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Hmmm, I have seen mortar teams quite frequently in lists. So, maybe not heavy mortar, but mortar teams are just as effective against cultists. I am not quite following that all the dakka good against cultists or guardsmen are even better against power armor. The lasgun of a guardsmen wounds a cultist on a 4+, and the cultist is likely to fail the 6+ save. (Its not easy trying to hide 40 cultists in cover). CSM can much more easily setup in cover for a 2+ save. And those lasguns need 5+ to wound a CSM. So, would a storm of lasguns really be better against power armor than against a bunch of cultists with a 6+ save?

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Hmmm, I have seen mortar teams quite frequently in lists. So, maybe not heavy mortar, but mortar teams are just as effective against cultists. I am not quite following that all the dakka good against cultists or guardsmen are even better against power armor. The lasgun of a guardsmen wounds a cultist on a 4+, and the cultist is likely to fail the 6+ save. (Its not easy trying to hide 40 cultists in cover). CSM can much more easily setup in cover for a 2+ save. And those lasguns need 5+ to wound a CSM. So, would a storm of lasguns really be better against power armor than against a bunch of cultists with a 6+ save?

Marine might have better save yes but also cost more points.

If mortar kills 30 pts marines and 20 pts cultists for example which one it's better directed at?

BTW 9 regular mortars as cadians will kill 7.65 cultists so 40 cultists don't go poof that fast actually. To get 40 you then need 32 more. That's 131 cadian lasgun shots or 66 cadians at FRFSRF long range, 33 at rapid fire range. Or 379 pts + officers. Actually bit more due to sergeant pistols rather than lasgun.

There's reason why cultists are used rather than marines...

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Hmmm, I have seen mortar teams quite frequently in lists. So, maybe not heavy mortar, but mortar teams are just as effective against cultists. I am not quite following that all the dakka good against cultists or guardsmen are even better against power armor. The lasgun of a guardsmen wounds a cultist on a 4+, and the cultist is likely to fail the 6+ save. (Its not easy trying to hide 40 cultists in cover). CSM can much more easily setup in cover for a 2+ save. And those lasguns need 5+ to wound a CSM. So, would a storm of lasguns really be better against power armor than against a bunch of cultists with a 6+ save?

You were talking about Heavy mortars before: Heavy mortars are 60+ pts without crew and a FW unit. You will see regular mortars, mostly the Cadian or Catachan brand.

There is one key difference between Cultists and Spacemarines: Cultists can be recycled once, space marines can't.

Also a dead cultists is 5 pts lost, a dead space marines is 13. And more importantly you pay 65 pts for a troop slot filling with CSM whilest you pay 15 pts less for a slot filled with cultists. This here is issue one

The 40 man cultists blob is basically a diversion tactic and what is more important, due to the bad scalling of stratagems cultists get way more bang for their buck for a Stratagem use. This is issue two.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Hmmm, I have seen mortar teams quite frequently in lists. So, maybe not heavy mortar, but mortar teams are just as effective against cultists. I am not quite following that all the dakka good against cultists or guardsmen are even better against power armor. The lasgun of a guardsmen wounds a cultist on a 4+, and the cultist is likely to fail the 6+ save. (Its not easy trying to hide 40 cultists in cover). CSM can much more easily setup in cover for a 2+ save. And those lasguns need 5+ to wound a CSM. So, would a storm of lasguns really be better against power armor than against a bunch of cultists with a 6+ save?

Marine might have better save yes but also cost more points.

If mortar kills 30 pts marines and 20 pts cultists for example which one it's better directed at?

BTW 9 regular mortars as cadians will kill 7.65 cultists so 40 cultists don't go poof that fast actually. To get 40 you then need 32 more. That's 131 cadian lasgun shots or 66 cadians at FRFSRF long range, 33 at rapid fire range. Or 379 pts + officers. Actually bit more due to sergeant pistols rather than lasgun.

There's reason why cultists are used rather than marines...

Also this.

Even Bubbles from lords scale better with Cultists then with CSM.

Well, might as well dive in: I'm getting back into the hobby properly after a few years of not being particularly active, and after trying (and not getting on with) Death Guard, I want to run Black Legion.

With Black Crusaders no longer working on Cultists (not to mention that I don't really want to paint lots of miniatures to start playing), what is the viability of multiple small CSM units, with a plasma gun and combi-plasma each? I mostly play casual, but there is a local tournament scene that friends of mine play in that I'm interested in joining.

Want to get started with the Chaos part of Shadowspear, the new Abaddon and 30 CSM models, to run as either regular CSM or Chosen.

All theoretical at the minute but... thinking of 20 Alpha CSM bolters standing by the new stargate with a CL and CS. 20 bodies, -1 to hit, with an invuln. save should be pretty hard to shift.

With prescience and Endless Cacophony that's 80 (in rapid fire range) S4 hitting on 2+, re-rolling 1s. Against T8, they're wounding on 5s with VotLW.

Is there anything else that can improve their wound roll?

I think we shouldn't be too quick to bang the salt drum about CSMs. Vigilus II is coming, and it looks to be almost completely chaos themed. Specialist detachments can completely transform a unit - for example vet intercessors (really bad news for CSM, actually) or IF Centurions.

I think each legion will receive a detachment whose main purpose is to buff CSMs in a certain way, making them fluffy and crunchy too. The cultist nerf actually encourages me in this opinion, as they're differentiating between the two, meaning that design space is freed up to target buffs at CSMs without also making cultists Too Good©.

Finally, you know the GW way, new models tend to get good new rules. After a little wobble, intercessors are now a decent troop choice. I expect a similar process to occur for the new apple of GW's eye, CSMs. It's just hard to see it this way, because of the years of neglect. But the day is here.

I can see the benefits of going 40 cultists, because like you said, stategems, psychics, and stuff all scale better on a 40 man unit. But let's divide this into a few parts.

If we are saying cultists are cheap, because you can have 3 squads of 10 for 150 points, vs CSM, who need 195 points for 3 squads of 5. Is that 45 points really going to win the game for you? You can't even buy two extra chaos spawn with that. On the flip side though. I think 3 squads of 5 CSM hunkering down in cover on objectives will last a lot longer against small arms fire than 3 squads of 10 cultists. I will be generous and give you 5 more points, so you can have 4 squads of 10 cultists shall we?

A unit of mortars is just 33 points and fires 3d6 str 4 shots. 3 units of mortars don't even break 100 points. IG soup lists run them all the time. 3 units of mortars spending turn after turn shelling your 4 squads of 10 cultists in cover (5+ save )vs shelling 3 squads of CSM in cover (2+ save). Which do you think will last longer? My money is on the CSM.

In fact, let's have a mirror matchup. 4 squads of 10 cultists in cover exchanging shots with 3 squads of CSM in cover. I will even let the cultists go first. Everyone is 24 inches apart. The 40 cultists are shooting out 40 shots per turn (initially) with a 4+ to hit, 5+ to wound against a save of 2+ (cover). You kill ... 1 CSM, maybe 2 if you are lucky. Now the 13 or 14 CSM shoot back with bolter discipline at 3+ to hit, 5+ to wound, against a 5+ save (cover). Anyway, 26 shots will work out to 7.7 cultists dead. Morale would probably finish off the remaining 3 in that squad. CSM of 5 per squad don't need to worry about morale. So, one cultists squad dies per turn.

End of 4 turns, the 4 cultist squads are dead, or almost dead. The CSM suffered 1 casualty per turn. They are not even down a squad after 4 rounds of exchanging fire.

So, if I wanted to keep stuff cheap, would I be willing to spend 45 more points so that I can get 3 squads of 5 CSM instead of 4 squads of cultists? From a durability and ability to hunker down and stand on objectives standpoint, I think I would rather take the 3 squads of CSM. Key thing is ... having cultists with their 6+ save gives the imperium soup lists a very obvious target to use all their mortar teams and infantry lasguns... on your cultists! But if you have CSM squads in cover instead, then all those flashlights and mortars are going to be a lot less useful.

But what if they take plasma guns, heavy flamers, etc etc? Well, that's what the rest of your army is for right? 3 squads of CSM are only 195 points. So you have 1805 more points to spend on other much scarier stuff that will draw the attention of their plasma, heavy flamers, lascannons, etc etc. More importantly, now their lasgun and mortars are a lot less effective. If they want to use their heavier weapons to shoot at your basic CSM troop squads rather than the 1805 worth of other nasties you will have, well, I think I wouldn't mind really!

3 or 4 squads of 10 cultists is basically a free gift of points to most armies out there. Anything that even looks at a squad of 10 cultists would probably kill it fairly easily. a bunch of CSM in cover are going to be a lot harder to shift. I just don't see how gifting the opponent 150 worth of cultists to kill is going to be worth the saving of 45 points so that I can buy 2 chaos spawn? I might as well spend 45 more points and make it a lot harder for my opponent to get first strike, and make him take a lot longer to kill those 3 CSM squads.

Cultists get a free refill + teleport. Basically cultists cost 2.5 pts each rather than 5. Can't compete with that. There is no universe where 5 CSM are better than 13 cultists, unfortunately. Add in the tide, and suddenly it's 5CSM against 20 - 25 cultists for the same points.

45 points does win games when the performance of the more expensive unit isn't compensating at all. 45 points is the difference between getting Kharn or a generic equipped Lord for World Eaters. 45 points is 4 Plasma Guns or Autocannons for your Havocs.

The datasheet is not going to change so much that they'll be worth taking, mark my words.

 lare2 wrote:
All theoretical at the minute but... thinking of 20 Alpha CSM bolters standing by the new stargate with a CL and CS. 20 bodies, -1 to hit, with an invuln. save should be pretty hard to shift.

With prescience and Endless Cacophony that's 80 (in rapid fire range) S4 hitting on 2+, re-rolling 1s. Against T8, they're wounding on 5s with VotLW.

Is there anything else that can improve their wound roll?

If you are using 20 CSM, just set them up in cover and you don't really need that stargate at all. In cover you will have a 2+ save. Even shooting lascannons with ap -3 would still net you a 5+ save. So, why would you even need that stargate. And who is going to shoot lascannons at CSM ? I would put stuff which will attract the attention of heavy weapons beside the stargate if I am going to use it. Like maybe 3 lascannon predator tanks, because those definitely attract lascannon shots or worse.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Cultists get a free refill + teleport. Basically cultists cost 2.5 pts each rather than 5. Can't compete with that. There is no universe where 5 CSM are better than 13 cultists, unfortunately. Add in the tide, and suddenly it's 5CSM against 20 - 25 cultists for the same points.

Like I said at the start of my long post. Strategems and psychics obviously scale better with 40 people. So there is a place for 40 cultists (and tide of traitors obviously works far better on 40 than on a squad of 10). But if you are taking min squads just to get a batalion for that 5 cp, then I feel that its worth squeezing out 45 more points to take 3 CSM squads of 5 instead of of 3 cultists squads of 10.

BTW, people who have never faced tide of traitors will get cheesed by it. Experienced veterans who have faced it before will try and make sure they wipe out your 40 man cultist squad just so that you never have the chance to use it at all.

True. Treat em like Necrons and you can't go wrong.

Eldenfirefly wrote:

 lare2 wrote:
All theoretical at the minute but... thinking of 20 Alpha CSM bolters standing by the new stargate with a CL and CS. 20 bodies, -1 to hit, with an invuln. save should be pretty hard to shift.

With prescience and Endless Cacophony that's 80 (in rapid fire range) S4 hitting on 2+, re-rolling 1s. Against T8, they're wounding on 5s with VotLW.

Is there anything else that can improve their wound roll?

If you are using 20 CSM, just set them up in cover and you don't really need that stargate at all. In cover you will have a 2+ save. Even shooting lascannons with ap -3 would still net you a 5+ save. So, why would you even need that stargate. And who is going to shoot lascannons at CSM ? I would put stuff which will attract the attention of heavy weapons beside the stargate if I am going to use it. Like maybe 3 lascannon predator tanks, because those definitely attract lascannon shots or worse.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Cultists get a free refill + teleport. Basically cultists cost 2.5 pts each rather than 5. Can't compete with that. There is no universe where 5 CSM are better than 13 cultists, unfortunately. Add in the tide, and suddenly it's 5CSM against 20 - 25 cultists for the same points.

Like I said at the start of my long post. Strategems and psychics obviously scale better with 40 people. So there is a place for 40 cultists (and tide of traitors obviously works far better on 40 than on a squad of 10). But if you are taking min squads just to get a batalion for that 5 cp, then I feel that its worth squeezing out 45 more points to take 3 CSM squads of 5 instead of of 3 cultists squads of 10.

BTW, people who have never faced tide of traitors will get cheesed by it. Experienced veterans who have faced it before will try and make sure they wipe out your 40 man cultist squad just so that you never have the chance to use it at all.

It's not about getting cheesed or not. You have to go out of your way literally shooting down 40 cultists. Not 30, not 39, all 40. Not all armies have enough anti ifantry shooting to take down 40 wounds in a turn. In fact most armies don't. Which will mean you will have to redirect some of your anti-tank shooting hitting cultists as well. And at that point cultists have done their thing already, tide or no tide. And if there is like 5 of them out of line of sight, that's it.

And CSM can't even benefit from tide. A stratagem so good it had to get nerfed in a faq AND was single handedly responsible for raising the cost of the cultists to 5 pts alltogether.

Even at MSU, cultists are just better every time. Bolter drill is not enough with the bolter being hands down the single most underwhelming weapon in the game, and otherwise the purpose is pretty much the same in both units. only one of them is actually cheaper. Even in thosuand sons, which have ap-2 in their bolters, a free psyker as part of the unit, an in house invul save and All is dust, which practically gives them double cover save bonus (and 4++ also if you need it) changing from cultists to rubrics is not happening.

This is just not the version of the power armor, unfortunately.

Most armies can't handle cultists? I totally disagree. The most common lists now are IG soup with a castellan. They can obliterate a 40 man cultist unit just fine with their 6 to 8 squads of lasguns and mortars in support. Yes, hide those 5 cultist out of line of sight, and so that's why you save the mortars for the last. They don't need line of sight at all.

I watched a game where 4 knights faced off against a horde army of cultists and characters like Abaddon and daemon prince, etc. At the end of the game, the CSM player was tabled.

If you have a competitive list that can handle the very common imperium soup plus castellan out there, then that same list should have no problems killing 40 cultists.

Need to kill them in a single turn though.your lasguns can be out of double tap range. you could give weaver of fates on your cultists, now you need to kill 60 of them in a turn. The imperium + castellan soups have like 32 dudes in there. How are they killing 40 cultists?

Still, no matter all of this. you HAVE to kill them. This is the power of the cultists. Even if you can kill them, you have to do it and do it in a single turn. You will have to make choices in your shooting phase. What choices do the CSM force you to take instead?

I think those with 32 dudes in them are bringing 3 knights. Those are more knight lists. one castellan is barely 600 points thereabouts. That leaves you 1400 points worth of IG you can use. You can easily squeeze a ton of guardsmen into that. A squad of CSM in cover sitting on an objective cannot be easily shot off the board. He then needs to devote either serious enough ranged firepower to do it, or he needs send in his heavy hitting melee to get the job done. Those are tactical choices he has to make too.

I am not saying 40 cultists are bad, don't get me wrong. They are great. But a batallion needs 3 troops and are you really going to bring 120 cultists? You can only use tide of traitors once in the whole game. so, minimum squad of 10 cultists vs min squad of 5 CSM? I actually think the CSM aren't worse off. So, I would rather go with one squad of 40 cultists, and two squad of CSM in my batallion rather than go all cultists for my troop choices.

they run 9 normal mortars and often 2-3 other indirect fire weapons (basilisk or vigilus wyverns), guard can kill tons of cultists each turn if they want, Ig right now is an almost impossible to win matchup for a pure chaos list (i consider Ig player know what he is doing) unless you play the old same well know list (cultist spam+Abbadon), vengeance for Cadia is a nail in the coffin for standard basic chaos list (a clear example of bad rules design), you need allied, until the game will remain what it is, pure chaos need allied or broken rules to compete at high level.

As I announced earlier, here's what I learned from my first game with the new Shadowspear models:

Master of Possession

Nothing special or unexpected. He's a caster and was my warlord with the "Warplord" WT to help him better cast Cursed Earth and Infernal Power. 7/10

Venomcrawler

Since I also ran a Maulerfiend I could compare the two directly. Both were quite good. As always, we need to run at least two Maulerfiends/Venomcrawlers to have some redundancy in case they blow one up on the way to their target. In the end I found that the Venomcrawler is a good all-rounder and surprisingly tough with the buffs from the MoP and a Warpsmith for repairs. That way my Spider of Doom healed D3 + 2 each turn (D3 + 1 on the first turn since it wasn't in CC). The Maulerfiend is the better beatstick in melee thanks to its many attacks. I already ordered a second Crawler since I love the model and I think that for 130p it is reasonably priced and a viable asset to the army. 7/10

Obliterators

Christ, they are EXPENSIVE! I ran a unit of two and sadly almost always rolled a 1 for their DMG (even with CP re-roll). I parked a Lord behind them for re-rolls and a Sorcerer to cast Prescience on them. No surprises here. With all those buffs they still dished out the damage and were even able to bludgeon their way out of CC with support from their Chaos Lord. Small arms fire couldn't really hurt them and since I ran 3 daemon engines (Defi, Maulerfiend, Venomcrawler) my opponent's AT guns had other targets to attend to. They are probably too expensive for tournament level play but in casual games I think they are fine. 6/10

Greater Possessed

Other than the Venomcrawler's guns his aura ability isn't really useful. My Defiler already hits at S8/S16 and the Maulerfiend is also beefy enough. His real value was in being a cheap bodyguard who would intercept chargers and keep them away from my Warlord. He's probably better when taken with Possessed, Warp Talons or Chaos Spawn etc. 6/10

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Spoiler:

 Red Corsair wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 vaklor4 wrote:
So this is half tactics half painting, but fakk it, I'M A MAN.

Firstly, is Abby essential for a black legion army? Is it basically like not running Ahriman in T-sons, where it basically just makes no sense not to?

Secondly, would a red/gold paint scheme be fine when running a black legion army? I really don't want to repaint my army, but World Eaters has gotten stale to me (only so many times I can play rhino rush), Renegades lose out on WAY too many important things to play, and Word Bearers are...Well, useless, compared to the better legions like BL and AL.

Abigail is like the main reason the Black Legion trait is so bad. It was written under the assumption you're always taking him and making use of his auras.

This is a fine theory but it doesn't really hold up, Calgar and Gullimun both have similar auras and smurfs still have one of the best traits. Black legion trait sucks, but at least they have Abby, poor word bearers totally got the shaft. I think for your theory to hold water Games workshop would need to actually write consistent rules sets

To answer the question though, you don't need to take abbadon, but he is really strong in certain lists when you build around him and it really depends on the size of the game.

As for painting, I'd play some games as is before changing your armies look on impulse. World eaters may get some new ways to play in the next book after all.

And if you'll notice, Word Bearers have one of THE best Warlord traits and Relics. Strategem requires a lot of building around though, which is why I'm playing with how to tackle a summoning castle and make it Word Bearers and not suck.

This is mostly a consistency though when it comes to the main Heroes. I'd argue how lame Sautekh is as a Dynasty because you have the Stormlord to use. Goffs have Ghazzy and their trait is easily the worst. Abigail was already talked about.

Prophets of flesh have Urien
Cult of Strife have lelith
Ulthwe have Eldrad
For feths sake nearly every Tau special HQ is T'au sept lol
Cadia and Catachan also have the best Specials and far and away doctrines
The list goes on too

Your definitely cherry picking for that theory to hold water. I see where your going, but again, your giving way too much credit to GW here. Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence or however it goes.

 Red Corsair wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 vaklor4 wrote:
So this is half tactics half painting, but fakk it, I'M A MAN.

Firstly, is Abby essential for a black legion army? Is it basically like not running Ahriman in T-sons, where it basically just makes no sense not to?

Secondly, would a red/gold paint scheme be fine when running a black legion army? I really don't want to repaint my army, but World Eaters has gotten stale to me (only so many times I can play rhino rush), Renegades lose out on WAY too many important things to play, and Word Bearers are...Well, useless, compared to the better legions like BL and AL.

Abigail is like the main reason the Black Legion trait is so bad. It was written under the assumption you're always taking him and making use of his auras.

This is a fine theory but it doesn't really hold up, Calgar and Gullimun both have similar auras and smurfs still have one of the best traits. Black legion trait sucks, but at least they have Abby, poor word bearers totally got the shaft. I think for your theory to hold water Games workshop would need to actually write consistent rules sets

To answer the question though, you don't need to take abbadon, but he is really strong in certain lists when you build around him and it really depends on the size of the game.

As for painting, I'd play some games as is before changing your armies look on impulse. World eaters may get some new ways to play in the next book after all.

And if you'll notice, Word Bearers have one of THE best Warlord traits and Relics. Strategem requires a lot of building around though, which is why I'm playing with how to tackle a summoning castle and make it Word Bearers and not suck.

This is mostly a consistency though when it comes to the main Heroes. I'd argue how lame Sautekh is as a Dynasty because you have the Stormlord to use. Goffs have Ghazzy and their trait is easily the worst. Abigail was already talked about.

Prophets of flesh have Urien
Cult of Strife have lelith
Ulthwe have Eldrad
For feths sake nearly every Tau special HQ is T'au sept lol
Cadia and Catachan also have the best Specials and far and away doctrines
The list goes on too

Your definitely cherry picking for that theory to hold water. I see where your going, but again, your giving way too much credit to GW here. Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence or however it goes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SHUPPET wrote:
Running Black Legion without Abaddon is one of the worst suggestions I've heard for competitive play. Please don't listen to Red Corsair on that one.

He asked a specific question in a none competitive context. He even asked about painting for feths sake. You realize tactics still apply in none hyper competitive formats right? This is CSM we are talking about, there is only so much lemonade you can squeeze from a turd.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SHUPPET wrote:
I mean all the Legions are mediocre to okay, it's CSM dex. But you take the best stuff from your Legion and build to it's strengths or else you're even worse than THAT level. Black Legion with no Abaddon may as well be legion-less. With Abaddon it's actually pretty decent.

Some folks paint their models and care how they present on the table (not accusing you of not doing this BTW) So while Abbadon IS clearly the best perk to the black legion in large scale games, he fething sucks in 1000pt or lower games. He's just way to pricey. So for example, unless I play 1500 or more points I don't feel he's necessary.

The best two legion traits are clearly AL and IW. But neither are amazing enough I'd fault someone for playing any of the others. Your making it sound like context isn't a factor when it is. If we are only discussing try hard lists then this entire thread is in trouble lol. CSM is not near the top of the stack, not even close ATM.

Seeing as Cult of Strife is the worst Wych Cult and Ulthwe is middle of the pack at best...how does that help your case?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Spoiler:

 Red Corsair wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 vaklor4 wrote:
So this is half tactics half painting, but fakk it, I'M A MAN.

Firstly, is Abby essential for a black legion army? Is it basically like not running Ahriman in T-sons, where it basically just makes no sense not to?

Secondly, would a red/gold paint scheme be fine when running a black legion army? I really don't want to repaint my army, but World Eaters has gotten stale to me (only so many times I can play rhino rush), Renegades lose out on WAY too many important things to play, and Word Bearers are...Well, useless, compared to the better legions like BL and AL.

Abigail is like the main reason the Black Legion trait is so bad. It was written under the assumption you're always taking him and making use of his auras.

This is a fine theory but it doesn't really hold up, Calgar and Gullimun both have similar auras and smurfs still have one of the best traits. Black legion trait sucks, but at least they have Abby, poor word bearers totally got the shaft. I think for your theory to hold water Games workshop would need to actually write consistent rules sets

To answer the question though, you don't need to take abbadon, but he is really strong in certain lists when you build around him and it really depends on the size of the game.

As for painting, I'd play some games as is before changing your armies look on impulse. World eaters may get some new ways to play in the next book after all.

And if you'll notice, Word Bearers have one of THE best Warlord traits and Relics. Strategem requires a lot of building around though, which is why I'm playing with how to tackle a summoning castle and make it Word Bearers and not suck.

This is mostly a consistency though when it comes to the main Heroes. I'd argue how lame Sautekh is as a Dynasty because you have the Stormlord to use. Goffs have Ghazzy and their trait is easily the worst. Abigail was already talked about.

Prophets of flesh have Urien
Cult of Strife have lelith
Ulthwe have Eldrad
For feths sake nearly every Tau special HQ is T'au sept lol
Cadia and Catachan also have the best Specials and far and away doctrines
The list goes on too

Your definitely cherry picking for that theory to hold water. I see where your going, but again, your giving way too much credit to GW here. Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence or however it goes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SHUPPET wrote:
Running Black Legion without Abaddon is one of the worst suggestions I've heard for competitive play. Please don't listen to Red Corsair on that one.

He asked a specific question in a none competitive context. He even asked about painting for feths sake. You realize tactics still apply in none hyper competitive formats right? This is CSM we are talking about, there is only so much lemonade you can squeeze from a turd.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SHUPPET wrote:
I mean all the Legions are mediocre to okay, it's CSM dex. But you take the best stuff from your Legion and build to it's strengths or else you're even worse than THAT level. Black Legion with no Abaddon may as well be legion-less. With Abaddon it's actually pretty decent.

Some folks paint their models and care how they present on the table (not accusing you of not doing this BTW) So while Abbadon IS clearly the best perk to the black legion in large scale games, he fething sucks in 1000pt or lower games. He's just way to pricey. So for example, unless I play 1500 or more points I don't feel he's necessary.

The best two legion traits are clearly AL and IW. But neither are amazing enough I'd fault someone for playing any of the others. Your making it sound like context isn't a factor when it is. If we are only discussing try hard lists then this entire thread is in trouble lol. CSM is not near the top of the stack, not even close ATM.

Seeing as Cult of Strife is the worst Wych Cult and Ulthwe is middle of the pack at best...how does that help your case?

New previews for black legion are up. I'm really trying to imagine what purpose any of it will serve. That Angelbane bolter is actually really solid in my mind, but what would you really stick it on? Best I can come up with is a sorc on a bike; sure either a lord or a termie lord could use it but...probably you're not likely to have either of those things.

Sorc on bike is probably something that'd be okay to use in a black legion detachment. Because BL has such a crappy bonus, I think you're better off just taking things which wouldn't benefit anyway; i.e. daemon engines and characters.


...Honestly, if they're doing new termies and abadon....would it really kill them to to take a look at something to make a Land Raider more viable? Like an assault vehicle strategy or a points drop / suitability increase? I also wonder if we won't get termies to be pointed like their imperium counterparts instead of randomly much more expensive.

 Red Corsair wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Spoiler:

 Red Corsair wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 vaklor4 wrote:
So this is half tactics half painting, but fakk it, I'M A MAN.

Firstly, is Abby essential for a black legion army? Is it basically like not running Ahriman in T-sons, where it basically just makes no sense not to?

Secondly, would a red/gold paint scheme be fine when running a black legion army? I really don't want to repaint my army, but World Eaters has gotten stale to me (only so many times I can play rhino rush), Renegades lose out on WAY too many important things to play, and Word Bearers are...Well, useless, compared to the better legions like BL and AL.

Abigail is like the main reason the Black Legion trait is so bad. It was written under the assumption you're always taking him and making use of his auras.

This is a fine theory but it doesn't really hold up, Calgar and Gullimun both have similar auras and smurfs still have one of the best traits. Black legion trait sucks, but at least they have Abby, poor word bearers totally got the shaft. I think for your theory to hold water Games workshop would need to actually write consistent rules sets

To answer the question though, you don't need to take abbadon, but he is really strong in certain lists when you build around him and it really depends on the size of the game.

As for painting, I'd play some games as is before changing your armies look on impulse. World eaters may get some new ways to play in the next book after all.

And if you'll notice, Word Bearers have one of THE best Warlord traits and Relics. Strategem requires a lot of building around though, which is why I'm playing with how to tackle a summoning castle and make it Word Bearers and not suck.

This is mostly a consistency though when it comes to the main Heroes. I'd argue how lame Sautekh is as a Dynasty because you have the Stormlord to use. Goffs have Ghazzy and their trait is easily the worst. Abigail was already talked about.

Prophets of flesh have Urien
Cult of Strife have lelith
Ulthwe have Eldrad
For feths sake nearly every Tau special HQ is T'au sept lol
Cadia and Catachan also have the best Specials and far and away doctrines
The list goes on too

Your definitely cherry picking for that theory to hold water. I see where your going, but again, your giving way too much credit to GW here. Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence or however it goes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SHUPPET wrote:
Running Black Legion without Abaddon is one of the worst suggestions I've heard for competitive play. Please don't listen to Red Corsair on that one.

He asked a specific question in a none competitive context. He even asked about painting for feths sake. You realize tactics still apply in none hyper competitive formats right? This is CSM we are talking about, there is only so much lemonade you can squeeze from a turd.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SHUPPET wrote:
I mean all the Legions are mediocre to okay, it's CSM dex. But you take the best stuff from your Legion and build to it's strengths or else you're even worse than THAT level. Black Legion with no Abaddon may as well be legion-less. With Abaddon it's actually pretty decent.

Some folks paint their models and care how they present on the table (not accusing you of not doing this BTW) So while Abbadon IS clearly the best perk to the black legion in large scale games, he fething sucks in 1000pt or lower games. He's just way to pricey. So for example, unless I play 1500 or more points I don't feel he's necessary.

The best two legion traits are clearly AL and IW. But neither are amazing enough I'd fault someone for playing any of the others. Your making it sound like context isn't a factor when it is. If we are only discussing try hard lists then this entire thread is in trouble lol. CSM is not near the top of the stack, not even close ATM.

Seeing as Cult of Strife is the worst Wych Cult and Ulthwe is middle of the pack at best...how does that help your case?

Cult of strife is not the worst wych obsession. Your talking out your bum now. It's arguably the strongest one. Same with Ulthwe. But then I could also point out you ignoring the other half of the examples a shared.

drakerocket wrote:
New previews for black legion are up. I'm really trying to imagine what purpose any of it will serve. That Angelbane bolter is actually really solid in my mind, but what would you really stick it on? Best I can come up with is a sorc on a bike; sure either a lord or a termie lord could use it but...probably you're not likely to have either of those things.

Sorc on bike is probably something that'd be okay to use in a black legion detachment. Because BL has such a crappy bonus, I think you're better off just taking things which wouldn't benefit anyway; i.e. daemon engines and characters.


...Honestly, if they're doing new termies and abadon....would it really kill them to to take a look at something to make a Land Raider more viable? Like an assault vehicle strategy or a points drop / suitability increase? I also wonder if we won't get termies to be pointed like their imperium counterparts instead of randomly much more expensive.

Nothing in the preview offers something as simple but effective as the Indominus Crusade's doubling fire power strat, every BL strat screams "get something nice in this specific scenario and/or position" meanwhile Indominus Crusade's strat is basically "do what your intercessors want to do but at double the efficiency"

I would say the BL strats scale up with large units better, but none of them are as plug-in-and-play as I would like them to be

Spike tax in full swing it seems.

drakerocket wrote:
New previews for black legion are up. I'm really trying to imagine what purpose any of it will serve. That Angelbane bolter is actually really solid in my mind, but what would you really stick it on? Best I can come up with is a sorc on a bike; sure either a lord or a termie lord could use it but...probably you're not likely to have either of those things.

Sorc on bike is probably something that'd be okay to use in a black legion detachment. Because BL has such a crappy bonus, I think you're better off just taking things which wouldn't benefit anyway; i.e. daemon engines and characters.

Sorceror in terminator armour has possibilities. Give him that angelbane bolter, also give him the warlord trait that gives reroll to 1 to bringers of despair 6 inches around him. Then deep strike him along with a bunch of Plasma terminators. He casts prescience on the termis and throws off a smite, shoots his angelbane bolter. Now the plasma terminators are at 2+ to hit with his aura giving them reroll 1 to hit as well. Overcharging is definitely a thing. You can do that all with just one sorceror lord who now even has a good shooting weapon too. Said Sorceror Lord is a lot cheaper than deep striking in Abbadon with the Termis.

So, you can have Abbadon footslogging up, giving fearless and reroll to hit to your battleline, while still having the sorceror lord who can deep strike behind enemy lines with the termis and can do psychic and provide that reroll aura to help the termis. I dunno though... 10 terminators spitting out 40 plasma shots was a thing only at the start of 8th ed. Now, with all the horde armies out there, screening is pretty easy...

At least black legion has more relics to choose from now. I would take the angelbane bolter over the eye of night any day.

That's not a bad use of it, though I'd probably prefer giving them mark of slaanesh and using delightful agonies rather than a smite (also use endless cacophony that way!)

The relic Combi-Bolter is pretty awesome though at least.

With all these reroll to hit everywhere, black legion is a good candidate for overcharged plasma spam. A bike squad can double tap 6 plasma shots and use the spear tip strategem to reroll. Then Abaddon can move advance with a battle line that includes 40 cultists, two squads of plasma CSM. And maybe backed up by even more plasma wielding Chosen behind. The whole mass move advance and shoots first turn so don't overcharge yet.

Second turn is where the fun really begins, everything should be within good range to really start the overcharged plasma spam. Including the plasma termis that will also deep strike behind enemy lines with the character that also gives them reroll due to the Chosen of the warmaster warlord trait. I wonder how many plasma shots we can actually manage this way... lol

I lol'd at the spear tip strategem.

Trying to think of what unit would be best for Tip of the Spear... Some Forgeworld biggies and the KLoS seem like obvious choices but I'm looking for something non-FW and preferably cheaper than the KLoS At this point I really wish we had JP Chosen... although a MSU Bike squad also seems nice. 6 safe overcharged plasma shots and 12 Combi-Bolter shots can be quite nasty for 1CP (I'm assuming it's going to cost 1 CP).

Specialist Detachment also seems nice... Get some Khorne Termies with Icon of Wrath and Chainfists (Or twin LC against hordes) and point at target TEQ. Those guys actually have a realistic chance to reach CC and use the Brutal Subjugation strat.