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I kind of like bikes for Sorcerers, for the extra wound and mobility. At least for one with Nurgle, as the Nurgle Mount (the Palanquin) is slow moving, if very tough.

Yeah, bikes are good.

It should be noted that Sorcerers on Discs are TZEENTCH DAEMON units, which means a Changecaster or such can give them an aura of reroll of failed casts. Particularly handy if you’re TSons.

 Barnie25 wrote:
How good is a Black Legion Spearhead Detachment with Abby, do people run them with Predators, Vindicators or are Forgefiends also something?

I am looking for fun ways to use the Abaddon model I have. I like the Forgefiend models the best but I don't know if its to expensive for what it does. The Predator en Vindicators bring Strategem bonuses.

Alternatively 3 squads of Obliterators might also work. The rest of my list is mostly DG DP's and Bloat Drones.

I run Abaddon with CSMs, Cultists, 3 Predators, Helbrutes and a Daemon Prince.

 lindsay40k wrote:
Steeds of Slaanesh are doing well for me. Charges after Advances, large footprint to shout at friendly units, +1W, +1A, situational synergy with Daemons. Only major limitation is unable to climb a ladder, but that can’t be covered by more conventional foot units


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If your Sorcerer is in a situation where it wishes it has 2+/5++ then something’s going wrong with your battle plan. TDA is a ball and chain on such a unit, which wants to be picking targets to buff or hex or MW and avoiding beatsticks. If it needs to have an invuln, put it on a disc - though I prefer a Steed of Slaanesh for an extra wound to survive bad luck with the Warp.

Bikes and Steeds are all very good, but I'm hesitant to go to the time and effort of converting a Sorcerer or Lord on those kinds of transport options, when GW are clearly phasing them out. Sure they're legal for now by using the Index, but eventually the Indexes will be phased out in favour of the up to date codexes, and GW have made it clear that the Bikes/Daemon Mount options are not going to exist in the future.

You're right about not needing the slow termi saves though. I might stick to a jump pack. I'll look into the mount options, if I can figure out a cheap and easy conversion... The disk would probably be the easiest as I can just put my Sorcerer on a disk, but then I'm stuck as tzeentch on him (He'd be Alpha Legion, not TS, unless I have a TS detachment but I already have a Daemons detachment)


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https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/763309.page#10139101

Just putting a link here for an army list I have drafted. I was going to write the whole thing here instead of making a new thread, but it ended up a longish post so I thought it would be tidier to put it elsewhere!

Thanks to anyone who takes a look and gives some pointers/opinions.

I really like that hellforged internus predator I think that's passed me by until now. Advance up with my rhinos and maulerfiends and make some toast. Dare the opponent to charge and eat overwatch and then when you drop a few rounds charge in and eat them...

 lindsay40k wrote:
It should be noted that Sorcerers on Discs are TZEENTCH DAEMON units, which means a Changecaster or such can give them an aura of reroll of failed casts. Particularly handy if you’re TSons.

I'm not sure that will work. Daemon Strategems cannot be used on non daemon faction units for a reason, namely to prevent non daemon units from benefiting from them. So if that's the purpose then they would not benefit from the aura.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 lindsay40k wrote:
It should be noted that Sorcerers on Discs are TZEENTCH DAEMON units, which means a Changecaster or such can give them an aura of reroll of failed casts. Particularly handy if you’re TSons.

I'm not sure that will work. Daemon Strategems cannot be used on non daemon faction units for a reason, namely to prevent non daemon units from benefiting from them. So if that's the purpose then they would not benefit from the aura.

Auras work because they still have the Daemon keyword.

Stratagems... I think were specifically singled out as not working, except for daemons from the codex:daemons?

The auras have to work though, cos otherwise there is zero synergy between Daemons and CSM and so would pretty much make them significantly weaker.

Primortus wrote:

Abaddon303 wrote:

barboggo wrote:

120x Black Legion cultists are insane with full re-rolls and the ability to advance and shoot @ 24" Assault 2 + VOTLW.

Wait, you don't get the double shots with rapid fire if you're advancing do you?

Correct, if you advance your weapon changes from Rapid Fire 1 to Assault 1. So you only get the 1 shot, but that's 1 more shot then you would have had.

Oops, my bad, fixed.

Does anyone know of any CSM codex alternatives to 6x deep striking Tzeentch Flamers? They're 168 points, so not cheap, but being able to deep strike and put down (on average) 18-20 Hits on infantry/hordes seems pretty good.

~8 Berzerkers could be infiltrated and put down 48 attacks, but that's down to like 30 hits, and that's assuming you get first turn so they don't get killed first. Without first turn I'm not sure how much use they'd be in that situation...

I'd love it if Raptors had the ability to take the Flechette pistols that AdMech Infiltrators have (12", 5 shots), instead of the crummy bolt pistols which are just pointless.

Abaddon303 wrote:
I really like that hellforged internus predator I think that's passed me by until now. Advance up with my rhinos and maulerfiends and make some toast. Dare the opponent to charge and eat overwatch and then when you drop a few rounds charge in and eat them...

I’ve got one. It’s not bad! Can be an interesting target for Warptime. Weird that it’s Elite, but an interesting option for filling out a Vanguard for a cheeky +1CP to go with some Noise Marines and Berzerkers. I had it park in front of a fortification that had waves of Genestealers inbound, a while back. That was fun


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Niiru wrote:
Does anyone know of any CSM codex alternatives to 6x deep striking Tzeentch Flamers? They're 168 points, so not cheap, but being able to deep strike and put down (on average) 18-20 Hits on infantry/hordes seems pretty good.

~8 Berzerkers could be infiltrated and put down 48 attacks, but that's down to like 30 hits, and that's assuming you get first turn so they don't get killed first. Without first turn I'm not sure how much use they'd be in that situation...

I'd love it if Raptors had the ability to take the Flechette pistols that AdMech Infiltrators have (12", 5 shots), instead of the crummy bolt pistols which are just pointless.

No, but Warptime makes Bikers with two flamers and a Combi-flamer are moderately comparable. 8 hits from the Combi-bolters, 10.5 hits from the flamers, and an extra hit from the champion’s second barrel. I think (it’s late) they’re 64 points cheaper, too.

The thing is, Flamers are far harder to kill than Bikers. They can still shoot after getting put into melee due to the fly keyword and the pistol profile, their flamers are 12" range, and they have an amazing invuln save for being Tzeentch. Honestly, flamers are pretty much the end all be all flame units...Who coulda thunk it?

Well, add two more bikers to make the unit cost about as much as the six Flamers, and it’s 6x2W T4 4++ vs 5x2W T5 3+. It’s also five more Bolter hits, which I guess will offset with the Flamers’ AP-1

I agree that the Flamers are probably better adapted to this role, with FLY and Pistol and more auto hits on overwatch, but they do also die twice as fast against bolters.

They have been discussed a fair bit in the Daemons tactica, and Horrrors were found to outperform them in pretty much any situation where longer range can be brought to bear and a compact unit footprint is not a major asset. In a Chaos soup list, they’re also competing against Noise Marines.

I do like them and I’ll be fielding my own from time time. They’re viable and certainly have a distinct niche as a compact mobile infantry hunter. (And a culexus assassin’s worst nightmare.) Though, outside of that niche, they’ll rarely outperform more conventional firepower.

Edit: also have an overlooked use in dealing with units with stacked -1 to hit (not uncommon example: Plaguebearer horde with Miasma). If they sort out Summoning in 9ed (keep an eye on Sigmar 2ed, some interesting stuff happening there), you can bet they’ll return to my Word Bearers’ sideboard (I haven’t summoned anything outside of narrative play for a year).

 lindsay40k wrote:
Well, add two more bikers to make the unit cost about as much as the six Flamers, and it’s 6x2W T4 4++ vs 5x2W T5 3+. It’s also five more Bolter hits, which I guess will offset with the Flamers’ AP-1

I agree that the Flamers are probably better adapted to this role, with FLY and Pistol and more auto hits on overwatch, but they do also die twice as fast against bolters.

They have been discussed a fair bit in the Daemons tactica, and Horrrors were found to outperform them in pretty much any situation where longer range can be brought to bear and a compact unit footprint is not a major asset. In a Chaos soup list, they’re also competing against Noise Marines.

I do like them and I’ll be fielding my own from time time. They’re viable and certainly have a distinct niche as a compact mobile infantry hunter. (And a culexus assassin’s worst nightmare.) Though, outside of that niche, they’ll rarely outperform more conventional firepower.

Edit: also have an overlooked use in dealing with units with stacked -1 to hit (not uncommon example: Plaguebearer horde with Miasma). If they sort out Summoning in 9ed (keep an eye on Sigmar 2ed, some interesting stuff happening there), you can bet they’ll return to my Word Bearers’ sideboard (I haven’t summoned anything outside of narrative play for a year).

Bikers are a possibility...

5 Bikers would be 143 points, would be pretty fast, but also very vulnerable to plasma. Cheaper than terminators at least. 5 combi-bolters plus 2 flamers in that unit would be pretty good. Might have to consider that one.

A big blob of 20 pink horrors is also an option for 140 points, but then that would require me painting 20 horrors. Would get me 40 shots, so around 20 hits, so about the same as the flamers.

Noise Marines would be an ideal swap out, but I can't deep strike those. They would have to either footslog, or be infiltrated (which is great if I get first turn, suicide otherwise). The deepstriking for flamers (or horrors I guess) is great because they are guaranteed to get at least one turn of full strength shooting without casualties.
Noise Marines would also only get... about 21 shots? So ~14 hits. They're unfortunately having to pay for their power armour I guess.

I may be looking at things wrong, but I don't see how noise marines can compete. Even the horrors are vastly outperforming them (it seems to me).

Horrors are probably the most points efficient, but Flamers seem to be quite close behind (especially when using deep strike for the big attack on a chosen target). They win for me because it means not having to paint another horde of models, however I could be persuaded if the arguement was strong enough.

Bikers... interesting suggestion. Would be another unit to benefit from alpha legion trait too. Could be worth a look...

Well 20 pink horror would be 60 shoots to be fair. 20 or more pinks in a unit change their assault weapon to 3 but once they drop to 19 it’s assault 2 again.

Then if you spend 80-100 more for a herald they get +1S and they have a power with +1 to wound (NOT S!!) so with this they will wound a Knight with 5+.

But if you’re going too spend points on pinks I would recommend to get 1 full unit or 2 and some points for splitting. And then of course a herald or two.

If you really want to focus on Tzeentch shooting you have a D-prince for reroll 1s. Warlordtrait “daemonspark” 9” away is reroll 1s to wound as well. But if you go that way you might go all in on daemons..

The power in Noise Marines is in taking a large unit and putting Stratagems on them. VotLW & Endless Cacophony, Prescience & a DP/CL aura. Maybe Delightful Agonies, if you’d rather get a second shooting phase than shoot when you die. It’s a lot to invest in, but the sheer firepower is something to be feared.

Real strength of noise marines is when infiltrated and they die can shoot at characters regardless of bubblewrap. The rules that allow this look debatable (to me) but this is how it was ruled at NOVA and other major ITC/US based tournaments (not sure what ETC does).

It offers an opportunity to kill company commanders who spam first rank/second rank or annoying eldar psykers - and adds an additional positional concern for opponent to worry about.

orkswubwub wrote:
Real strength of noise marines is when infiltrated and they die can shoot at characters regardless of bubblewrap. The rules that allow this look debatable (to me) but this is how it was ruled at NOVA and other major ITC/US based tournaments (not sure what ETC does).

It offers an opportunity to kill company commanders who spam first rank/second rank or annoying eldar psykers - and adds an additional positional concern for opponent to worry about.

Targeting characters when they die will only work outside the shooting phase, its still a great strat if you lose some marines to smite and/or something in the movement phase like ravenwing bombers, also if they die in fight phase and have an exalted champ nearby they're potentially re-rolling all wounds and each can throw a grenade!

I love infiltrating at least a 15 man squad so your opponent has to deal with it, minimum if they die you're taking out some screens and possibly a weak character its a win/win unit albeit a little expensive

Yeah, if you expect your NMs to be wiped out and they contain a Blastmaster or two, think carefully about them when you remove casualties. Especially when you’ve got Prescience & CL/DP buffs active. If there's a moderately squishy support character in view, a sneaky snipe in a non-shooting phase can be brutal.

This all depends on RAW being as they are; you are not CURRENTLY constrained by the character rules when deadshooting outside of the shooting phase, and you are CURRENTLY allowed to deadshoot whilst your unit is within 1” of an enemy unit and use a non-pistol to shoot at a unit you’re not within 1” of.

I built a load of Terminators and Warp Talons when they could THEN deep strike on the first turn and then Warptime. There was even a magenta FAQ specifically allowing it. Now, they’re overpriced gimmicks left on the shelves. BUUUUUT Noise Marines are still great even if they lose ‘I’ve been stabbed so I get to fire a Sonic cannon like a sniper rifle’, so don’t be feart that they’ll become unviable if that loophole closes

So I played an all melee daemons+ csm army and did pretty decent. Now I want to experiment with some leviathans.

Is this too simple?

I like simple. I have a tendency to build lists with a lot of moving parts. Sometimes an unsubtle wrecking ball does the trick. I suspect your opponents will tend to focus fire - including much of their anti-horde - on the DA Rhino.

At the very least, I’d give the second Exalted Champion a Power Axe with those spare points. May as well give him some bite in melee.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Whoops, misread. Make that a Combi-Bolter. May as well

Tazberry wrote:
Well 20 pink horror would be 60 shoots to be fair. 20 or more pinks in a unit change their assault weapon to 3 but once they drop to 19 it’s assault 2 again.

Then if you spend 80-100 more for a herald they get +1S and they have a power with +1 to wound (NOT S!!) so with this they will wound a Knight with 5+.

But if you’re going too spend points on pinks I would recommend to get 1 full unit or 2 and some points for splitting. And then of course a herald or two.

If you really want to focus on Tzeentch shooting you have a D-prince for reroll 1s. Warlordtrait “daemonspark” 9” away is reroll 1s to wound as well. But if you go that way you might go all in on daemons..

My Daemons detachment is small, basically because I want the Khorne Skullreaver Prince (I've already made a nice model for him too), and a battallion for CP purposes using as few models as possible (which is achieved by 9 Nurglings).

I could swap one unit of Nurglings for 1 unit of a different troops choice like Horrors, but it would be minimum size of 10. This army is not planned to be Horde-like at all.

I originally planned to have 30 Cultists in three squads of 10 (which was fine with me), but then realised that they would be infinitely more powerful in a single unit of 30, so that I could infiltrate/Cacophony/tide of traitors with them. Unfortunately this means I lose 5CP, unless I add 20 more cultists.

Currently trying to sort detachments to maybe get a vanguard/spearhead out of what I have, but that will (at best) only give me 1 or 2 CP instead of the 5.

All this is to say, I'm trying to break a balance between fun/good units, and having the CP to actually make the most of them. If I end up having to get 20 more Cultists, I -definitely- will not want to add 20/40/60 brimstones on top of that.

I could, of course, expand my Daemons by adding a second Battallion... but I like Alpha Legion. And if I was going to take a third detachment, it would probably be night Lords!

Plus my Flamers won't be Daemons, they're going to be conversion of dark mech flamer units. Wouldn't want to have loads of counts-as models to confuse the opponent!

The most effective tactic ive used with flamers is a unit of 9, with a Herald put behind them against a heavy infantry army (it was Orks specificially)

. With their already weak armor save, the flamers getting 5 strength from the herald and their wide footprint giving me a giant wall of overwatch, it more or less killed off half the unit of Boyz in the shooting phase, and then mulched another chunk in overwatch. By the time the Boyz got in, they were down to 4 models and they died in combat against the flamers + morale phase.

Weaver9,
What is your intention for the cultists? Purely as a screen for your leviathans? Seems like a waste of points since you are already meeting your troop quota?


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It would be nice if you could break your leviathans out as a separate detachment for the extra 1CP and run as a more beneficial legion trait. Like -1 alpha legion? You could drop the cultists and go for a basic lord to reroll 1s on your leviathans? Unless you want to keep the screen

Sokhar wrote:

barboggo wrote:
He will be spending 3CP every turn to vect tide of traitors. Once he's out of CP, the Dark Reapers die.

Do we actually know if having it Vect'd resets the "Once per game" errata on Tide of Traitors?

This totally came up while we were playing lol. We looked at the rules. For ToT it says it can only be "used" once per game, whereas with Vect it states that it prevents a stratagem from being "resolved". We decided to treat "used" and "resolved" as equivalent for the purposes of this game so that DE doesn't just get a way to permanently auto-nullify one of the best strats in the CSM codex for 3CP.

If anyone has an official GW statement on the issue I'd love to see it.

barboggo wrote:

Sokhar wrote:

barboggo wrote:
He will be spending 3CP every turn to vect tide of traitors. Once he's out of CP, the Dark Reapers die.

Do we actually know if having it Vect'd resets the "Once per game" errata on Tide of Traitors?

This totally came up while we were playing lol. We looked at the rules. For ToT it says it can only be "used" once per game, whereas with Vect it states that it prevents a stratagem from being "resolved". We decided to treat "used" and "resolved" as equivalent for the purposes of this game so that DE doesn't just get a way to permanently auto-nullify one of the best strats in the CSM codex for 3CP.

If anyone has an official GW statement on the issue I'd love to see it.

I would certainly play it this way. I mean... I guess you are still spending the 2CP for Tide, but they are then spending 3CP to nullify it.

If you are still 'spending' (As in losing) 2CP for the nullified stratagem, it would be unfair for that stratagem to also become locked out for the whole game. Means you lose resources AND lose one of your key stratagems.

I do hope GW don't do one of their trademarked knee-jerk FAQ's and rule it the other way. I would definitely say that you could keep attempting to use Tide until one of you runs out of CP.

Abaddon303 wrote:
Weaver9,
What is your intention for the cultists? Purely as a screen for your leviathans? Seems like a waste of points since you are already meeting your troop quota?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It would be nice if you could break your leviathans out as a separate detachment for the extra 1CP and run as a more beneficial legion trait. Like -1 alpha legion? You could drop the cultists and go for a basic lord to reroll 1s on your leviathans? Unless you want to keep the screen

Ah yeah, I could do a spearhead no problem.

I'll see about alpha legion, but yeah, wanted a screening unit, as well as a unit to grab objectives. The bezerkers are going to be rushing to melee all game.

I want to screen the leviathans because when they are double butchered they are super weak against deepstriking or infiltrating melee units. Need a coushin to get in a round of shooting.

With the way Vect works, I'd be ok with losing my ability to ToT if they rolled a 6 on their Vect roll.

With Agents of Vect, on a 1 Vect fails and the DE player loses his 3CP for nothing. On a 2-5 Vect works as usual and nullifies the enemy stratagem but the opponent also doesn't lose any CP for attempting to use the strat. On a 6 Vect nullifies the enemy stratagem but DOESN'T refund the opponent's CP, implying that the CP still gets spent by the opponent but the effect of the strat doesn't play out. Counting that as "used" for the purposes of ToT seems a bit fluffier to me and possibly RAI so I'd be ok with it.

barboggo wrote:
With the way Vect works, I'd be ok with losing my ability to ToT if they rolled a 6 on their Vect roll.

With Agents of Vect, on a 1 Vect fails and the DE player loses his 3CP for nothing. On a 2-5 Vect works as usual and nullifies the enemy stratagem but the opponent also doesn't lose any CP for attempting to use the strat. On a 6 Vect nullifies the enemy stratagem but DOESN'T refund the opponent's CP, implying that the CP still gets spent by the opponent but the effect of the strat doesn't play out. Counting that as "used" for the purposes of ToT seems a bit fluffier to me and possibly RAI so I'd be ok with it.

Hmmmmm well it would suck (for me), but then it relies on rolling a 6, and the 2-5 results give me back my CP.

I'd be happy with the 6 meaning Tide gets counted as used.

I mean, I'd be angry and upset, but I wouldn't feel cheated by my opponent, just by the winds of fate.

Land raider - I'm committed to using one in 1 week 2k pt list. Tips on keeping it moving and shooting? I'm marking it Nurgle for miasma. Also running 3 brutes alongside it.

Please no disparaging trolling on the non-competitive vehicles. It's a casual tourney with a penalized PL cap and no FW.

So I've been doing a bit of Mathhammer on my potential Flamer deepstrike unit.

The two options I had (considering a rough points limitation):

1x Changecaster (with Flickering Flames)
5x Flamers

or

7 x Flamers


The Mathhammer came out roughly as you would expect.
The Version with the Changecaster did 1 more wound (7 wounds vs 6 wounds) against MEQs.
The version with more Flamers produced one extra wound against GEQs (13.5 vs 12.3).
The changecaster version was twice as good against Knights... but still terrible, and wouldn't use against knights anyway.

So the changecaster version is slightly stronger against marines, slightly weaker against guards and t-shirt saves. But... it also seems to end up more fragile as there are less models in the unit, and the Changecaster is pretty useless once the unit dies off. (I guess it can throw a smite before it dies, it's useless in combat).

So is there actually much point in the Changecaster unit in this case? I guess it's better if I had multiple blobs of flames and brimstones in a big bubble, but in the case of this deepstrike anti-infantry unit?

I'm thinking I'd be better off with the 6-8 flamers in one unit. Also means only costs 1CP to deepstrike it, instead of another CP for the changecaster.


HOWEVER something to keep in mind is I still -need- a second HQ for that daemon detachment...