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 Jancoran wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Up to you. I generally don't think there's such a thing as too much melta though.

I never met a meltagun I didnt like

I take my melta on seraphim not doms, my doms are scouting/vanguard every game and i dont want costly units up front. The Seraphim at least will have a 5++ and re-roll with 3-6 wounds before any melta is killed off.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
I take my melta on seraphim not doms, my doms are scouting/vanguard every game and i dont want costly units up front. The Seraphim at least will have a 5++ and re-roll with 3-6 wounds before any melta is killed off.

If you think 6-9 seraphim are more durable than Doms in a repressor then I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

 deviantduck wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
I take my melta on seraphim not doms, my doms are scouting/vanguard every game and i dont want costly units up front. The Seraphim at least will have a 5++ and re-roll with 3-6 wounds before any melta is killed off.

If you think 6-9 seraphim are more durable than Doms in a repressor then I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

I dont play with Tanks

 pretre wrote:
Up to you. I generally don't think there's such a thing as too much melta though.

see... I felt this way also. But meltas are stupidly expensive. I'd much rather drown my opponent in saves from storm bolters most times.... while still sprinkling in some melta pistols.

this is my current list for example.... I call it Codex witch hunters.

celestine and 2 friends
cannoness with power sword/bolter
cannoness with evisorator/plasma pistol
5 celestians, 3 storm bolters/chainsword vet
5 celestians, 3 storm bolters/chainsword vet
5 celestians, 3 storm bolters/chainsword vet
5 sisters, 2 storm bolters, storm bolter/chainsword vet
5 sisters, 2 storm bolters, storm bolter/chainsword vet
5 sisters, 2 storm bolters, storm bolter/chainsword vet
5 sisters, 2 storm bolters, storm bolter/chainsword vet
5 sisters, 2 storm bolters, storm bolter/chainsword vet
5 sisters, 2 storm bolters, storm bolter/chainsword vet
5 dominions with 5 storm bolters/chainsword vet
5 seraphim with 4 melta pistols
5 seraphim with 4 melta pistols
5 seraphim with 4 melta pistols
exorcist/hk missile
exorcist/hk missile
exorcist/hk missile

Hereticus inquisitor with chain sword/bolter/psyker
Hereticus inquisitor with chain sword/bolter/psyker
Hereticus inquisitor with chain sword/bolter/psyker

callidus assassin
callidus assassin
callidus assassin

Game plan is to take your time, playing at a reasonable pace and then win on end game objectives in NOVA format by tossing units via act of faith onto objectives. Is it reliable? no. But its a pride thing. I hate allies as a principle...

I like the idea, but taking your time at most events means you run out of time.

And if you hate allies, why did you take a bunch of inquisitors and assassins?

 pretre wrote:
I like the idea, but taking your time at most events means you run out of time.

And if you hate allies, why did you take a bunch of inquisitors and assassins?

Because I've been playing since witch hunters codex and they were part of it so they don't seem like allies.

But yes, I will likely run out of time. I won't slow play, but I'm going to do all my actions. I estimate getting to turn 4 most games if my opponent brings a big list also.

Also, I'm in the 'why not both' school of thought. I take stupid amount of SB and tons of Melta.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 frgsinwntr wrote:

But yes, I will likely run out of time. I won't slow play, but I'm going to do all my actions. I estimate getting to turn 4 most games if my opponent brings a big list also.

I think that may be a bit optimistic.I play a much more aggressive and mech'd list and at most events I'm lucky to get to turn 4 against normal opponents. 40k at this points level is slow. If you're walking everything and being methodical, you may make it to 2 or 3 at an event.

Okay, so Celestians.

I keep seeing people talking about this as a good solution for protecting characters. I went back to read their rules.
"Bodyguard: Roll a D6 each time a friendly <ORDER> CHARACTER loses a wound whilst they are within 3" of
this unit; on a 2+ a model from this unit can intercept that hit – the character does not lose a wound but this unit
suffers a mortal wound."

So a character gets hit with a Lascannon and somehow is within 3" of this unit. She takes 3 wounds. You roll 3 2+ and lose a celestian for every 2+ you roll. That just does not seem like a great trade to me. Oh and it doesn't work on Celestine since she doesn't have Order.

Wow, yeah, celestians are even worse now that you mention it. Fine against single damage sources but falls apart against the multi damage weapons.
Dont know where i got to thinking they could take the whole hit.
Maybe misread "loses a wound" as "is wounded"?

Wow...celestians need some serious lovin come codex time.

 pretre wrote:
Okay, so Celestians.

I keep seeing people talking about this as a good solution for protecting characters. I went back to read their rules.
"Bodyguard: Roll a D6 each time a friendly <ORDER> CHARACTER loses a wound whilst they are within 3" of
this unit; on a 2+ a model from this unit can intercept that hit – the character does not lose a wound but this unit
suffers a mortal wound."

So a character gets hit with a Lascannon and somehow is within 3" of this unit. She takes 3 wounds. You roll 3 2+ and lose a celestian for every 2+ you roll. That just does not seem like a great trade to me. Oh and it doesn't work on Celestine since she doesn't have Order.

I guess it depends on how you interpret it. It says when the Character suffers a wound, a model can intercept the hit. I would interpret that as the hit aka all wounds from the hit now go toward the Celestian. So 1 Celestian would absorb 1 lascannon hit for 6 damage. It probably needs more clarification.

 deviantduck wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Okay, so Celestians.

I keep seeing people talking about this as a good solution for protecting characters. I went back to read their rules.
"Bodyguard: Roll a D6 each time a friendly <ORDER> CHARACTER loses a wound whilst they are within 3" of
this unit; on a 2+ a model from this unit can intercept that hit – the character does not lose a wound but this unit
suffers a mortal wound."

So a character gets hit with a Lascannon and somehow is within 3" of this unit. She takes 3 wounds. You roll 3 2+ and lose a celestian for every 2+ you roll. That just does not seem like a great trade to me. Oh and it doesn't work on Celestine since she doesn't have Order.

I guess it depends on how you interpret it. It says when the Character suffers a wound, a model can intercept the hit. I would interpret that as the hit aka all wounds from the hit now go toward the Celestian. So 1 Celestian would absorb 1 lascannon hit for 6 damage. It probably needs more clarification.

Roll a D6 each time a friendly <ORDER> CHARACTER loses a wound whilst they are within 3" of
this unit; on a 2+ a model from this unit can intercept that hit – the character does not lose a wound but this unit
suffers a mortal wound."

The underlined part is the 'trigger' for the rule. Each time a character loses a wound. Not each time they are hit. So if they get hit by a lascannon and take 6 damage, you have to roll a D6 6 times.

 pretre wrote:

 deviantduck wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Okay, so Celestians.

I keep seeing people talking about this as a good solution for protecting characters. I went back to read their rules.
"Bodyguard: Roll a D6 each time a friendly <ORDER> CHARACTER loses a wound whilst they are within 3" of
this unit; on a 2+ a model from this unit can intercept that hit – the character does not lose a wound but this unit
suffers a mortal wound."

So a character gets hit with a Lascannon and somehow is within 3" of this unit. She takes 3 wounds. You roll 3 2+ and lose a celestian for every 2+ you roll. That just does not seem like a great trade to me. Oh and it doesn't work on Celestine since she doesn't have Order.

I guess it depends on how you interpret it. It says when the Character suffers a wound, a model can intercept the hit. I would interpret that as the hit aka all wounds from the hit now go toward the Celestian. So 1 Celestian would absorb 1 lascannon hit for 6 damage. It probably needs more clarification.

Roll a D6 each time a friendly <ORDER> CHARACTER loses a wound whilst they are within 3" of
this unit; on a 2+ a model from this unit can intercept that hit – the character does not lose a wound but this unit
suffers a mortal wound."

The underlined part is the 'trigger' for the rule. Each time a character loses a wound. Not each time they are hit. So if they get hit by a lascannon and take 6 damage, you have to roll a D6 6 times.

I missed this bit "– the character does not lose a wound but this unit suffers a mortal wound." I'm dumb. It's a pretty worthless ability it seems.

 deviantduck wrote:
I missed this bit "– the character does not lose a wound but this unit suffers a mortal wound." I'm dumb. It's a pretty worthless ability it seems.

Nah, it just took a bit of unpacking.

 pretre wrote:

 deviantduck wrote:
I missed this bit "– the character does not lose a wound but this unit suffers a mortal wound." I'm dumb. It's a pretty worthless ability it seems.

Nah, it just took a bit of unpacking.

I think you guys are doing celestians wrong...

character takes a hit, opponent wounds character, character fails save, character is THEN losing a wound. Each wound does a different amount of damage. You are intercepting the hit not the damage.

 frgsinwntr wrote:

 pretre wrote:

 deviantduck wrote:
I missed this bit "– the character does not lose a wound but this unit suffers a mortal wound." I'm dumb. It's a pretty worthless ability it seems.

Nah, it just took a bit of unpacking.

I think you guys are doing celestians wrong...

character takes a hit, opponent wounds character, character fails save, character is THEN losing a wound. Each wound does a different amount of damage. You are intercepting the hit not the damage.

Bodyguard: Roll a D6 each time a friendly <ORDER> CHARACTER loses a wound whilst they are within 3" of
this unit; on a 2+ a model from this unit can intercept that hit – the character does not lose a wound but this unit
suffers a mortal wound."

Note 'loses a wound'

Loses a wound is a very particular phrase that does not occur until the Resolve Attacks part of shooting and specifically step 5:

5. Inflict Damage: The damage
inflicted is equal to the Damage
characteristic of the weapon used
in the attack. A model loses one
wound for each point of damage
it suffers. If a model’s wounds
are reduced to 0, it is either slain
or destroyed and removed from
play. If a model loses several
wounds from a single attack and
is destroyed, any excess damage
inflicted by that attack is lost and
has no effect.

Emphasis is mine.

The Celestian's Bodyguard power kicks in when a friendly order character loses a wound. You lose one wound per point of damage. Hence a Lascannon that does 6 damage to a canoness forces that canoness to lose 6 wounds. That means 6 2+ rolls for Celestians and potentially 6 dead celestians.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You're thinking of step 4 'allocate wound' which is different from 'losing a wound'.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Where Celestians are actually good is Mortal Wounds. Because for a 2+ roll, you can shuffle them off on the Celestians instead of a character. Unfortunately, that's too much of a corner case to be useful.

I've got a fun little 1000-point game vs. CSM tomorrow, so I'm fiddling with a list. I know he's got Sorcerors, a bunch of Death Guard stuff... he's a good player who brings strong lists. Here's what I'm thinking:

Sororitas Outrider
Celestine (Warlord)
Inferno Seraphim
Melta Dominions
Stormbolter Dominions
Repressor

Tempestus Battalion
Prime
Prime w/ Rod and Laurels
Plasma Scions
Plasma Scions
Lasgun Scions
Slab & Maul Bullgryns

It'll be odd without the Geminae, but running Celestine between Bullgryns and Seraphim will make good use of her aura. The Scions will help with board control and objective grabbing, and the Repressor with mixed Dominions will try to strike hard and draw some heat from the infantry. Thoughts and comments welcome as always.

Let us know how it works out.

 pretre wrote:

 frgsinwntr wrote:

 pretre wrote:

 deviantduck wrote:
I missed this bit "– the character does not lose a wound but this unit suffers a mortal wound." I'm dumb. It's a pretty worthless ability it seems.

Nah, it just took a bit of unpacking.

I think you guys are doing celestians wrong...

character takes a hit, opponent wounds character, character fails save, character is THEN losing a wound. Each wound does a different amount of damage. You are intercepting the hit not the damage.

Bodyguard: Roll a D6 each time a friendly <ORDER> CHARACTER loses a wound whilst they are within 3" of
this unit; on a 2+ a model from this unit can intercept that hit – the character does not lose a wound but this unit
suffers a mortal wound."

Note 'loses a wound'

Loses a wound is a very particular phrase that does not occur until the Resolve Attacks part of shooting and specifically step 5:

5. Inflict Damage: The damage
inflicted is equal to the Damage
characteristic of the weapon used
in the attack. A model loses one
wound for each point of damage
it suffers. If a model’s wounds
are reduced to 0, it is either slain
or destroyed and removed from
play. If a model loses several
wounds from a single attack and
is destroyed, any excess damage
inflicted by that attack is lost and
has no effect.

Emphasis is mine.

The Celestian's Bodyguard power kicks in when a friendly order character loses a wound. You lose one wound per point of damage. Hence a Lascannon that does 6 damage to a canoness forces that canoness to lose 6 wounds. That means 6 2+ rolls for Celestians and potentially 6 dead celestians.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You're thinking of step 4 'allocate wound' which is different from 'losing a wound'.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Where Celestians are actually good is Mortal Wounds. Because for a 2+ roll, you can shuffle them off on the Celestians instead of a character. Unfortunately, that's too much of a corner case to be useful.

Except... they intercept the HIT not the wounds? needs an FAQ IMHO but currently its worded like the old tau drone rule was... which was universally accepted as intercepting the hit.

 frgsinwntr wrote:

Except... they intercept the HIT not the wounds? needs an FAQ IMHO but currently its worded like the old tau drone rule was... which was universally accepted as intercepting the hit.

Except it isn't the same wording:
Saviour Protocols: If a <SEPT> INFANTRY or <SEPT>BATTLESUIT unit within 3" of a friendly <SEPT>
DRONES unit is wounded by an enemy attack, roll a D6.
On a 2+ you can allocate that wound to the Drones unitinstead of the target. If you do, that Drones unit suffers amortal wound instead of the normal damage.

Bodyguard: Roll a D6 each time a friendly <ORDER> CHARACTER loses a wound whilst they are within 3" of
this unit; on a 2+ a model from this unit can intercept that hit – the character does not lose a wound but this unit
suffers a mortal wound."

You'll note that the Saviour Protocols language says 'is wounded' vs 'loses a wound'. This refers to step 2 of Resolving Attacks
2. Wound Roll: If an attack scores
a hit, you will then need to roll
another dice to see if the attack
successfully wounds the target.

Step 3 is allocation. So saviour protocols allows you to roll to wound against the Character and then allocate to the Drone.

Bodyguard allows you to move the wounds after the character loses the wound during step 5 of Resolve Attacks.

pretre has it right. All bodyguard rules happen when you take damage, so you roll the dice for each individual point, while Tau Drones are a special case and happen before you even make your save, and can convert a single 5 quadrillion damage shot into 1 mortal wound.

On an unrelated note, should I just concede against Necrons? There doesn't seem to be anything a SOB army can do to stop them. Destroyers just get up after you heavy bolter them and Quantum Shielding makes your meltas useless.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
On an unrelated note, should I just concede against Necrons? There doesn't seem to be anything a SOB army can do to stop them. Destroyers just get up after you heavy bolter them and Quantum Shielding makes your meltas useless.

Just change targets for the meltas.

Am I right in thinking that, so long as your opponent agrees on the interpretation that Celestine's Beacon of Faith makes your Seraphim Invuls 5++/5++, that you should (as per the core rules) elect to use this over the normal save when shot at with a -1AP weapon that would bring you to 4+?

 Rubenite wrote:
Am I right in thinking that, so long as your opponent agrees on the interpretation that Celestine's Beacon of Faith makes your Seraphim Invuls 5++/5++, that you should (as per the core rules) elect to use this over the normal save when shot at with a -1AP weapon that would bring you to 4+?

5++/5++ would be 5/9 vs a 4+ which is 1/2.

 Rubenite wrote:
Am I right in thinking that, so long as your opponent agrees on the interpretation that Celestine's Beacon of Faith makes your Seraphim Invuls 5++/5++, that you should (as per the core rules) elect to use this over the normal save when shot at with a -1AP weapon that would bring you to 4+?

Sorry, but that isn't what the term "interpretation" means. You're not "interpreting" anything here, you're outright ignoring the rules and making stuff up.

Seraphim with Celestine are 6++/5++. Anything else is breaking the rules. If you're going to make stuff up why not go for 2++ rerollble with 2+++?

So in short, you want to take the 4+ save vs AP-1 because it's 50% vs 44.45% (if I did my maths right) for a 6++/5++

Can we not start the Seraphim save debate again? He asked a simple question and it was answered.

Somehow I missed the whole debate... without reopening, what was the verdict?

 MacPhail wrote:
Somehow I missed the whole debate... without reopening, what was the verdict?

No final verdict. People differ in their interpretation.

 pretre wrote:
Can we not start the Seraphim save debate again? He asked a simple question and it was answered.

Especially since it's not a debate because BCB is wrong.

 MacPhail wrote:
I've got a fun little 1000-point game vs. CSM tomorrow, so I'm fiddling with a list. I know he's got Sorcerors, a bunch of Death Guard stuff... he's a good player who brings strong lists. Here's what I'm thinking:

Sororitas Outrider
Celestine (Warlord)
Inferno Seraphim
Melta Dominions
Stormbolter Dominions
Repressor

Tempestus Battalion
Prime
Prime w/ Rod and Laurels
Plasma Scions
Plasma Scions
Lasgun Scions
Slab & Maul Bullgryns

It'll be odd without the Geminae, but running Celestine between Bullgryns and Seraphim will make good use of her aura. The Scions will help with board control and objective grabbing, and the Repressor with mixed Dominions will try to strike hard and draw some heat from the infantry. Thoughts and comments welcome as always.

I got in two good games at 1k. My first list was as above and went against a Demon Prince, lots of well-equipped Noise Marines, and some Obliterators. I won that one, but it was a squeaker... both armies had melee specialists that never saw melee and died to shooting (my Bullgryns, his Demon Prince), and both armies had good examples of why deep strikers need to come in on Turn 2 (my Scions, his Obliterators). Ultimately I brought him done to 5 Marines with Celestine, a Bullgryn, 2 squads of Scions, and a few Dominions left on the board.

In the second list, I swapped Celestine and the Seraphim for a Canoness and an Inquisitorial Vanguard with Greyfax and another inquisitor. I went against Typhus, Poxwalkers, Blight Drones, Helbrutes, and a Plagueburst Crawler. BY biggest failing was splitting fire too elegantly and not actually killing anything. When I conceded I had reduced both Hellbrutes to 1 wound, the Crawler to 3 wounds, but I'd lost all but a few Scions and some scattered Elites like a Priest and an Acolyte... I still had Greyfax and the Canoness, but they didn't have the tools to do anything... I called it after Turn 2 as a clear loss.

Takeaways: Scions are still great, even in Turn 2. Bullgryns without Celestine aren't the same. Dice are capricious. The Repressor is great, but must be used judiciously.. I got reckless with mine because I wanted to test the dozer and wound up losing it in both games. The Inquisitors were okay, but I think too much is required of them at 1000 points... too bad, because they're sooo fluffy.

I'll post pics of Zefig's Repressor conversion parts soon., I got the first one painted up in time for this game.

 deviantduck wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Can we not start the Seraphim save debate again? He asked a simple question and it was answered.

Especially since it's not a debate because BCB is wrong.

I literally could not be more correct. The FAQ even explicitly spells it out. You must do re-rolls before modifiers. Seraphim re-rolls are MANDATORY, so you must re-roll 5's.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MacPhail wrote:
Somehow I missed the whole debate... without reopening, what was the verdict?

There is no debate, only people playing by the rules and people not playing by the rules. Because Seraphim's re-roll effect is not optional, you are forced to re-roll 5s, even if you have a +1 to the save.