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To get some things out of the way
1.) Yes I created the Thousand Sons are dead Thread.
2.) That has no bearing on what follows, if you disagree do not attack my charcter attack my arguments, in this case my math.

So lets begin.

The first thing we need to do is understand how probability works when refering to the psychic phase. This is a simple table.

2= 100%
3= 97.2%
4= 91.7%
5= 83.3% (Smite)
6= 72.2% (Temporal Manipulation, Weaver of Fates)
7= 58.3% ( Boon of Mutation, Glamour of Tzeentch, Tzeentch Firestorm)
8= 41.7%
9= 27.8% (Doom Bolt)
10= 16.7%
11= 8.33%
12= 2.78%

These are the probablities of casting a spell given no re-rolls or modifiers. You will notice I included 7 spells

Tzeentch Firestorm- WC 7 roll 9 dice 6+ cause mortal wounds

Glamour of Tzeentch- WC 7 attacks against TS unit have -1 to hit

Doombolt- WC 9 1d3 mortal wounds and half movement next turn.

Temporal Manipulation- WC 6. 12" TS model. Heal D3 wound.

Weaver of Fates WC 6- A TZEENTCH unit within 18" gets +1 to their invulnerable save or a 5+ invuln if they do not have one. - Just great.

Boon of Mutation WC 7. Select friendly TS Character (not a daemon character) within 3". Roll 2D6 and consult the chart on the Boon of Tzeentch to see what effect this power has. Similiar to the old chaos boon table.

Now that we have the spells, and the probablity we can get a general idea of figuring out how much our 3 damage spells can do.

All we have to do is take the average number of wounds which occurs per roll, (0,1,2) divide that by the number of possible out comes (36), then multiply that by the probablity the spell will be manifested, then multiply that . See simple!!! Math can be fun.

Here is the equations for all 3 damage dealing spells.

Mini-Smite (((0×6)+(1×24)+(2×6))÷36)×.833)= .833 wounds per cast

Doom Bolt ((((0x26)+(2x9)+(1x1)))×.278)= .147 wounds per cast

Tzeentch Firestorm ((0x15)+(1x21)×.583)= .340 wounds per cast

Wow, those are some big differences, but lets be fair Tzeench Firestorm can do 9 wounds! Granted its 10,077,696 to 1, but theres a chance . So we will double the wounds per cast for that spell, which brings it up to the same damage as Doom Bolt. For those playing with the beta smite rule any smite less then -4 to cast is a better option for reliable damage, at -4 or above cast firestorm instead.

Doom Bolt has an added effect of a slow, even then it has a very low casting chance it can be the difference between getting charged next turn, and not, or keeping an enemy squad in range of Warp Flamers. But the simple fact is you don't want to cast this as a damage spell you want to use it as a debuff with mortal wounds as gravy, and becuase it is so unreliable as a spell, espically when cast without any kind of buff to your psychic roll, best left to your warlord or Ahriman who can reliably get it off.

Smite has fairly good output of damage up to -1 or -2, at -3 it gets shaky. Keep in mond these are mini smite though and casting from a full fledged sorcerer will basically double the damage output of smite (its a little less then that but cloae enough.

Those are the more easy evaluations with objective bases to judge from. Lets move to more subjective material.

Temporal Manipulation is a d3 wound heal on a 18" stick with a warp charge of 6. Its not really helpful to Rubricae due to not restoring any models. It can however keep a unit in the upper tiers of a damage scale but at 72.2% sucess rate giving you an average of about 4 in a 6 turn game of those 2 failures are front loaded in turn 1 and 2 you end up losing the models anyways and if they are ranged units in the back there is a good chance they could be out of range. Not to mention if you have a shooty unit you will probably want an Exalted Sorcerer to give it re-roll 1s to hit, and he can use it and Prescience 2 spells, just enough to make a las pred hit on 2s while rerolling 1s. Just makes more sence it seems.

Weaver of fates, also a warp charge of 6 adds 1 to your invul save, which is good but again that 1 in 3 turn failure rate might cost you the game if you Deepstrike them. Best to leave that to real Sorcerers.

Glamour of Tzeentch, warpcharge 7, hands down best spell in the Change lore, -1 to hit when attacking the targeted unit, espically good on Rubrics. Which is why you shouldn't give it to them, 58% chance of casting it on thier own, and you don't want to spend CP when unnecessarily.

Boon of Mutation, again warp charge 7 free roll on the much improved Boon chart 2d6 all of them good except 2 which is not good. Not clutch 58% of going off, worst thing that could happen is you trun a 200 point model into a 33 point spawn, but thats avoided easily. This is it the one spell you want to have the Aspering Sorcerers cast. 9" range is a bit of a drag but thats fine.

Support units! 7 auras to choose from, pretty amazing right! 4 of them are either explicitly for close combat, or help you get into close combat, not where ypu want your Rubrics. Then there is the best aura +1 to hit, prescience in an aura! Only affects Tzaangors, skip. Last 2 are reroll 1s to hit and reroll 1s for psychic tests. Re-roll 1s to hit comes on all of our HQs. Yes all of them 0 variety, you will have 5 or 6 re-roll 1s auras, if you want access to most of your spells. Good news is you will ALWAYS have reroll 1 to hit, bad news is you will only have reroll 1s to hit. The reroll Psychic test aura comes on Magnus upped to 445 points and lowered resilence means hes more expensive and dies more quickly to alpha strikes, if you bring him dont expect him to be around for long, and all of your buffing spells need to go on him, which leaves any Rubrics you bring vulnurable, moderate ap weaponery.

Perils is one of the major flaws of Rubrics due to thier single wound Sorcerer which dies if you perils automatically, unless re-rolled. Our sources of perils mitigation are the ever present reroll for 1 CP, a reroll from Daemon Discipline, and Magnus' aura which again is unreliable. So you have chances to undo the badness 2 times with out magnus, but the reroll could be better used else where.

Conclusion:

!!!WARNING!!! GW Shills and Fanboys will be triggered. Remember no one is forcing you to read this.

Overall Rubrics are durable but have little support. With only 1 reliable aura which you are almost forced to spam to get access to most your spells, and the remaining auras being either unreliable do to limited number (being 1) high priority targets as a source, and the other 5 auras doing the opposite of what you want Rubrics to do there is little reason to being more then 1 unit of Rubrics and Spam boon of mutation to buff your actual Sorcerers. Minimum squads, well to say the least are not very effictive. With most of your options gone your best bet is to leave them with no upgrades at all and bring a Mutalith charge them into close combat and hope they perils after most of the squad has died. In effect your durable static gunline army has been turned into slow expensive spore mine army which has to pay CP for the privilege to blow up and are twice as expensive.

!!!WARNING!!! GW Shills and Fanboys will be triggered. Remember no one is foring you to read this.

Anyone who doesn't agree is a shill. Woo hoo!

Anyway rubric sorcerers are not there to do all the heavy lifting. The get you the two within 6" for CF (for when you absolutely must cast Doombolt and you don't have Magnus) and toss out smites and other spells when you feel like it.

Do I think Rubrics should have received more? Absolutely. Does that mean I think they have no place? Absolutely not.

This is a pretty solid arguement.

Overall I think all power armoured units are broken right now with the sheer amount of ap and I'm pretty sure grey knights are staring dagger at TS for being a psyker heavy army and having more than 6 powers

Nah - as a GK player I can say that having 7 powers would be nice but it's hardly the thing we need most. Right now I'm staring daggers at what I've seen in the AC codex.

Daedalus81 wrote:

!!!WARNING!!! GW Shills and Fanboys will be triggered. Remember no one is foring you to read this.

Anyone who doesn't agree is a shill. Woo hoo!

Anyway rubric sorcerers are not there to do all the heavy lifting. The get you the two within 6" for CF (for when you absolutely must cast Doombolt and you don't have Magnus) and toss out smites and other spells when you feel like it.

Do I think Rubrics should have received more? Absolutely. Does that mean I think they have no place? Absolutely not.

Didn't say that, good to see you are the first person on here your and first comment is a dig at me.

Why would you pay that when you can get more options on a cheaper frame with a Sorcerer?

I didn't say they had a place I said you could use them right at the end there.

Could you please read the post, then comment rather then pulling the first thing you can use to attack me with.

I thought firestorm was WC7?

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:


Didn't say that, good to see you are the first person on here your and first comment is a dig at me.

Why would you pay that when you can get more options on a cheaper frame with a Sorcerer?

I didn't say they had a place I said you could use them right at the end there.

Could you please read the post, then comment rather then pulling the first thing you can use to attack me with.

Funny you make a gakky pointless comment and don't expect to be called out on it? Good on you.

A sorcerer doesn't have 5 disparate wounds and boltguns. There are a limited number of HQ slots. I offered counter points in my post.

So that makes this the fourth thread filled with whining about this. Or fifth? You've already derailed the tactics and rumor threads multiple times and had your own at least.

A great codex and the players do nothing but complain because they apparently all play lists with one unit and are shocked that's a bad strategy.

SilverAlien wrote:
So that makes this the fourth thread filled with whining about this. Or fifth? You've already derailed the tactics and rumor threads multiple times and had your own at least.

A great codex and the players do nothing but complain because they apparently all play lists with one unit and are shocked that's a bad strategy.

The irony.

Did you have something to say about what I said maybe my math is off, or you disagree about my take on one of the spells?

Also, could you please post where I derailed the rumor thread?

I still believe Rubrics are by his own merits a solid unit. Maybe could be 1 points per model cheaper. Because at the end of the day it doesn't matter how much defensive bonuses you have, 1 wound is 1 wound, and marines drop like flies with a couple of bad saves.

I think I would probably run Rubrics if I could take a Soulreaper in a unit of 5, but as it stands it's never gonna happen.

I'm warming up on SOT's the more I think about them, though. I've got a list I conjured up where everything is either a cultist, character, or 2 wound model; SOT's and Enlightened will work very well together I think, but still need to test it.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

SilverAlien wrote:
So that makes this the fourth thread filled with whining about this. Or fifth? You've already derailed the tactics and rumor threads multiple times and had your own at least.

A great codex and the players do nothing but complain because they apparently all play lists with one unit and are shocked that's a bad strategy.

The irony.

Did you have something to say about what I said maybe my math is off, or you disagree about my take on one of the spells?

Also, could you please post where I derailed the rumor thread?

Your take on what the rubric is and should be. It's a durable troop unit with solid shooting and some psychic support. You park them on objectives, take potshots and smites, and use them to toss out other spells as needed. The sorcerer also helps them cope with melee units that charge them. The entire bit about using them as suicide bombs or being useless for gunline is ridiculous.

 Galas wrote:
I still believe Rubrics are by his own merits a solid unit. Maybe could be 1 points per model cheaper. Because at the end of the day it doesn't matter how much defensive bonuses you have, 1 wound is 1 wound, and marines drop like flies with a couple of bad saves.

They can be, but the problem is they die quickly, and with thier cost and few options for support they need to be played carefully to get the most effect.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SilverAlien wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

SilverAlien wrote:
So that makes this the fourth thread filled with whining about this. Or fifth? You've already derailed the tactics and rumor threads multiple times and had your own at least.

A great codex and the players do nothing but complain because they apparently all play lists with one unit and are shocked that's a bad strategy.

The irony.

Did you have something to say about what I said maybe my math is off, or you disagree about my take on one of the spells?

Also, could you please post where I derailed the rumor thread?

Your take on what the rubric is and should be. It's a durable troop unit with solid shooting and some psychic support. You park them on objectives, take potshots and smites, and use them to toss out other spells as needed. The sorcerer also helps them cope with melee units that charge them. The entire bit about using them as suicide bombs or being useless for gunline is ridiculous.

Progress at least, why is it ridiculous?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 fraser1191 wrote:
This is a pretty solid arguement.

Overall I think all power armoured units are broken right now with the sheer amount of ap and I'm pretty sure grey knights are staring dagger at TS for being a psyker heavy army and having more than 6 powers

Yeah, This is definitly not a Rubrics only problem.

It's also a trend that GW for some reason does not seem concerned with. Rubrics by far had this problem, due to thier high cost, and thier solution was to hand over more horde units.

Its really odd because there were so many solutions that could have been implemented, but chose to push horde models.

it's not odd at all, hordes sell more. assuming a box of 10 units. a horde will have you buying 3 boxes per squad, a standard "Tactical set up" 1 box. and more elites maybe 0.5

BrianDavion wrote:
it's not odd at all, hordes sell more. assuming a box of 10 units. a horde will have you buying 3 boxes per squad, a standard "Tactical set up" 1 box. and more elites maybe 0.5

What is selling more than anything else right now, is Custodes. Not the hordiest of infantry out there


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Thousand Sorcerers, I really don't get your math. Doesn't Firestorm do 0.4 mortal wounds on average?

Yes I too am very confused about the math. For example on smite if you have an 83.3% chance to cast and your average wounds are 2. Then shouldn't you have 1.6 something wounds / casting attempt? And that's not including rolling 11 or 12 to cast which would give you that D6 wounds.

You write the resulting wounds are 0, 1, 2. But that's not correct there's no zero wounds on a successful attempt to cast Smite there's1,2,3.

Edit for clarification.

 fraser1191 wrote:
This is a pretty solid arguement.

Overall I think all power armoured units are broken right now with the sheer amount of ap and I'm pretty sure grey knights are staring dagger at TS for being a psyker heavy army and having more than 6 powers

Honestly I played orks for a long time in 8th ed so never know what people were talking about because I was used to never having a save. Then I played marines and each phase i would lose like hundreds of points worth of units to mortal wounds or high ap weapons. I had 0 defence!

These are good points, given a few constraints.

1) Casters with a psychic power bonus exist at all points on the board and have infinite slots/casts to drop important spells.

2) There are no other disciplines from which you will need to pull to cast powers on your other psykers.

I just played my first test game with the new Tsons leaks yesterday, playing 2500 points in the style that I (and I suspect, you) would like to play Thousand Sons: primarily rubric marines with a supporting cast of other units.

I had 2 units of 10 rubrics in rhinos (because 2 of my rubrics are built with Soulreapers and I only have spares to swap a bolter rubric for a sorc, what I had been using pre-codex), 1 unit of 10 SOTs with Soulreapers and Hellfyres, Ahriman, a jump sorceror, and a daemon prince as my Thousand Sons psykers to choose from. On the daemon side I also had Changeling and a Fateskimmer, so I had Gaze of Fate from them and didn't need it on my prince.

I chose Warptime and Glamor on my jump sorc, because he was going in with my one unit of Tzaangors to ensure they get into combat and hopefully stay alive once they're there. The Daemon prince took the obligatory Diabolic strength and then Boon from the Tzeentch tree, which was a mistake as it was basically a choice of either fishing for +1A or Smiting in the actual game given what he ended up fighting, but I took it as a backup to keep him useful if DS failed. He had the 3++ WL trait, so no weaver needed for him. On Ahriman I took Doombolt (facing a knight, and he's the only one who could cast it), Gift of Chaos (facing guard and a ton of characters, with Gaze of Fate on the board, and I did have a single spawn in reserve just for fun), and Prescience because he was the only one left I had to cast it and I had a significant gunline hanging out in the back with him.

That left me with 2 solid change spells I had nobody casting (Weaver, which the terminators took and Temporal Distortion, which I took on the squad of rubrics I had nearest my gunline+ahriman) and 1 repeat in Glamor, which went on the other rubric squad.

That's with 2500 points to throw around, mind. And in practice, the jump sorc actually died the bottom of turn 1 when 2 Skitarii sniper rifles rolled well against him (though he did succeed in getting the tzaangors into combat). All my rubrics were casting their spells 4/5 of the turns of the game.

now, do I agree that if you take Magnus you're most likely limited to casting most of our best stuff on him because you need it to keep him alive? Yep. Do I think Magnus is necessary for Tsons now? Not at all, in fact I think he's now been surpassed in usefulness by Ahriman on disc now that Ahriman now packs a reroll to hit aura. Previously we only got that from DPs, who really wanted to be doing their supernasty suicide bombing diabolic strength thang and not sitting around supporting a gunline. But Ahriman LOVES supporting a gunline - he can sit there all day lobbing offensive spells in his spare time between dropping super-reliable buffs on your rubrics and tanks.

 xeen wrote:
I thought firestorm was WC7?

It is, just checked the codex.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:
Progress at least, why is it ridiculous?

Yeah, This is definitly not a Rubrics only problem.

It's also a trend that GW for some reason does not seem concerned with. Rubrics by far had this problem, due to thier high cost, and thier solution was to hand over more horde units.

Its really odd because there were so many solutions that could have been implemented, but chose to push horde models.

The ridiculous bit means that you seem to have weird expectations for what they are, if you think they are best used as a suicide unit. If we look at their design, we see a generalist troop unit with high durability to small arms fire capable of dealing with most threats to some degree. Normal inferno bolters work well on most infantry, the pistols add some CC punch particularly if you get charged, the sorcerer adds to both with multi damage attacks with melee and mortal wounds with psychic. So you end up with something not dissimilar to a tactical marine squad, a unit best used for holding ground that can defend itself in melee and output some ranged damage. This is typically the role most MEQ troops have, it's how my PM's usually get used (or a single rhino rush unit), I just use a mix of blight launchers, double knives, and flails to get a similar balance of ranged power and melee threat.

What did you expect them to be? The mainstay of the army? Well, no a defensive non specialized troop unit probably won't be that, though I suppose you could make an aggressive list that focuses on rhinos and warpflamers. They might be slightly overpriced, but they do exactly what one would expect.

As for the problem rubrics and MEQ in general are suffering from, having 3+ means a situational 2+, made worse for rubrics as it isn't just cover which cuts their incoming small arms damage in half but a rule for the unit itself. A set of rubrics in cover are saving 5/6 wounds even against AP -1 or cover ignoring weapons.

This means MEQ in general and rubrics in particular have a premium pricetag, as most anti infantry weapons bounce off them if used correctly. But rubrics often just end up targeted by overcharged plasma or reaper launchers, which leaves them on more or less the same footing as normal marines except paying 50% more per model. Or the now common mortal wounds, which don't care about any of this. It is rather hard to balance a unit that is so very swingy. The best way would be reworking these rules to fix the problem, it's hard to fix it via mere price adjustment. They should have gotten a FNP equivalent, would've also helped sorcerer's explode a bit less. But I guess they don't want to step on DG toes, which I think was a poor choice.

 MinscS2 wrote:

 xeen wrote:
I thought firestorm was WC7?

It is, just checked the codex.

Ill change the OP to reflect that. TY


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This was well presented TY.

SilverAlien wrote:
The ridiculous bit means that you seem to have weird expectations for what they are, if you think they are best used as a suicide unit. If we look at their design, we see a generalist troop unit with high durability to small arms fire capable of dealing with most threats to some degree. Normal inferno bolters work well on most infantry, the pistols add some CC punch particularly if you get charged, the sorcerer adds to both with multi damage attacks with melee and mortal wounds with psychic. So you end up with something not dissimilar to a tactical marine squad, a unit best used for holding ground that can defend itself in melee and output some ranged damage. This is typically the role most MEQ troops have, it's how my PM's usually get used (or a single rhino rush unit), I just use a mix of blight launchers, double knives, and flails to get a similar balance of ranged power and melee threat.

To your first point there are a couple of large differences between RM and regular Power Armor models, namely mobility and flexibility. Mobility is arguablily the most important stat in the game. The flexibility is probably more important in this case as it means I can pay a couple points and get a Combi bolter on a Sargent to make him effective at ranged, AND give him a CC weapon that dosen't cost 8-10 points. The simple fact is a unit that can make use of it's Sgt. is a more effective unit, Rubrics can't do that right now, they have 1 option pay 27 points for a model which is only good in cc, who is imbeded in a unit which pays 2 points minimum for its weapons, which are all ranged. So your either waiting till the rest of the squad is killed THEN using your Sgt., or Charging in wasteing the 8 points you spent on ranged weapons. The best situation is putting flamers on most (75%) of the models and getting them close enough to shoot problem with that is you will kill most of what you shoot at, and still have no reason to take a almost 30 point models which risks killing 100 points everytime he casts.

SilverAlien wrote:
What did you expect them to be? The mainstay of the army? Well, no a defensive non specialized troop unit probably won't be that, though I suppose you could make an aggressive list that focuses on rhinos and warpflamers. They might be slightly overpriced, but they do exactly what one would expect.

I expected them to fix the non-specialized problem. So they COULD be the mainstay if you chose that. They instead chose to add nothing to thier offensive capabilities, they removed one of two auras, to replace it with Warpflamers are not really overpriced they can do as much damage as 80 points with 3 rounds in shooting in 2 rounds for less then half the price. So I think they are accurately priced the problem is the range really hinders them,

SilverAlien wrote:
As for the problem Rubrics and MEQ in general are suffering from, having 3+ means a situational 2+, made worse for rubrics as it isn't just cover which cuts their incoming small arms damage in half but a rule for the unit itself. A set of rubrics in cover are saving 5/6 wounds even against AP -1 or cover ignoring weapons.

This means MEQ in general and Rubrics in particular have a premium pricetag, as most anti infantry weapons bounce off them if used correctly. But rubrics often just end up targeted by overcharged plasma or reaper launchers, which leaves them on more or less the same footing as normal marines except paying 50% more per model. Or the now common mortal wounds, which don't care about any of this. It is rather hard to balance a unit that is so very swingy. The best way would be reworking these rules to fix the problem, it's hard to fix it via mere price adjustment. They should have gotten a FNP equivalent, would've also helped sorcerer's explode a bit less. But I guess they don't want to step on DG toes, which I think was a poor choice.

Okay, yes about the OC Plasma, which is why the re-roll 1s for invul saves was good it made us more durable to the things that people shoot at us with and because we spend most of our points on durability it was more effective to bring a reroll inul saves of 1 aura. We lost that which IS a nerf, we gained nothing in return, which is an even bigger nerf, since now all we have access to is Re-roll 1s to hit, which is less effective for us, and means in situations where we could have 2 auras we will only have 1.

What they should have done is made a 3 spell lore that ONLY AS and SOS could take from which gave the same effects as either a warp flamer or a Soul reaper, on a lower WC (5), and maybe something with a bigger punch with a bit higher WC, or swap the pistol and Force weapon for a Inferno Combi bolter, there were a lot of options, but all they did was take away from the unit, with out adding to it at all.

I still don't get your math. The way I see it, Firestorm will cause .87 mortal wounds per cast. Which is not super good, but it isn't super bad either. Can anyone here post the exact wording of the spell?

Wait, you think trading the re-roll 1s of invuln save auras is a nerf to non-magnus units? I have to disagree, having that on Ahriman/Exalted sorc is a huge bonus to the exact gunline playstyle you say you wanted out of your thousand sons.

The biggest problem with the aura on the daemon prince alone is that the aura was essentially the only value the DP was bringing if you used him to support a gunline, which in no way justified his massive 180 points cost. Ahriman at 135 provides 3 spell casts at +2 while still having character protection and still having the same mobility in case you do need to move him around to get your buffs. The fact that compared to pre-codex, most of the spells he's throwing around are now 24" range is an even bigger bonus. Rerolling the invulns was amazing on magnus, good on Tzaangors and DPs (because they always got to use it) and OK on rubrics because it was only applicable if they got hit by Ap-3 (if 1 damage) or AP-2 (if multi damage) weaponry.

I know that you think opponents always only ever target rubrics with those weapons, but there's a really good way to get them not to (or at the very least, to make it a terrible trade for them) - take heavy support options. Autocannon/Lascannon predators, Lascannon/ML helbrutes, double-butcher contemptors, forgefiends, etc, all work extremely well with the reroll to hit aura AND take heat off the rubrics, leaving them to get hit with the anti-infantry weaponry they shrug off so well. If you've got a couple rhinos full of rubrics and a couple gunline vehicles like I just described, and your opponent opts to target the rhinos with their long range anti tank, that's a fantastic trade for you, because you lose a rhino and maybe a couple rubrics and then they lose their long range anti tank to your psychic buffed gunline. The CSM stuff tends to be especially nice for that purpose because if even one heavy piece survives unscathed, you can pump highly efficient CPs into it along with Prescience to get stuff like a single forgefiend hitting on re-rolling 3s and wounding on re-rolling 4s. Even if you limit to just predators, you take three and your opponent essentially MUST kill one turn 1 or killshot will tear them up for all of 1 cp.

IMO the number 1 issue was the nerf to Rubrics. The loss of RR 1's for invulnerable saves was too much? I'm looking at you Nurgle with FNP RR 1's. So brutal.

All I'm seeing here is someone complain t sons are bad when the Dex is not even out and all the theory crafting is showing they are actually going to be a really good army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If anything a more interesting thread would be a discussion over which is better, 10 rubrics with bolters, and a soul reaper, or 5 occult with a hellfire rack and a reaper auto Cannon.

The rubrics, because SOT can't take an autocannon. Rubrics win by concession!

That was as exciting as the LVO.

pismakron wrote:
I still don't get your math. The way I see it, Firestorm will cause .87 mortal wounds per cast. Which is not super good, but it isn't super bad either. Can anyone here post the exact wording of the spell?

Correct.
0,583 x 1,5 = 0,8745 MW.

Edit: The wording is "target enemy unit within 18" and visible to the caster. Roll 9 dice, and for each 6 the target suffers a MW."

 MinscS2 wrote:

pismakron wrote:
I still don't get your math. The way I see it, Firestorm will cause .87 mortal wounds per cast. Which is not super good, but it isn't super bad either. Can anyone here post the exact wording of the spell?

Correct.
0,583 x 1,5 = 0,8745 MW.

Edit: The wording is "target enemy unit within 18" and visible to the caster. Roll 9 dice, and for each 6 the target suffers a MW."

In correct you will average 1 6 per 9 d6 rolled not 1.5.

.583 × 1 = .583 MW per cast.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

pismakron wrote:
I still don't get your math. The way I see it, Firestorm will cause .87 mortal wounds per cast. Which is not super good, but it isn't super bad either. Can anyone here post the exact wording of the spell?

No mini smite and Firestorm have the same statistical output of damage per roll.

Per cast is not per successful cast it is per attempted cast.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:
These are good points, given a few constraints.

1) Casters with a psychic power bonus exist at all points on the board and have infinite slots/casts to drop important spells.

2) There are no other disciplines from which you will need to pull to cast powers on your other psykers.

It assumes neither

With +6" range on casting you can be in the middle of the board and cast Prescience 12" into your deployment or 12" into the enemy into the enemy deployment. Given Tzaangors have the Shaman to boost thier attack you wont cast on them, which leaves heavy support or RM/SOT all of which will probably neither of which will be more then 2 feet from your Sorcerer.

Bringing 3 Sorcerers and Ahriman are required for 2 battalions that gives you 9 spells, if each casts smite that puts you at 5 you would be better off casting only 3 smites though leaving you with 6 spells that can be cast.

As for bonuses a Termie Sorc with a spell familiar will give you a +2 on your first cast and a +1 on your second cast, Ahriman can add 1 to each cast. Which gives you 5 spells with a bonus to casting.

The fact is your going to need to bring 2 Sorcs per Battalion and at 2 you have a minimum of 4, and most of thier spells will have 24" range there are a couple of cases where short range spells need to be taken on multiple models but you can fix that by having 1 Sorc on a disc. Warp time is our shortest range spell on a disc with advancing you have an average spell range of 24" from the start of the turn.

You dont need a bunch of Sorcs just a few mobile ones.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:
Wait, you think trading the re-roll 1s of invuln save auras is a nerf to non-magnus units? I have to disagree, having that on Ahriman/Exalted sorc is a huge bonus to the exact gunline playstyle you say you wanted out of your thousand sons.

The biggest problem with the aura on the daemon prince alone is that the aura was essentially the only value the DP was bringing if you used him to support a gunline, which in no way justified his massive 180 points cost. Ahriman at 135 provides 3 spell casts at +2 while still having character protection and still having the same mobility in case you do need to move him around to get your buffs. The fact that compared to pre-codex, most of the spells he's throwing around are now 24" range is an even bigger bonus. Rerolling the invulns was amazing on magnus, good on Tzaangors and DPs (because they always got to use it) and OK on rubrics because it was only applicable if they got hit by Ap-3 (if 1 damage) or AP-2 (if multi damage) weaponry.

I know that you think opponents always only ever target rubrics with those weapons, but there's a really good way to get them not to (or at the very least, to make it a terrible trade for them) - take heavy support options. Autocannon/Lascannon predators, Lascannon/ML helbrutes, double-butcher contemptors, forgefiends, etc, all work extremely well with the reroll to hit aura AND take heat off the rubrics, leaving them to get hit with the anti-infantry weaponry they shrug off so well. If you've got a couple rhinos full of rubrics and a couple gunline vehicles like I just described, and your opponent opts to target the rhinos with their long range anti tank, that's a fantastic trade for you, because you lose a rhino and maybe a couple rubrics and then they lose their long range anti tank to your psychic buffed gunline. The CSM stuff tends to be especially nice for that purpose because if even one heavy piece survives unscathed, you can pump highly efficient CPs into it along with Prescience to get stuff like a single forgefiend hitting on re-rolling 3s and wounding on re-rolling 4s. Even if you limit to just predators, you take three and your opponent essentially MUST kill one turn 1 or killshot will tear them up for all of 1 cp.

You think having something then not having it is a buff?

No I think that given a choice between shooting at Rubrics in rapid fire range and shooting at Tzaangors not in Rapid fire range people will choose the Tzaangors every time, and given the choice between shooting Plasma at Tzaangors in Rapid fire range and Rubrics not in Rapid fire range they will shoot at Rubrics.

LOS, people don't plop down a tank in the middle of a field they position it so they can shoot at what they want the first turn then move as nessciary.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 MinscS2 wrote:

pismakron wrote:
I still don't get your math. The way I see it, Firestorm will cause .87 mortal wounds per cast. Which is not super good, but it isn't super bad either. Can anyone here post the exact wording of the spell?

Correct.
0,583 x 1,5 = 0,8745 MW.

Edit: The wording is "target enemy unit within 18" and visible to the caster. Roll 9 dice, and for each 6 the target suffers a MW."

In correct you will average 1 6 per 9 d6 rolled not 1.5.

.583 × 1 = .583 MW per cast.

When rolling nine D6 you will roll 1.5 sixes on average. And if the spell is also targetable, then it is way better than smite. As well as it should be with a WC of 7.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:


In correct you will average 1 6 per 9 d6 rolled not 1.5.

.583 × 1 = .583 MW per cast.

Nope.

If you roll 6 D6 you'll average 1 6.
If you roll 9 D6 you'll average 1,5 6's.
Just like you'll average 1,5 1's, 2's, 3's, 4's and 5's.