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So then, after doing said maths, the answer is actually yes, it does give advantages to hordey armies (even if indirectly rather than directly, this is still the end result as you laid out)? Who are even stronger than gunlines and in even less need of a buff than shooting this edition?

Pure gunlines are not good but armies like tau and imperial soup like the castellan which have strong gunline elements are really strong.

House rules which deny los at ground floor level strongly weaken gunlines but thats not the edition rules its ITC. Play the same lists by the actual rule on planet bowling ball and you will get a different result.

Most players I know would recognise shooting is too strong this edition which was why they introduced the first turn cover strategem and remains so.

I can think of 1 game at my last GT where I lost 900pts before i had a turn.

The pure gunlines big problem is it needs to table to win normally which disadvantages it to armies that can board control

In itc terrain I have found infiltrators to work really well. Especially in a mars detachment deepstriking them and using the mortal wound strat. Have any of you had success using 10-20 infiltrators?

Castellan is less an issue with shooty being strong this edition and more a special case with undercosted knights and unrestrained CP minmaxing fueling the strategems that make them even more powerful. More a knights + soup thing, same as certain Eldar lists are soup things too.

I guess I haven’t played enough Tau to know but they seem a far lesser threat than Ork or Tyranid horde in this edition. As for planet bowling ball, do any GW official events actually play that way? Does anyone even casually do so if they have a choice? Seems unfair to punish shooting armies for a style of game basically no-one plays and is easily remedied through proper use of terrain, without the need for nerfs or whatnot.

@IVIOOSE: I think 10 infiltrators has a place now. Ideally in a Mars cawlstar list you’d drop them turn 3 after using Wrath of Mars on turn 1+2 for your robots - by turn 3 the enemy probably will have punched a hole in that unit or else tied them up in close combat, so you can drop the infiltrators and use it on them to clear any targets too distant for robots, or hidden behind stuff. Just be sure to clear some deepstrike space for them in turn 1+2 so you can put them exactly where they’re needed, or else they won’t end up getting a good angle on much.

By the data tau have hovered around 4th-5th all edition. They are generally less of a threat then orks unless you play with chess clocks but they do well enough.

Most events arn't GW official if anything GW run a minority of events and terrsin can vary heavily litterally bowling ball no but i have played on tables this year with just los blocking terrain no cover and a lot with with no enclosed ruins. Terrain has a huge impact if your used to it being dense it will weaken shooty armies but thats not the game as a whole.

I'm never convinced by expensive units your planning not to get value out of for 2 turns. As a secondary detatchment on t2 it works but if your pure mars im not sure

U02dah4 wrote:
By the data tau have hovered around 4th-5th all edition. They are generally less of a threat then orks unless you play with chess clocks but they do well enough.

Most events arn't GW official if anything GW run a minority of events and terrsin can vary heavily litterally bowling ball no but i have played on tables this year with just los blocking terrain no cover and a lot with with no enclosed ruins. Terrain has a huge impact if your used to it being dense it will weaken shooty armies but thats not the game as a whole.

I'm never convinced by expensive units your planning not to get value out of for 2 turns. As a secondary detatchment on t2 it works but if your pure mars im not sure

They’re a tool that otherwise doesn’t exist in Mars’s armoury - 100% safe and unkillable for two turns, then able to drop a bomb of firepower situationally where it’s needed mid-game (and maybe snag a key objective too). Anything else a Mars army could bring has the potential to be shot off the board or otherwise killed or tied up by melee. Having a fresh unmolested tool mid-game is super valuable. It’s not like every unit can live up to its potential in its first turn or two every time anyway. If I could guarantee the charge I’d definitely be deepstriking Fulgurites too.

U02dah4 wrote:
I'm never convinced by expensive units your planning not to get value out of for 2 turns. As a secondary detatchment on t2 it works but if your pure mars im not sure

they are now only 90pts for 5 models (180 for 10) not that expensive really...

Yea I have been running two units of 10 to deepstrike turn 2 and turn 3. Decent mortal wound output with the strat and great vs orks.

IVIOOSE wrote:
In itc terrain I have found infiltrators to work really well. Especially in a mars detachment deepstriking them and using the mortal wound strat. Have any of you had success using 10-20 infiltrators?

I LOVE Infiltrators. One of the few units with natural mobility in the army and provides an excellent amount of attacks once you use the Goad loadout. Can't think of a use for the Power Sword one though.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

IVIOOSE wrote:
In itc terrain I have found infiltrators to work really well. Especially in a mars detachment deepstriking them and using the mortal wound strat. Have any of you had success using 10-20 infiltrators?

I LOVE Infiltrators. One of the few units with natural mobility in the army and provides an excellent amount of attacks once you use the Goad loadout. Can't think of a use for the Power Sword one though.

Best I can tell they're the only melee weapon we have with AP aside from Kastelan and Kataphrons power fists. I guess they're handy if you play against lots of Marines. They're more consistent and generalist weapons too since you're not hoping for 6's

I've got 4 I built because they looked cool and I kind of regret it now, the taser goads/flechette pistols seem a lot more useful

Yep I use the tasers and flechette blasters and they are amazing vs a lot of things. Deepstriking and going for reapers out of los from the rest of your army or lootas. Using strat against on average nets you 8 mortal wounds and then 8 saves which is not too bad. Also if you lucky enough to get them on an objective and have shroudspalm up you have a 2+\5++ which is fairly durable.


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I’m also looking at putting twin lascannons on my 3 single ironstriders in my admech brigade to threaten knights and vehicles more as the dunecrawlers already have an autocannons on them. Ironstriders are somewhat easy to hide in itc terrain and with them and the dunecrawlers being a threat to the knight it really spreads out his firepower which you can heal on your own turn.

The caveat to hordes being strong is that they are limited by physical space and playing time. You can bring 400+ Guardsmen, but they cannot train all their lasguns on the same target to kill all threats within 6 turns or 150-180 minutes. Enter the firebase: a group of specialized shooting units with greater range and power than your infantry.

Knights are strong because shooting armies are strong, and Knights are very strong against shooting armies' firebases.

In terms of firebases though, I think we're finally getting a leg up. Plasmaphrons and Robots are an amazingly powerful combination that thoroughly kills everything in the T5-8 band. The 36" range is not amazing, but it's sufficient to control wide swaths of the board; besides, it's not like it's a non-LOS weapon.

To complement these two, Icarus Crawlers is my personal favorite. They are almost never without a target, and they do amazing damage without the need for any stratagem support.

Concerning Infiltrators, I like them, but I don't think having something that fragile compete with Robots for shooting at 2000 points is worthwhile. In lower point games, Infiltrators can stick around a few turns. At 2000 points, they have to get WoM and make their points back immediately. Robots make Power Swords totally obsolete. And the Flechette Blaster is clearly superior for Wrath of Mars.

IVIOOSE wrote:
Yea I have been running two units of 10 to deepstrike turn 2 and turn 3. Decent mortal wound output with the strat and great vs orks.

I would avoid double-dipping here. No need to deploy the same tool twice in most cases, and if you’re dropping them turn 2 then you’re probably wasting what should still be a great turn of shooting with the more powerful Robots + Wrath of Mars combo. Just one max squad dropped Turn 3 (when robots will probably have taken a beating and are no longer as good with WoM as a full squad of unharmed infiltrators) is the perfect sweetspot imo.

And yes, flachette blasters n goads is the better way to run them. Power swords might have had a niche except that deepstrike charging is more lilely to fail than succeed and infiltrators are so easy to blow off the board with minimal firepower that them being able to use swords is based on being very lucky. Meanwhile the flachette outperforms the stub by itself, even before taking into account the synergy with WoM.

I guess I take two units as I do not take caul robots as they are too points heavy for my list and too static for my liking. Just having to burn a cp to move and shoot normally does not seem worth while to me. Also at Lvo they are too big of a target and a castellan can pick up the entire unit of 4 in a turn which is terrible.

Funny. Robots are more mobile now than they were before. And even then, they were our best unit by a long shot. Also, you don't have to give him Assault weapons. In fact, the only times it is useful are first turn when you need to saturate a target or when you need to Advance and then shoot.

Robots are too big of a target... to Castellans...

Raven Castellans with the stratagem deal an average of 16.8533548 wounds to a unit of Shroudpsalmed Aegis Robots. So expect to lose 2-3 if the Castellan gets angle and range on you with all weapons (and chooses to shoot them instead of your Kataphrons or Dragoons or whatever). The Robots, once you change them to Protector mode, they can deal an average of 22.5 wounds to a Castellan with Rotated Ion Shields; after taking casualties, they deal 15. The Kataphrons then deal an average of 10.89 wounds.

 The Forgemaster wrote:

U02dah4 wrote:
I'm never convinced by expensive units your planning not to get value out of for 2 turns. As a secondary detatchment on t2 it works but if your pure mars im not sure

they are now only 90pts for 5 models (180 for 10) not that expensive really...

Still nearly 10% of your army


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Pomguo wrote:

U02dah4 wrote:
By the data tau have hovered around 4th-5th all edition. They are generally less of a threat then orks unless you play with chess clocks but they do well enough.

Most events arn't GW official if anything GW run a minority of events and terrsin can vary heavily litterally bowling ball no but i have played on tables this year with just los blocking terrain no cover and a lot with with no enclosed ruins. Terrain has a huge impact if your used to it being dense it will weaken shooty armies but thats not the game as a whole.

I'm never convinced by expensive units your planning not to get value out of for 2 turns. As a secondary detatchment on t2 it works but if your pure mars im not sure

They’re a tool that otherwise doesn’t exist in Mars’s armoury - 100% safe and unkillable for two turns, then able to drop a bomb of firepower situationally where it’s needed mid-game (and maybe snag a key objective too). Anything else a Mars army could bring has the potential to be shot off the board or otherwise killed or tied up by melee. Having a fresh unmolested tool mid-game is super valuable. It’s not like every unit can live up to its potential in its first turn or two every time anyway. If I could guarantee the charge I’d definitely be deepstriking Fulgurites too.

Its a tool that often exists in your allied detatchments. If i just wanted a cheap objective grabber a rough rider squad for example does that at a quarter of the price

If your useing them as a Wom they need to impact T2 because otherwise you have 10% of your arrmy doing nothing. Say you took 2 lascannon ballistarii instead thats 20 pts cheaper and 8 lascannon shots impacting the game on 4 T1 and T2 now thats enough shots to wipe a russ. Which then wont be hiting the rest of your army cos its been lascannoned off the table.

Now as a mars detatchment in a non mars army where it can drop in t2 and there is no competition for WOM the extra mobility and impact can be worth it

Slow playing is also an advantage to Horde armies, as their opponent doesnt get enough turns to kill them off of objectives.

Horde armies are the strongest in 8th ed atm, they didnt need more advantages.

Thats the sort of bad sportsmanship that has caused the introduction of chess clocks and should not be endorsed

I didn't really play many tourneys last year due to work (new position, lots of travelling), but I was very glad to hear of the chess clocks. The slow play problem was aggravating in the extreme.

I think having one unit of 10x Infiltrators is fine, even in an army with Cawlstar. You better make them count when they land though. Two units is too many. I would rather bring Dragoons or extra Crawlers at that point.

I think without WoM they may not be that good. If I’m using them T2 and without WoM I’m usually using them to clear screens or chaff that the robots can’t reach, which can be handy but isn’t really a big chunk of damage. More just utility, opening up a more advantageous deepstrike next turn (like assassins against a screen neurothrope castle). But then you need even more off the board.

As for swapping them for more ironstriders, I think that’s losing the tool in exchange for more on-paper firepower - we have lots of that already and one big issue is its vulnerability to shooting and charges. The advantage to having some of your firepower off the board for one or two turns is keeping it safe so it can have a more powerful impact towards the midgame when tides can be turned or leads solidified. We’d kill for a way to make our melee that safe and still effective on the turn they arrived!

Yes, having something on the board turn 1 is handy, but realistically it’s not going to be doing 100% of its damage for 5 turns. It’ll probably get shot and lose its firepower or die completely by turn 3 or 4. So it’s not like non-deepstriking units don’t also skip turns of effectiveness - they just skip later turns rather than earlier ones. An infiltrator bomb meanwhile is exactly the same turn 2 or 3 - it is most likely to appear, drop some shooting, maybefail a charge, then die. What turn that occurs should be a tactical consideration, not based on being as early as possible even when it might mean them not being able to reach a more important target or not being able to use WoM because the robots are still using it more effectively that turn.

So Cawl's Sometimes Moving Castle got a small inverse boost due to the kataphron buff in that having the ability to use the Elimination Maniple Strat is easier to do now

Now I'm still convinced Grav is mostly hot garbage in 8th and will be running plasma katas but the thing is if i make them Ryza, then I cant maniple, but as Mars, they do lose that +1 to wound and +1 damage.

Am I looking at the math on grav wrong? It looks terrible on paper

On a side note, I just realized something: If you play "as if" = "is," then you can use Infoslave Skull and Wrath of Mars to make your Infiltrators shoot reinforcements. You can also use Protector Doctrina Imperative, Hm...

Can everyone please ask FAQ about this? Infoslave Skull + Wrath of Mars / Protector Doctrina / Plasma Specialists or Cawl/Dominus rerolls? It is a huge deal.

Send to <40kFAQ@gwplc.com>:

When a unit shoots with the Infoslave Skull Stratagem, can the Wrath of Mars, Protector Doctrina Imperative, or Plasma Specialists Stratagems be used?

Furthermore, is it affected by Shooting phase aura abilities such as Belisarius Cawl's Lord of Mars or a Tech-Priest Dominus's Lord of the Machine Cult abilities?

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
So Cawl's Sometimes Moving Castle got a small inverse boost due to the kataphron buff in that having the ability to use the Elimination Maniple Strat is easier to do now

Now I'm still convinced Grav is mostly hot garbage in 8th and will be running plasma katas but the thing is if i make them Ryza, then I cant maniple, but as Mars, they do lose that +1 to wound and +1 damage.

Am I looking at the math on grav wrong? It looks terrible on paper

If your looking at 1 turn shooting grav vs plasma (ryza) plasma wins hands down. However even the least clued up opponent will realise how strong it is and focus it and each casualty greatly diminishes the squads effectiveness. your opponent doesnt need to wipe the squad to make it ineffective. You won't get t2.

The best grav alternative is agripinaa. This offers you stronger overwatch a strat which resurrects the whole squad and potentially reroll 1's to w vs vehicles if they are not all wiped. Your oppenent can't leave one or two models alive so either has to ignore it or wipe it completely.

This naturally is better vs hoards and the extra survivability means that you may get later rounds of shooting which cumulatively may be more effective.

Mars isnt great because youll likely have a better wom target and stygies doesnt offer enough of a protection.boost.

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
So Cawl's Sometimes Moving Castle got a small inverse boost due to the kataphron buff in that having the ability to use the Elimination Maniple Strat is easier to do now

Now I'm still convinced Grav is mostly hot garbage in 8th and will be running plasma katas but the thing is if i make them Ryza, then I cant maniple, but as Mars, they do lose that +1 to wound and +1 damage.

Am I looking at the math on grav wrong? It looks terrible on paper

Without doing the maths myself, I feel like Mars plasma is still the best option due to all the synergy. +1 to wound and +1 damage aren’t worth missing out on Elimination Volley or Cawl’s rerolls, or making the robots miss out on Elimination Volley also.

As for Grav, it lacks a good target at the moment. If it was 2 damage against 3+ Sv stuff then it’d be a more reiable Primaris-killer, but this edition rarely throws a horde of Primaris at us anyway. No maths I’ve seen has put Grav higher than non-Ryza plasma yet, except against specific multiwound MEQs.

Assuming bS2+ no rerolls vs 2W Meq 6 kataphrons

GRAV 6 x 5×0.84×0.66666*0.84 x0.75= 10.8 kills

Non ryza Plasma overcharged 6x 3.5x0.84×0.84×0.84 = 12.4 kills

However given those squads are normally capped at 10 models both have an expectancy of wiping the target so theres no real difference.

Target wise vs 1w models and stacked -1 grav is the better choice vs high T plasma is better but the performance difference is minimal without ryza.

The same guns vs 1w MEQ is 14.1 kills with Grav while plasma doesn't change.

Orks/aeldari/tau/guardsman spam/ cultist spam/geanstealer spam all favour Grav.

Castellan/Knights/Monstrous creatures all favour plasma

Cawls rerolls arnt a factor because realistically reroll 1's is all you need on 2+BS. Plus most players advocateing ryza will be taking a secondary detatchment with it and main a different forgeworld

I think the easiest way to analyze this situation is to compare their highest potential output against a Castellan, which is our must-kill enemy in a TAC meta:

6x Ryza Plasmaphrons + 6x Mars Robots
10.89 + 22.5 = 33.39

6x Mars Plasmaphrons + 6x Mars Robots
6.8056 + 26.67 = 33.472

6x Mars Graviphrons + 6x Mars Robots
6.481 + 26.67 = 33.148

So, the pros/cons of going pure Mars are...
+Slightly higher damage output
+No need to invest in Dominus
+Access to Mars's second Canticle
+Possibility of a Stygies VIII or Lucius detachment
+Much more robust against minus to hit
-Much more CP hungry; expenditure is almost always all-or-nothing (5-6 CP instead of 2-5)
-Much more reliant on Robots
-Robots and Phrons cannot operate independently
-Lose access to Master of Biosplicing
-Lose access to Graia stratagem in a mixed detachment

Personally, I am still going with Ryza. It seems much more flexible, and there is redundancy in having two threats rather than one really big threat consisting of two units tied at the hip.

I really don't think Graviphrons work. M/P/TEQs aren't a big threat, and I actually think there are better ways to deal with them anyway.

You pick the target plasma is optimised for and you will find plasma does best however my experience is you face three aeldari lists and a horde per castellan list. Sure its a tough game but your not likely to face it more than once

. Sonething is wrong with your maths and the difference is marginal unless your ryza

Your looking at 9.6 with mars grav not useing wom
You looking at 20.4 ryza plasmatrons
Your looking 10.2 non ryza plasma

Assuming 6 kataphrons 2+BS reroling 1's 4++

To give Kataphrons +2BS you need the robots in Ryza too, right? And they’re now missing on 2s which is a LOT of lost damage when you have 72-108 dice being rolled.
Also given the cost of Servitor Maniple (1CP before battle, 1CP to give +1 to hit) I’d say that’s similarly CP costly to Mars if you’re going to also use Elimination Volley alongside that. You’ll save the 2CP of WoM but spend 2CP giving an extra +1 to hit (while losing more damage on missed 2s and no mortal wounds from the robots).

Otherwise good analysis. The issue I find with grav is it wants to be pointed at the same target as robots, but without the volume of shooting. Redundant and outperformed.

Yes thats kinda the biggest problem with ryza in that its great for 1 unit of kataphrons but does little for the rest so your making everything else suboptimal or sticking it in a 2nd detatchment even reducing ryza to a 3+bs its still the most effective single shot.

I do want to give my kataphrons +2bs and robots +1BS though

3+ rerolling 1's (from dominous) on robots is similar to 4+ rerolling all misses from cawl till you factor in WoM but i would probably advocate mixed forgeworlds myself so wom can always go on another target.

As to robots vs kataphrons as a straight shooting unit vs 4++ castellan
At similar pts
2 robots 4.64 3+rerolling 1's double shoot mode
4 grav 6.46 2+ rerolling 1's
Robots are t7 3+5++ in this mode while kataprons T5 4+5++ but in agripinaa your kataphrons can come back if not wiped

Hey there's someone at my LGS who wrote a test list at 2000 pts consisting of 10 Dakkastellans (6+4), Cawl, Castellan Knight with Cawl's Wrath and whatever a Castellan uses these days, and the rest I forgot. I think this list is severely hit or miss and can be quickly shut down by no-overwatch armies or charges from out of LoS, and will suffer against long-range gunline or even just Riptides. There'll be almost no board control, too, so I believe it's really risky. What do you guys think of this ? We play GW missions only at LGS, including CA.