting your expensive, indestructible unit into DS reserve to be left to the whims of the reserve, scatter and mishap dice is just pants on head crazy.

Let me rephrase then: Weapon upgrades are worth it in War Coven Scarabs. Perhaps not so much outside of it. When you get more hits in, you want those hits to wound, so having higher strength is actually better. A cannon acts as an extra scarab shooting in short range, as 3 extra scarabs shooting at long range, and at an upgraded strength to boot. And when most people have to pay 15 pts for a krak missile, paying 20 for two is a good purchase, and it gets even better if you get to reroll your hits. Also, I said they are decent/ok in the shooting phase. How is that me touting their shooting prowess?

I agree that the missile launcher is the only one I consider, but I'm still not in love with it. Compare it to a space marine who I think pays 20 or 25 for two missiles at the same strength, longer range, and can still shoot his bolter in addition to it. We're trading a pretty good gun in for those other two shots.

For the cost of the cannon, you practically can get another terminator in the unit which will also add to the durability and cc prowess of the unit.

 lessthanjeff wrote:
I agree that the missile launcher is the only one I consider, but I'm still not in love with it. Compare it to a space marine who I think pays 20 or 25 for two missiles at the same strength, longer range, and can still shoot his bolter in addition to it. We're trading a pretty good gun in for those other two shots.

For the cost of the cannon, you practically can get another terminator in the unit which will also add to the durability and cc prowess of the unit.

It has twice the range, frag and krak, costs the same. But how can they shoot their bolter too? I thought only MC/Walkers could shoot two weapons?

 nintura wrote:

 lessthanjeff wrote:
I agree that the missile launcher is the only one I consider, but I'm still not in love with it. Compare it to a space marine who I think pays 20 or 25 for two missiles at the same strength, longer range, and can still shoot his bolter in addition to it. We're trading a pretty good gun in for those other two shots.

For the cost of the cannon, you practically can get another terminator in the unit which will also add to the durability and cc prowess of the unit.

It has twice the range, frag and krak, costs the same. But how can they shoot their bolter too? I thought only MC/Walkers could shoot two weapons?

The Cyclone Missile Launcher has it's own rule which allows the Terminator to fire both.

 Voodoo_Chile wrote:

 nintura wrote:

 lessthanjeff wrote:
I agree that the missile launcher is the only one I consider, but I'm still not in love with it. Compare it to a space marine who I think pays 20 or 25 for two missiles at the same strength, longer range, and can still shoot his bolter in addition to it. We're trading a pretty good gun in for those other two shots.

For the cost of the cannon, you practically can get another terminator in the unit which will also add to the durability and cc prowess of the unit.

It has twice the range, frag and krak, costs the same. But how can they shoot their bolter too? I thought only MC/Walkers could shoot two weapons?

The Cyclone Missile Launcher has it's own rule which allows the Terminator to fire both.

Of course it does. Because marines get to break all the rules.

Well if we start looking at what the SM have we are not going anywhere. The question is to see what we have and if what we have is good or not.

But just to make the view slightly brighter, we DO have 2+ rerollable terminators and we can have jump pack terminator death stars as well. Astartes can't have thet. That's not nothing I guess. Also, we can have terminators with shooting options and 3++ at the same time. Astartes can only have one so yay for us I reckon.

Of course I wouldn't mind scarab units of 3 for 170 pts, but I do seem to like them in units of five. The one thing I would really like for them is to be considered as terminators for other formations. For example if we could have a chaos warband with scarabs instead of normal terminators. Maybe they intended for them to be considered "just" terminators but they did not mention so.

Hmm would people think that a maxed War Coven would be a competitive formation if we could have scarabs in units of 3 with 1 heavy weapon option?

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Well if we start looking at what the SM have we are not going anywhere. The question is to see what we have and if what we have is good or not.

But just to make the view slightly brighter, we DO have 2+ rerollable terminators and we can have jump pack terminator death stars as well. Astartes can't have thet. That's not nothing I guess. Also, we can have terminators with shooting options and 3++ at the same time. Astartes can only have one so yay for us I reckon.

Of course I wouldn't mind scarab units of 3 for 170 pts, but I do seem to like them in units of five. The one thing I would really like for them is to be considered as terminators for other formations. For example if we could have a chaos warband with scarabs instead of normal terminators. Maybe they intended for them to be considered "just" terminators but they did not mention so.

There's a difference in the argument though. Yes we CAN have 2+ re-rollable termies. But we pay for them. We BOTH have missile racks. But theirs is better for no reason other than simply because they are loyalist marines. If our marines were all the same cost but ours were better (4++) then I'd still argue the same but for their side.

Well, as I said, we don't get nowhere if we discuss Astartes and their options. Ok they are better. Still doesn't change anything on our list building. We do not build lists based on the Astartes' units and point costs, we build lists based on ours.

The not being able to fire the missiles and bolter together thing feels like an oversight to me.

Drop the 40k community guys a pm on Facebook and get it added to the faq list. The more it's raised the more likely we get a change.
(Yes they did a WoM faq already, but that was horrors only)

I'm rooting for the 1K sons here!

 nintura wrote:


Of course it does. Because marines get to break all the rules.

Don't even compare the Soulreaper Cannon to your bog standard Assault Cannon.
I'd personally take the Assault Cannon any day of the week. (Worse vs 3+, better against everything else.)

Oh well, at least we're not stuck with Reaper Autocannons.

 MinscS2 wrote:

 nintura wrote:


Of course it does. Because marines get to break all the rules.

Don't even compare the Soulreaper Cannon to your bog standard Assault Cannon.
I'd personally take the Assault Cannon any day of the week. (Worse vs 3+, better against everything else.)

Oh well, at least we're not stuck with Reaper Autocannons.

Nah. The soulreaper cannon is better than the assault cannon. Not 15 pts better tho.

Guess who's back after his 4000pt game!

First off, this will not be a battle report anymore; we only got to turn 2 due to my long psychic phase and my opponants long shooting phase, so this will be more of a thoughts and feelings during the game.

I posted my list above somewhere. I was facing against an IG player with 4 Leman Russes, a Hellhound, a Valkyrie, a Vendetta and a Dark Angels + Inquisitors drop pod unit, allied to an Ork player who took Buzzgob's stompa, a second stompa, 3 cannon things and 2 units of gretchin.

How did my list do? I took out a Leman Russ, dropped two tanks to 1 HP, killed some retenues of inquis, killed a lot of Gretchin and killed two Inquisitors using Magnus and an Occult Termie squad in cc. I lost two units of Terminators, two units of Horrors and Ahriman. I lost the game 5-2, I had one objective they had 1 objective, first blood and linebreaker.

The phases in more detail,
Movement phase:
Not much to say here, the discs move fast and the troops move slow.

Psychic phase:
I had 50+ WC, this went very quickly: I cast buffs for my Termies, Heralds and Sorcerors and got out several witchfires. The buffs helped a lot at keeping my units alive but 3++ means nothing when facing the volume of fire the Ork player was putting out. The witchfires were a combination of SD and Haywire/-HP, the SD powers were completely useless and bounced off the Stompa's 4++ and the Haywire/-HP powers did a lot of damage... to one tank which was in range! I did get off one Maledecation though: Treason of Tzeentch, used it on Buzzgob's stompa and did more damage to their army than the whole of my 4000pts had done. So this was a bit dissapointing

Shooting phase:
Basically just Terminators, their shots were absorbed into the Grot's massive numbers and deflected off of the DA's 3++ ss.

Assault phase:
This was Magnus + some Occult Terminators vs the drop pod unit of DA and Inquisitors. Magnus was debuffed due to Grimoire (Inquis grimoire, not true names/astral) but he still Instant Deathed an Inquisitor. The Termies vs the DA were pretty evenly matched: both having a 3++, WS4, I4 and S4, however he did fail more saves than me so I won the combat. But DA are fearless, grrrrrr!


What did I think of the Thousand Sons list? Probably great against MEQ, TEQ but against Tank + Super Heavy armies you are starting to struggle. The Termies could have definitely used re-rolling 1s so I would suggest only taking them in a filled formation, I was rolling really well and I still lost two units! Magnus was a bit of a let down and did not pull his weight in points, which is sad considering how great he looks, once you get cursed earth he is unkillable but he just doesn't put out the damage that you need him to do (also, as I found out, an elite enemy unit can easily tie him up).

I don't think I would play this army in the future: there are far too many things to keep track of in the psychic phase, those psychic powers don't always go off and those psychic powers are your only source of ranged attack.


So all in all, disappointed. If anyone has any questions feel free to ask.

topaxygouroun i wrote:


Nah. The soulreaper cannon is better than the assault cannon. Not 15 pts better tho.

How do you figure?

The Soulreaper Cannon is better against 3+ saves (Due to AP3), that's it.

The Assault Cannon is better against everything else (2+,4+, 5+ and 6+ saves + AV10, 11, 12, 13 and 14), due to it having +1S, so it has a easier time wounding and penetrating armour.
It's also 10 points cheaper.

1. Were your termies Sekhmet or War Coven? Would you say it would go better if they were the other option?

2. Didn't you go for Magnus str D powers and multi screams? I would guess that with 50+ dice you would have ALL the options.

3. Where did the psychic phase fail you? Was it not enough charges? Not enough rolled powers? Or not strong enough powers?

4. How did you lose Ahriman? Was he running in the unit with the Exiles on discs? Did you use Be'lakor's invis?

5. How did you find the Lord of the Silver Tower ability?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MinscS2 wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:


Nah. The soulreaper cannon is better than the assault cannon. Not 15 pts better tho.

How do you figure?

The Soulreaper Cannon is better against 3+ saves (Due to AP3), that's it.

The Assault Cannon is better against everything else (2+,4+, 5+ and 6+ saves + AV10, 11, 12, 13 and 14), due to it having +1S, so it has a easier time wounding and penetrating armour.
It's also 10 points cheaper.

I believe that if you made a poll on all the armies with access to assault cannons and told them to choose (without increased point cost though), most if not all would pick the soulreaper. It is worse right now, at 30 pts. It is better overall. The unit you are using it in kills infantry, it's not its job to kill tanks. You wouldn't waste all your shooting just to toss an assault cannon at a tank anyways, unless you could see its rear side. The main targets for both the cannons are infantry and MCs. I believe the soulreaper is better in both of those situations.

1. Sehkmet, War Coven would have probably been better seeing as though T5 did nothing for me and I might have been able to max out for re-rolling 1s.

2. Scream would have done nothing against this mechanised army but I did get the Gaze of Magnus off which just bounced off of their DA 3++ saves.

3. I don't think I had enough offencive powers because I was too busy buffing my units for the +1 invul across the board (probably not the best idea).

4. Ahriman was shielded by a unit of termies but my opponants hammered that unit until all that was left was one exalted sorceror. I even had invis on his unit but, you know, Orks have volume of fire.

That being said, does it matter? Would you pay 30 points for a reaper in an occult squad?

So Mr. HappyFace, how was Magnus? Do you think he'd be pretty good in an 1850?

Also, how did you find the Lord of the Silver Tower?

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Well if we start looking at what the SM have we are not going anywhere. The question is to see what we have and if what we have is good or not.

But just to make the view slightly brighter, we DO have 2+ rerollable terminators and we can have jump pack terminator death stars as well. Astartes can't have thet. That's not nothing I guess. Also, we can have terminators with shooting options and 3++ at the same time. Astartes can only have one so yay for us I reckon.

Of course I wouldn't mind scarab units of 3 for 170 pts, but I do seem to like them in units of five. The one thing I would really like for them is to be considered as terminators for other formations. For example if we could have a chaos warband with scarabs instead of normal terminators. Maybe they intended for them to be considered "just" terminators but they did not mention so.

Hmm would people think that a maxed War Coven would be a competitive formation if we could have scarabs in units of 3 with 1 heavy weapon option?

I'm not arguing that I think the terminators are bad if that's what you're getting from this. I love them. What I'm responding to is the value of adding the heavy weapons. We pay more for what I would consider less effective weapons than what the other armies have making it a poor return of points. Yes, your unit will be better if you have the weapons, but you're diluting the value of the unit the more points you pour into the upgrades. I think they're rock solid as is and paying those expensive weapon upgrade costs doesn't improve their output enough to make it worth it. That's just my analysis I guess though. If you're finding them worth the cost then I'm certainly not saying you can't take them. I'm just suggesting you should look to see if there are other ways you could spend the points to add more value to your army for that cost.

As a comparison, if the soul reaper cannon cost 90 points, would you take it? It still makes the unit better because now it does more damage than it would have without the weapon, but the minimal increased output is not worth that cost investment. The question is how much should it be worth for what it does. If it cost 20 I'd probably invest in it but still cautiously because a regular assault cannon has higher strength for the same cost but worse AP. If it cost 15 I'd definitely take it. At 30, I don't think it's worth the cost.

I am conflicted, on the one hand Magnus lools great, he is nigh unkillable and he can get off any psychic power you give to him. On the other hand he can only grab powers from change and Tzeentch + the gaze which can be good against big things but, in my game, it didn't go well. I wouldn't say he is an OP unit, he is unkillable once he gets his powers off but he is 650pts and can easily be ignored/tar pitted. :/

The exalted sorcerors killed one tank. This was probably due to the circumstances of the game so I can't really say much about them. Their ordanance strike didn't do much either but it's free so I'm not complaining.