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Another thing on my mind was a death-star making use of the formation: Ahriman's Exiles. The idea is rough-stick the 4 guys in a unit of 20 rubrics. This never would have been possible before, but I believe these ideas work in their benifit:

1) anti-melee relics (allowing overwatch, reducing charge range of attackers) would help keep such a large group safe. Astral grimoire can be used to fly the squad around the map and away from chargers. Divination buffs from ahriman to reroll hits would make overwatch even more powerful.
2) That segways into #2, high-value blessings. Invisibility and such get huge value here, and the whole squad gets a 3++ while blessed due to legion benefits
3) Split firing. Due to 7th ed. rules, the 5+ sorcerers in this squad can shoot witchfires at different squads than what everyone shot at in the shooting phase. This makes up for a weakness all deathstars usually face--only being able to kill one squad per turn
4) anti-cover and anti-vehicle spells. The new trees heretech and geo allow psykers to effectively deal with two targets they previously had lots of trouble with--tau and eldar in 4+ cover save ruins, and high AV vehicles.

Thoughts on this deathstar

Whilst split firing is a thing, you won't be able to use the same witchfire twice(apart from ahriman) so you'll have to be very careful in spell generation.

How many points does this come to?
I would probably stump up for terminators as a bodyguard (not scarab occult) for a bit more durability.

Also didn't the FAQ tell us that a unit can only manifest as many spells as the maximum mastery level in the unit? That means your 5+ sorcerors can only cast 4 powers.

Can someone confirm this? I don't remember the exact question answered but I know there were arguments about it.

It's a 1000 pt unit if you add discs, spell familiars and artifacts at will. And it's PERFECT. I am actually playing Ahriman's Exiles this Wednesday in an all-or-nothing list. A pandaemoniad of tzeentch made from a Lorekeeper's Host and heralds anarchic as the primary detachment, Ahriman's exiles on discs, ML3, spell familiars and Seer's Bane and an allied CSM detachment with Be'lakor and 20 cultists. I will have 28 warp charges, invisibility and shrouded known on Be'lakor by default. I will field the exiles inside the cultists on the first turn, then I'll fly them out into a single unit, make it invisible plus any other blessings I have and I'm going to town with my 28 warp charges. Ahriman is getting witchfires, the rest of the exalteds get utility spells (divination, telepathy, sinistrum). The Seer's Bane guy gets biomancy. There's your deathstar ready right there. You don't need bodyguards when you have powers. Invisibility from Be'lakor and a warp fate from sinistrum and your exiles are NEVER dying.

Oh and with jetbikes they get 24" turbo boost. Since they don't really have to shoot in the shooting phase, you can utilize that to perform JSJ tactics.

As for your points.

1. You really do not need any anti-melee relics. Just give an exalted sorcerer the Seer's Bane. Suddenly he has 5 attacks (6 on the charge) plus extra d6 from daemonic weapon at str 10, ap2 and force. And that's before ANY kind of blessings whatsoever. Warp Speed, Prescience, Diabolic strength, death hex, you name it. Enjoy decimating wraithknights in a single turn. Seriously, just let the melee opponents come. They are going to regret it so hard. As an icing on the cake, apart from the seer's bane guy, the rest 3 fellas have 6 attacks each on the charge, with Ws 5, str 6, ap4 and force. That's 18 extra attacks. Exalted are NOT your average sorcerer.

2. As I said before, add Be'lakor and you get both invisibilty and shrouding to cast on your unit. Warp Fate is the best blessing you can have after invisibility. With 30 warp charges and 5 ML3 sorcerers casting, you should have all the protection you need.

3. Yup. You can't cast the same power multiple times normally, but Ahriman can. I suspect triple scream will be a thing, unless you roll breath of chaos or doombolt on him. In that case, triple doombolt would be definitely better. Other than that, ectomancy primaris is decent for mind bullets, the pyromancy discipline is great against hordes of gribbles amd rolling on heretech powers gives you a 50% chance to get a hull point stripping power, 33% chance to strip d3 hull points instead of just 1.

4. Yup again. With 10 disciplines available, a Thousand sons list can be prepared to tackle any kind of opposing list. This kind of diversity and multitask ability more than makes up for the lack of body masses.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 mrhappyface wrote:
Also didn't the FAQ tell us that a unit can only manifest as many spells as the maximum mastery level in the unit? That means your 5+ sorcerors can only cast 4 powers.

Can someone confirm this? I don't remember the exact question answered but I know there were arguments about it.

There is no such thing that I am aware of. And I read the faqs recently.

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:
Also didn't the FAQ tell us that a unit can only manifest as many spells as the maximum mastery level in the unit? That means your 5+ sorcerors can only cast 4 powers.

Can someone confirm this? I don't remember the exact question answered but I know there were arguments about it.

There is no such thing that I am aware of. And I read the faqs recently.

It's in the official BRB FAQ that came out a month ago. Psykers can only cast as many powers and their psyker level

 mrhappyface wrote:
Also didn't the FAQ tell us that a unit can only manifest as many spells as the maximum mastery level in the unit? That means your 5+ sorcerors can only cast 4 powers.

Can someone confirm this? I don't remember the exact question answered but I know there were arguments about it.

A model may not cast more spells than his mastery level. A unit may not attempt to cast the same spell more than once. There is a very important difference between those two rulings.

Exalted's are basically 200 points base because there's no reason at all to take them without ML3 and a familiar, so the only real choices you have to make is disk or not for 30 points and then your selection of artifacts, almost all of which have applications in a Sons army. 200 points is a lot, so yes, they'd damn well better be something special compared to a normal sorc for 45 points less. Their orbital is pretty trash and effectively useless without a disk or being jammed into a squad of rubricae. I'm a bit wary of investing so many points into so few models, but if you want to deathstar it up, you could definately do a lot worse than jamming what is effectively a bunch of ML3 chaos lords in a unit that can move 12" and casts on 3's. They're way too expensive as anything but a deathstar I think, especially for a Sons army where everything is incredibly expensive already so you're going to be well short on bodies.

It will be interesting to hear how your deathstar goes as it's especially vulnerable to alpha strikes before you get a chance to put all your buffs up, especially if you run into a hunter contingent.

 CrownAxe wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:
Also didn't the FAQ tell us that a unit can only manifest as many spells as the maximum mastery level in the unit? That means your 5+ sorcerors can only cast 4 powers.

Can someone confirm this? I don't remember the exact question answered but I know there were arguments about it.

There is no such thing that I am aware of. And I read the faqs recently.

It's in the official BRB FAQ that came out a month ago. Psykers can only cast as many powers and their psyker level

Psykers yes. Units, nope.

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:
Also didn't the FAQ tell us that a unit can only manifest as many spells as the maximum mastery level in the unit? That means your 5+ sorcerors can only cast 4 powers.

Can someone confirm this? I don't remember the exact question answered but I know there were arguments about it.

There is no such thing that I am aware of. And I read the faqs recently.

It's in the official BRB FAQ that came out a month ago. Psykers can only cast as many powers and their psyker level

Psykers yes. Units, nope.

Psyker unit is still apart of the rules in the BRB

topaxygouroun i wrote:
It's a 1000 pt unit if you add discs, spell familiars and artifacts at will. And it's PERFECT. I am actually playing Ahriman's Exiles this Wednesday in an all-or-nothing list. A pandaemoniad of tzeentch made from a Lorekeeper's Host and heralds anarchic as the primary detachment, Ahriman's exiles on discs, ML3, spell familiars and Seer's Bane and an allied CSM detachment with Be'lakor and 20 cultists. I will have 28 warp charges, invisibility and shrouded known on Be'lakor by default. I will field the exiles inside the cultists on the first turn, then I'll fly them out into a single unit, make it invisible plus any other blessings I have and I'm going to town with my 28 warp charges. Ahriman is getting witchfires, the rest of the exalteds get utility spells (divination, telepathy, sinistrum). The Seer's Bane guy gets biomancy. There's your deathstar ready right there. You don't need bodyguards when you have powers. Invisibility from Be'lakor and a warp fate from sinistrum and your exiles are NEVER dying.

Oh and with jetbikes they get 24" turbo boost. Since they don't really have to shoot in the shooting phase, you can utilize that to perform JSJ tactics.

As for your points.

1. You really do not need any anti-melee relics. Just give an exalted sorcerer the Seer's Bane. Suddenly he has 5 attacks (6 on the charge) plus extra d6 from daemonic weapon at str 10, ap2 and force. And that's before ANY kind of blessings whatsoever. Warp Speed, Prescience, Diabolic strength, death hex, you name it. Enjoy decimating wraithknights in a single turn. Seriously, just let the melee opponents come. They are going to regret it so hard. As an icing on the cake, apart from the seer's bane guy, the rest 3 fellas have 6 attacks each on the charge, with Ws 5, str 6, ap4 and force. That's 18 extra attacks. Exalted are NOT your average sorcerer.

2. As I said before, add Be'lakor and you get both invisibilty and shrouding to cast on your unit. Warp Fate is the best blessing you can have after invisibility. With 30 warp charges and 5 ML3 sorcerers casting, you should have all the protection you need.

3. Yup. You can't cast the same power multiple times normally, but Ahriman can. I suspect triple scream will be a thing, unless you roll breath of chaos or doombolt on him. In that case, triple doombolt would be definitely better. Other than that, ectomancy primaris is decent for mind bullets, the pyromancy discipline is great against hordes of gribbles amd rolling on heretech powers gives you a 50% chance to get a hull point stripping power, 33% chance to strip d3 hull points instead of just 1.

4. Yup again. With 10 disciplines available, a Thousand sons list can be prepared to tackle any kind of opposing list. This kind of diversity and multitask ability more than makes up for the lack of body masses.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 mrhappyface wrote:
Also didn't the FAQ tell us that a unit can only manifest as many spells as the maximum mastery level in the unit? That means your 5+ sorcerors can only cast 4 powers.

Can someone confirm this? I don't remember the exact question answered but I know there were arguments about it.

There is no such thing that I am aware of. And I read the faqs recently.

Very informative post, thank you. I especially like your idea of giving them a cultist shield for the first turn, as they are all IC's that can break away. I had toyed with the idea of giving them a spawn body guard, but the formation is already very expensive so I like this idea better. How does this look?

Prodigal Sons 1850 Points:

CSM detachment-------------------------------------
350 points-Be'Lakor (warlord)
90 points-20 Cultists

WoM detachment-------------------------------------
960 points-FORMATION: Ahriman's Exiles
(tzeentch) Ahzek Ahriman-disk
(biomancy) Exalted Sorcerer-ML 3, Spell Familiar, disk, seers bane
(Sinistrum, Divination) Exalted Sorcerer-ML 3, Spell Familiar, disk
(heretech) Exalted Sorcerer-ML 3, Spell Familiar, disk

185 points-5 Rubric Marines-rhino
185 points-5 Rubric Marines-rhino

. Not sure what those rubricae are doing? Are they in a detachment?

1. Pretty sure the Exiles with that loadout should cost 990 pts. Also, you don't have to state your disciplines in your list, you may decide on the spot after you see your opponent's list. That's why WoM is a great rulebook.

2. An alternative for your 2 not really useful rubric units:

Pandaemoniad of Tzeentch

Core option: Lorestealer's Host
The blue scribes of Tzeentch
11 x blue horrors
11 x blue horrors
11 x blue horrors

Heralds Anarchic
Herald, ML 1
Herald, ML 1
Herald, ML 1

That's 381 pts. Make the pandaemoniad your primary detachment and you get yourself 3 units of daemons saving on 4++ and holding backfield objectives, that split into new units upon dying and those new units also save on a 4++. Also the Pandaemoniad gives your exiles 12 warp charges to use. In addition to that, you get to roll in the Tzeentchian Warpstorm table and you are able to reroll the result. There are some tasty things in there, like the most common result (7) which lets you reroll d3 dice for the turn. This reroll may be used if you happen to roll 1 on the daemonic weapon's roll for the Seer's Bane. Finally, you get one of your heralds as the warlord and get to roll on the Tzeentch Daemon warlord trait table which is tasty (you can have your blue horror units rolling saves on a 3+ invul for instance).

Swap rubrics for AL cultists and you've got a functioning deathstar.

 changerofways wrote:

topaxygouroun i wrote:


Prodigal Sons 1850 Points:

CSM detachment-------------------------------------
350 points-Be'Lakor (warlord)
90 points-20 Cultists

WoM detachment-------------------------------------
960 points-FORMATION: Ahriman's Exiles
(tzeentch) Ahzek Ahriman-disk
(biomancy) Exalted Sorcerer-ML 3, Spell Familiar, disk, seers bane
(Sinistrum, Divination) Exalted Sorcerer-ML 3, Spell Familiar, disk
(heretech) Exalted Sorcerer-ML 3, Spell Familiar, disk

185 points-5 Rubric Marines-rhino
185 points-5 Rubric Marines-rhino

And is not way better put those rubric points into herald and horrors? The horrors will wold way better an objetive than the rubric. and will provide the same or more warp dices