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Honestly, I don't think I'd want to throw that 1 warp dice even at the "perfect targets".
I'm NOT going to waste enfeeble to get a target to T2 when I can just hit them with S5 spam for cheaper.


Unless there just HAPPENS to be a tightly-packed group of weak enemy infantry out there, the power is a pure waste and I'd rather spend that dice to assure my REAL powers go off.

Firestorm needs to be large blast and barrage and THEN it would be sorta useful. sorta.

For T2/3 3+ or worse save targets, bolters should be able to do all the work you need them to. Also, if you're getting 3 hits with a small blast, you're up against a hoarde army, so doombolt is very likely to get more than 3 hits. One of the few points in firestorms favour is it's 24" range, meaning that you can cross board it without too much effort when your enemy is trying to maintain range. The sad thing is, if you're delving into biomancy, haemorrage combo'ed with enfeeble probably does more damage than 2x firestorms. If you're against actual hoardes, rockmaw or whatever the name of the geomortis power that forces a dangerous terrain test on a unit is would be a better use of your dice too as it will get a decent amount of kills on large, poorly armoured units.

I think the only times that I would say that firestorm is unconditionally a good use of dice is against deepstriking T3 units that don't run after they arrive - so... Scions? or T3 units that have just been shucked out of their transport - Guard or Tau breachers where you're getting at least 6 hits due to forced clustering.

Unfortunately, even though it's the primaris and therefore assured, there really isn't much upside to it at all. It was bad back when it was just released in 2012, it's significantly worse now in 2017 where we have to contend with 7.5 ed dexes instead of 5th ed ones and can cast less powers than we used to less reliably than we used to.

I'm looking specifically at First Curse, so those models will get their Invul Saves against Rockmaw (2.2W for a WC2 power).

Haemmorage can be saved by Invuls, at T3 once again that's probably 1-2W for WC2.

I don't think Firestorm is cost-effective against a 4+. That's better suited for either the Pyro flamer, Warpshock or Shriek. Versatile it is not.

So I'm only considering targets with an Invul save, or a 6+ at best. Firestorm suffers immensely from the lack of an AP value, it's hard to understate. That's why it's so surprising when armor and cover saves aren't influencing the relative results.

Check out the math on Enfeebled Purestrains, that's the upside for me. Almost everything else is disappointing.

You still have to contend with the issues of a small blast, but that's a bit more universal.

And the fact you had to use enfeeble to get the job done....

Firestorm is never wasting a warp charge on unless every other squad has activated force weapons for the buff.

Yoyoyo wrote:
I'm looking specifically at First Curse, so those models will get their Invul Saves against Rockmaw (2.2W for a WC2 power).

Haemmorage can be saved by Invuls, at T3 once again that's probably 1-2W for WC2.

I don't think Firestorm is cost-effective against a 4+. That's better suited for either the Pyro flamer, Warpshock or Shriek. Versatile it is not.

So I'm only considering targets with an Invul save, or a 6+ at best. Firestorm suffers immensely from the lack of an AP value, it's hard to understate. That's why it's so surprising when armor and cover saves aren't influencing the relative results.

Check out the math on Enfeebled Purestrains, that's the upside for me. Almost everything else is disappointing.

You still have to contend with the issues of a small blast, but that's a bit more universal.

I noticed, that's why is specifically said against Hoardes (ie units of 30+) and yes, I know Haemorrage can be saved by invul., and I know it's terrible at T3, which is why I said that if you're going biomancy anyway for enfeeble, then the haemorage enfeeble combo probably does more damage than enfeeble & firestorm (it's actually a touch in firestorms favour, if my back of the envelope math is correct with a T2 target as haemorrage should do ~5 wounds, even less to one with a 5++, poroving that unless you're casting against brimstone horrors, haemorrage is just absolutely atrociously bad). Again, yes, firestorm isn't great against a 4+, which is why I specified that it needs to be against T3 units that have just been clustered up after being forced out of their transport so as to ensure you get 6ish hits. Geez, it's like you just skimmed my post without actually reading it at all.

As someone who has been playing a Sons army for the greater part of the last 5 years, I'm well aware of how bad firestorm is and how hard it's neutered by saves (and toughness as you obviously know as well otherwise you wouldn't be leaning on enfeeble to make it viable). Sure, if you are looking at killing nothing but purestrains, then I guess firestorm wouldn't be terrible if your opponent doesn't know how or chooses not to space their models and you manage to roll enfeeble every game. If you can get them to bunch up like that however, you might as well just shoot for cleansing flame/sunburst/inferno etc and have something that works against multiple units at the same time. For the record, I did check the math against the purestrains as it was surprising that firestorm outperformed the double heavy bolter of warpshock, but then I guess getting 2 extra hits for every casualty does hide the true power since T2 is incredibly uncommon (less so recently with blue and brimstone horrors being a thing).

Regardless, if you've found a way to get Firestorm to work for you, then all praise to you.

Edit: 1 rather left field thought on the uses for Firestorm - You've got a roughly 10% chance to remove a hull point from an AV11 vehicle per cast using 1 dice with a spell familiar. It's not great, but in an army as starved as we are for anti tank, sometimes it's worth it. Rarely. Very rarely.

 Drasius wrote:
Sure, if you are looking at killing nothing but purestrains, then I guess firestorm wouldn't be terrible

Purestrains are the best target I've found so far.

Being 14ppm they are priced like MEQ. There's unfortunately not a lot of units that share that combination of price and statline.

I think if I start from a situation where Firestorm actually performs well, then I can maybe recognize situations where it is merely "ok". At that point, you make your choices whether you need support from the Pyro table or concentrate on generating other powers.

It's not that I want to ignore your points about 4+ units. I'm just trying to definitely establish performance against Purestrains first as a baseline. I think Firestorm still compares decently to Sunburst and CF/Inferno -- there is an economy/perils benefit to spreading your dice around your army (which also synergizes with Siphon).

 BoomWolf wrote:
And the fact you had to use enfeeble to get the job done....

True enough. But First Curse is a ~400pt unit, and the debuff is also helpful for bolters and assaulting.

I've once killed Calgar with haemorroidshage. We didn't know you can los it than. But apparently you can after the faq.

Yoyoyo wrote:

 Drasius wrote:
Sure, if you are looking at killing nothing but purestrains, then I guess firestorm wouldn't be terrible

Purestrains are the best target I've found so far.

Being 14ppm they are priced like MEQ. There's unfortunately not a lot of units that share that combination of price and statline.

I think if I start from a situation where Firestorm actually performs well, then I can maybe recognize situations where it is merely "ok". At that point, you make your choices whether you need support from the Pyro table or concentrate on generating other powers.

It's not that I want to ignore your points about 4+ units. I'm just trying to definitely establish performance against Purestrains first as a baseline. I think Firestorm still compares decently to Sunburst and CF/Inferno -- there is an economy/perils benefit to spreading your dice around your army (which also synergizes with Siphon).

Any time you can hit 6 or more targets with a direct hit it's probably worth tossing 1 dice at it, be it from deep striking and shooting instead of running, being forced to emergency disembark from a wrecked or exploded transport, a bad consolidation move (or lack thereof against a vehicle) or just bad positioning. Even against MEQ, that generates ~1 casualty (1 dice with familiar and BS4) which isn't terrible. It's not shriek and never will be, but against gaunts, pathfinders, blob guard/GSC and the like, the extra hits are possibly enough to make it worthwhile, but I really suspect that it's more of a solution looking for a problem rather than the other way around.

Harlequins would probably be another decent target since they're T3, 5++ and expensive. Scions are T3 4+ but they're also priced far too high and have a tendancy to deep strike and shoot meaning you get lots of hits easily. Deamonettes and bloodletters can often clump up for assaults, and they're another member of the T3/5++ club, though at 9/10 ppm, they're not that expensive. Legion of the damned could probably also qualify since while they're MEQ, they also deep strike and shoot while being rather expensive, so if you get 6 or 7 hits, while it's only ~1 unsaved wound, it's also 23 points +/- a special/heavy weapon, which means it's a decent trade for 1 dice.

 Drasius wrote:
I really suspect that it's more of a solution looking for a problem rather than the other way around.

At this point, yeah.

That is a good observation about the Harlequins though -- they are even more expensive than Purestrains.

Hi,

Played a 1850pts full cabal game againt SM Iron Hands (? anyway the ones with eternal warrior and it will not die and FNP6+) using a landrider-formation of 3 which made LR's immune to vehicle dmg results.

He had a squad of devastators to back them up, 2 razors, 2 tac squads of 5 in LR's and melee centurions with a decked out chapter master in one LR. Also legion of damned sqd of 5 with plasma cannon and rifle.

I rolled almost exclusiverly heretek, got 1 x flayerstorm and 2 x scrapcode. Forgot to use primaris on others, that might have been good also. Downside was that literally the only blessing was armor of hatred (sinistrum) which was actually a cheap way to buff most of my units in turns 1-3.

He regained 4-5 HP for LR's, but by turn 5b when we were forced to quit, the last LR was wrecked. I'd say that means we are not actually weak in AT. Also shot down all the cents, some with bolters and some with Baleful Devolution (we played it as a regular shooting after resolving against the selected target).

Two of LR's were that variant with hurricane bolters, so sheer number of shots ground down some of my units. Ended up losing 2 5 men rubrics, and 8 scrabs but no full scarab squds.

I forgot to use tzeench primaris against damned, I just shot them with ap3 bolters instead.

By my count, which may be below the actual, I saved 17 wounds with full cabal reroll saves of 1 -rule. That's almost half my models saved, so that is a huge benefit.

Lost the game 4-6 because his obsec chapter master managed to hang on to his last hp against a bane disk exalted sorc.

Definitely liking TS and psychic dabbling at the moment.

Timmon

Not sure if I was reading it correctly, but when you mentioned shooting the LotD with AP3 bolters, remember their saves are 3+ invulnerable, so your bolters are no different.

Good to hear that the full cabal is doing well. With practice I think it could be very effective. Would you mind posting a summary of your list?

Here's the list. 10 points under limit, I think I had a flamer with some of the rubrics. Didnt use it though.

+++ Thousand Sons Detachments 1850 (Warhammer 40,000 7th Edition v2013) (1840pts) +++
+ Formation +

········War Cabal
············Exalted Sorcerer [Mastery Level 3, Spell familiar]
············Exalted Sorcerer [Disc of Tzeetch, Mastery Level 2, Seer's Bane]
············Rubric Marines [4x Rubric Marine]
················Aspiring Sorcerer [Force Stave, Warpflame Pistol]
············Rubric Marines [4x Rubric Marine]
················Aspiring Sorcerer [Force Stave, Inferno Bolt Pistol]
············Rubric Marines [4x Rubric Marine]
················Aspiring Sorcerer [Force Stave, Inferno Bolt Pistol]
············Scarab Occult Terminators [Scarab Occult Sorcerer, 4x Scarab Occult Terminator, Soulreaper Cannon]
············Scarab Occult Terminators [Scarab Occult Sorcerer, 4x Scarab Occult Terminator]
············Scarab Occult Terminators [Scarab Occult Sorcerer, 4x Scarab Occult Terminator]
············Sorcerer [Astral Grimoire, Force Axe, Mark of Tzeentch, Power Armour, Veterans of the Long War]
············Sorcerer [Force Axe, Mark of Tzeentch, Power Armour, Veterans of the Long War]

Created with BattleScribe (http://www.battlescribe.net)


The Damned have 3++, so yes AP3 was irrelevant for those, sheer weight of fire killed them off, really had nothing more to shoot at that point. Later, most of the tacticals just melted with AP3. Also, oracular guidance helps quite a lot with shooting too.

Timmon

Just so your friend knows, Chapter Masters cannot replace Captains in demi-companies (covered on page 3).

https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Space_Marines_v1.0.pdf

FYI Drasius, Cantopek Wraiths also got their initiative restored.

Yoyoyo wrote:
FYI Drasius, Cantopek Wraiths also got their initiative restored.

Thanks for that, it's something I would have missed (again). Oh well, was fun while it lasted.

What do you guys think of this?

CSM CAD 930
Thousand sons
HQ Ml3 Sorc, spell familiar, athenean scrolls, pistol, axe, MoT, aura dark glory 165
Troops
2x10 cultists Mot 120
LoW Magnus 650

CD Cad 185
HQ
Masque 75
Troops
2x11 Blue Horrors 110

CD formation
Heralds Anarchic 385
Herald Ml3 Disc paradox 145
Herald Ml3 Disc 120
Herald Ml3, Disc 120

1500 points and 24 warp charges.

You're much better off taking a non-thousand sons CAD to get Magnus so you don't have to waste a power on the Tz table and don't have to waste 20 points of MoT for the cultists.

Unless you just want Magnus to be extra invincible with the extra +1 to his invulnerable when he casts siphon, in which case I'd still advise dropping the scrolls for a disk since you don't want the sorc to be hiding in with the non-fearless cultists.

You're going to have to do a lot of work with summoning and you're in quite a large amount of trouble if Magnus goes down. I do like the Masque though, even if she does break theme. Lots of small units though, going to be easy kill points if that matters int he meta you play in.

Thinking of starting a TSons army. Saw a list from Kenny that looked interesting and modified it.

My question is regarding Scarab Occult Terminators.

If I take a squad of 10, battlescibe is allowing me to take 2 Soulreaper cannons in the squad as well as 2 Hellfyre Missile Racks. Is this possible? Is there a loose rule interpretation that the people who made the datafile may have made a decision on?

Thanks!

Naaris wrote:
Thinking of starting a TSons army. Saw a list from Kenny that looked interesting and modified it.

My question is regarding Scarab Occult Terminators.

If I take a squad of 10, battlescibe is allowing me to take 2 Soulreaper cannons in the squad as well as 2 Hellfyre Missile Racks. Is this possible? Is there a loose rule interpretation that the people who made the datafile may have made a decision on?

Thanks!

You can indeed take all of them in a unit of 10.

The rules are pretty clear.
For every five, one SOT can take one of
-Heavy warpflamer
-Soulreaper
So at 10 man, you get two picks.

In addition, for every 5 models you can take one missile rack.

So yes you can have two soulreapers and two missile racks.
But not two soulreapers and two warpflamers.

Whether that's a good idea or not, well that's a different matter. The only one I even consider in lists is the missiles.

And for the life of me, I struggle to think why you'd want a squad of 10 over 2x squads of 5. Saving 40 points I guess? But then, I see anything that's not a maxed cabal and think it's useless.

I've already been told my Sons aren't fun to play against anymore. Funny how they were fun to play against before the TL book dropped...

Ultras vs 1ksons

https://www.twitch.tv/warhammer

*EDIT: False alarm, it's only partial. He's using Iron Warriors stuff and Raptors so it's not an actual 1ksons.

Here's a magnus list that did really well at the LVO. Came in top 4 I believe. I really like the inclusion of the trickery locus. Very cool

Thousand sons cad

Sorcerer MoT

10 cultists MoT
10 cultists MoT

Magnus

Daemon cad

Fateweaver warlord
Masque
10 horrors
10 brimstone horrors
7 screamers

Heralds anarchic

Level 1 heralds exalted gift disc
Level 1 heralds locus of trickery disc
Level 3 herald paradox disc

I'm seeing the Masque show up in a lot of lists, and that kind of puzzles me. Did the new Daemon book update her rules or what, didn't seem that great in the past.

In case you don't follow the news updates, one of the new warlord traits in the Ynnead army apparently lets the warlord select their psyker powers instead of rolling for them.

I can't tell you how much I want the Sons to have that ability. Can you imagine the power of a Sons army in which each sorcerer can select their powers instead of having to roll for them? Even lowly aspiring sorcerers would be useful again if they were guaranteed to get something like Doombolt.

Hell, even if it was just limited to one HQ model, you could build a guaranteed-super-killmonster if you were guaranteed to get Invisibility and Warp Speed or Endurance.

Given how warlord trait and spell selection work in Age of Sigmar, I wonder if GW will move towards this model in 8th edition.

 Badablack wrote:
I'm seeing the Masque show up in a lot of lists, and that kind of puzzles me. Did the new Daemon book update her rules or what, didn't seem that great in the past.

She's anti deathstar insurance for 75 points. Dance of caging targets a single unit and they can only move, run, charge and fall back d3 inches a turn while also taking a -5 WS penalty. Also automatically forces a swooping FMC to land since they have to move at least 12 to maintain swooping. Have fun with a combined move & charge threat range of 6" with your 1000 point deathstar. Also means Fatey or Magnus are walking next turn, and slowly at that, so yeah, that's why you see the masque a bunch.

I got a couple games in last week using the Rehati War Sect for the first time. I've been sick so I don't know if I'll do a detailed report, but I can fill in some general observations from it anyway.

It was actually a small 2000 point ITC tournament so I was able to fit 4 flying princes and a heralds anarchic with 4 barebones heralds.

I prioritized getting cursed earth in both games, but in my second game it really bit me in the foot because I didn't get it till my 7th roll on the table. I won both games, but my second game would have gone a lot better if I'd had more aggressive spells. I was up against 3 imperial knights and bellisarius cawl in a deathstar of sorts and I had a really hard time getting through the units since he was able to heal so much every turn. I basically only had Magnus throwing d shots and beams for output (and several times I failed to cast throwing 7 dice at gaze of magnus and 5 dice at the one shot d power)

If I play it again, I think I'll focus on heretech for anti armor and telepathy for anti infantry and rely more on my swooping status for durability. All the summoning I did just gave up kill points and never secured an objective unless it was something like "have a unit in their deployment" where I could boost screamers far enough away from threats to survive the whole turn.

It was fun and easier to keep track of spells than the other thousand sons lists I'd played. It also went a lot faster as a result since I was basically just vector striking and casting. I'd like to try it again with fateweaver at some point but it'll be tough to fit.

The leaked Ynnari rules make me feel a little better from the psychic phase standpoint. The Yncarne is only ML3 and Yvraine is only ML2 (although that can go up), and each of them only has access to the new Revenant discipline and Sanctic Daemonology, WITHOUT having the special Grey Knights protection against increased periling. Have fun eating those perils, space elves!