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Yes but with one unit and 4cp you can shoot as much as 2 units and instead of being tough, with proper positioning you're unkillable.

You could have 71 extra cultists to make conceal work well, get cp and hold objectives.

 lindsay40k wrote:


What would the two HQ be for this Sneaky Seventeen? Lord & Sorc? A DP with a cheeky Relic?

I'd go for a disco lord with We Are Alpharius, to unlock Clandestine, making it a base -2 to hit, that's very nice on a disco.

Second choice, assuming free use of relics and traits, would be a termi lord with Vipers Wail and Headhunter trait, with Slaanesh mark. If you really need to, you can target and burn down most HQs in the game for 3cp (Vets and cacophany). He drops 6.5 damage on a SM cap for example.

 grouchoben wrote:

I'd go for a disco lord with We Are Alpharius, to unlock Clandestine, making it a base -2 to hit, that's very nice on a disco.

Thats a bullet magnet. A lord can get -5 to hit.

 grouchoben wrote:

Second choice, assuming free use of relics and traits, would be a termi lord with Vipers Wail and Headhunter trait, with Slaanesh mark. If you really need to, you can target and burn down most HQs in the game for 3cp (Vets and cacophany). He drops 6.5 damage on a SM cap for example.

There is no vipers wail. How do you get 6.5 MW with 8 shots (assuming you mean vipers bite), when only unmodified 6s are 1MW ?

 p5freak wrote:

 grouchoben wrote:

I'd go for a disco lord with We Are Alpharius, to unlock Clandestine, making it a base -2 to hit, that's very nice on a disco.

Thats a bullet magnet. A lord can get -5 to hit.

 grouchoben wrote:

Second choice, assuming free use of relics and traits, would be a termi lord with Vipers Wail and Headhunter trait, with Slaanesh mark. If you really need to, you can target and burn down most HQs in the game for 3cp (Vets and cacophany). He drops 6.5 damage on a SM cap for example.

There is no vipers wail. How do you get 6.5 MW with 8 shots (assuming you mean vipers bite), when only unmodified 6s are 1MW ?

Think he is referring to Viper's bite. its a relic combi bolter S5, -3 AP and 2D. The 6.5 damage probably includes any possible MW and the regular damage that goes through the Invul of the SM captain. The relic is rapid fire 2, so thats 4 shots. If you use vets and cacophany on it, that's 8 shots and wounding on 2s. I am kinda keen to try this because this gives us CSM sniper abilities which we have not been able to have up till now. Even if we have to use a warlord trait and a relic to get the best effect out of it.

Personally I have had a ton of luck with the nurgle oblits, master of possession, and nurgle gnarlmaw tree. Dropping the oblits and tree in turn 2 once you take out that setups number 1 enemy (small arms fire from large blobs, something chaos can easily take care of t1 thankfully) and then getting that master up to them.... man those things are incredibly hard to move and should be there the rest of the game which to me makes it a better setup than the slaanesh drop and endless co. The slaanesh setup seems to get nuked directly after deployment so you get 1 great round then nothing, over the course of the game nurgle can give you some staying power (plus the ability to regenerate wounds with the strat is useful)

Azuza001 wrote:
Personally I have had a ton of luck with the nurgle oblits, master of possession, and nurgle gnarlmaw tree. Dropping the oblits and tree in turn 2 once you take out that setups number 1 enemy (small arms fire from large blobs, something chaos can easily take care of t1 thankfully) and then getting that master up to them.... man those things are incredibly hard to move and should be there the rest of the game which to me makes it a better setup than the slaanesh drop and endless co. The slaanesh setup seems to get nuked directly after deployment so you get 1 great round then nothing, over the course of the game nurgle can give you some staying power (plus the ability to regenerate wounds with the strat is useful)

So you summon the Tree into play on turn 2 ? What if your summoner gets sniped? Can summoning be denied like psychic ? Honestly I never tried summoning before.

Eldenfirefly wrote:

Azuza001 wrote:
Personally I have had a ton of luck with the nurgle oblits, master of possession, and nurgle gnarlmaw tree. Dropping the oblits and tree in turn 2 once you take out that setups number 1 enemy (small arms fire from large blobs, something chaos can easily take care of t1 thankfully) and then getting that master up to them.... man those things are incredibly hard to move and should be there the rest of the game which to me makes it a better setup than the slaanesh drop and endless co. The slaanesh setup seems to get nuked directly after deployment so you get 1 great round then nothing, over the course of the game nurgle can give you some staying power (plus the ability to regenerate wounds with the strat is useful)

So you summon the Tree into play on turn 2 ? What if your summoner gets sniped? Can summoning be denied like psychic ? Honestly I never tried summoning before.

There are many ways to plant the nurgle tree. You can deploy it in the deployment phase, you can deepstrike it for 1CP T2, or you can summon it T1. Summoning cant be denied, and its 99% guaranteed to work, because you need to roll a 3 for the nurgle tree, with 3D6. All you need is a chaos character, which didnt move in his movement phase. I have thought about using forward operatives, which lets an infantry unit move 9" before the first turn. Then you would need a screen of 30 cultists before him, which also move with forward operatives, if you dont have first turn. If your opponent has snipers you could conceal the character. Or you need a lord with -4 to hit, which could still be smitten, or flamed. Or you could summon in the psychic phase with a MOP, if he is WE and uses the strat for it the psychic power is successful and cant be denied.

However, against SM it really doesnt matter. They can remove/ignore the cover bonus, or shoot it with hellblasters, which have AP-5, in the first or second turn, depending on weapon type and what doctrine is active. LC have AP-4 in the first turn.

Am I reading the Word Bearer Psychic strategem right? Seems passing the test prevents me from using it?

Hi p5freak,

Yeah, I got the name wrong on the relic. You got the idea though right? A sniper in CSM is big news, and aside from his range, he's one of the most deadly in the game. (RF2, S5, -3, 2D)

As for -2 (base), that's not something to sniff at on a discolord. Either you leave him to be a piñata and soak a lot of T1 fire, or you double down with a benediction, if not needed elsewhere, to make him -3. That's the break point for most opponents to look elsewhere for targets, in my experience. So yeah, I stand by my picks, and can recommend them both from experience.

Yeah I didn't get the point of the difference between making one character (Arkos) -5 and the LD possibly -4. Seemed an odd point to make since LD will mulch most things it comes into combat with and Arkos has.... a melta.

 grouchoben wrote:
Hi p5freak,

Yeah, I got the name wrong on the relic. You got the idea though right? A sniper in CSM is big news, and aside from his range, he's one of the most deadly in the game. (RF2, S5, -3, 2D)

I get the idea. But its insanely expensive to take out a single character. You can spend up to 2CP pregame for the second warlord trait and the second relic. And then its 3CP for votlw and EC. Not every character is T4.

 grouchoben wrote:

As for -2 (base), that's not something to sniff at on a discolord. Either you leave him to be a piñata and soak a lot of T1 fire, or you double down with a benediction, if not needed elsewhere, to make him -3. That's the break point for most opponents to look elsewhere for targets, in my experience. So yeah, I stand by my picks, and can recommend them both from experience.

Stacking negatives to hit doesnt always help. SM can completely ignore to hit penalties, or even shoot you with auto hit flamers.

 p5freak wrote:

 grouchoben wrote:
Hi p5freak,

Yeah, I got the name wrong on the relic. You got the idea though right? A sniper in CSM is big news, and aside from his range, he's one of the most deadly in the game. (RF2, S5, -3, 2D)

I get the idea. But its insanely expensive to take out a single character. You can spend up to 2CP pregame for the second warlord trait and the second relic. And then its 3CP for votlw and EC. Not every character is T4.

 grouchoben wrote:

As for -2 (base), that's not something to sniff at on a discolord. Either you leave him to be a piñata and soak a lot of T1 fire, or you double down with a benediction, if not needed elsewhere, to make him -3. That's the break point for most opponents to look elsewhere for targets, in my experience. So yeah, I stand by my picks, and can recommend them both from experience.

Stacking negatives to hit doesnt always help. SM can completely ignore to hit penalties, or even shoot you with auto hit flamers.

While its a lot of CP. Only the 1 CP spent on the warlord trait is needed. The relic could be from a free relic. The strategems are optional. Few other relics may make as big an impact. The ability to have such a deadly sniper cannot be underestimated. You don't have to set out to snipe the biggest badass character out there. Even if he doesn't use VOTLW and cacophny, and snipes out a secondary psyker or company commander each turn, as long as he doesn't die. His impact over the course of the entire game will be huge. Imagine an imperial guard army with all its commisars, company ccommanders, etc all sniped out. Or if he is just forced to hide them all out of line of sight where their auras are useless. Most psykers aren't that tough. Sniping out the psykers in an army also has great impact. People jsut aren't expecting a CSM army to have snipers, so when he gets rolled out, I believe it would be a nasty surprise for the opponent.

Eldenfirefly wrote:

 p5freak wrote:

 grouchoben wrote:
Hi p5freak,

Yeah, I got the name wrong on the relic. You got the idea though right? A sniper in CSM is big news, and aside from his range, he's one of the most deadly in the game. (RF2, S5, -3, 2D)

I get the idea. But its insanely expensive to take out a single character. You can spend up to 2CP pregame for the second warlord trait and the second relic. And then its 3CP for votlw and EC. Not every character is T4.

 grouchoben wrote:

As for -2 (base), that's not something to sniff at on a discolord. Either you leave him to be a piñata and soak a lot of T1 fire, or you double down with a benediction, if not needed elsewhere, to make him -3. That's the break point for most opponents to look elsewhere for targets, in my experience. So yeah, I stand by my picks, and can recommend them both from experience.

Stacking negatives to hit doesnt always help. SM can completely ignore to hit penalties, or even shoot you with auto hit flamers.

While its a lot of CP. Only the 1 CP spent on the warlord trait is needed. The relic could be from a free relic. The strategems are optional. Few other relics may make as big an impact. The ability to have such a deadly sniper cannot be underestimated. You don't have to set out to snipe the biggest badass character out there. Even if he doesn't use VOTLW and cacophny, and snipes out a secondary psyker or company commander each turn, as long as he doesn't die. His impact over the course of the entire game will be huge. Imagine an imperial guard army with all its commisars, company ccommanders, etc all sniped out. Or if he is just forced to hide them all out of line of sight where their auras are useless. Most psykers aren't that tough. Sniping out the psykers in an army also has great impact. People jsut aren't expecting a CSM army to have snipers, so when he gets rolled out, I believe it would be a nasty surprise for the opponent.

This is why I like the idea of bringing a Terminator Lord along you can spend 1cp for an extra relic and 1cp for an extra WL trait.
He can then have his pick of a few good combos, sniper lord, repositioning tricks, hyrdas wail, Pick whichever fits your opponent best!

He's dropped a lot of hqs for me in my games now, and is an auto include for me. He killed Trajan over 2 turns last game. It's not winning a game on its own, but it brings something to my lists that is otherwise impossible, that's all...

You'd probably be able to extend that concept by bringing in a few TS sorcerers and Ahriman.

- Ahriman: Doombolt, Infernal Gaze, Firestorm (Bolt of Change)
- Sorcerer: Warptime, Prescience
- Sorcerer: Death Hex, (Gaze of Fate)

As far as character sniping goes, not only do you have Ahriman's contribution but Death Hex would be fairly useful to get through 3+/3++ saves. It's a cheap detachment (307pts) and you can make it CP-efficient by generating re-rolls off a Sorcerer.

Yeah I think the key thing with the sniper lord is he doesn't have to always be a sniper lord. If he had to be your main warlord it wouldn't be worth it, but since he doesn't count and is decided on a per game basis, no matter what format you play he can do whatever you need him to. So if you run into something the sniper ability is useless for you just use him as a redployment trick, -3 to hit at shooting for helping conceal things, or have some fun with something like faceless commander and Mindveil and have a terminator Lord teleporting all over the board.

My only complaint is to make him as flexible as possible you have to take a dinky little powersword, which makes him pretty useless in melee. One of the best things about the sniper lord is he's still a chaos terminator Lord, so give him a chainfist or something and he can snipe a character and then go do his thing in melee as well. And you can't tie him up since we can fall back and shoot with a strat. I mainly run mine with a chainfist because that's what betrayal at calth gave the guy, but a fist would be ok too I'm sure.

Main thing is to use him as more than just a sniper I think. Just sniping with him alone is kind of steep at 100pts but if he's dropping in with obliterators, havocs, etc then he can give a lot more use out of that 100pts

Got absolutely obliterated by 3x Hemlock Wraithfighter 3x Crimson Hunter Exarch yesterday.

What the heck do we do vs Hemlocks?

 ph34r wrote:
Got absolutely obliterated by 3x Hemlock Wraithfighter 3x Crimson Hunter Exarch yesterday.

What the heck do we do vs Hemlocks?

Warptalons and winged daemon princes make pretty short work of them.

Outside of CSM TSon sorcerers can smite one out of the sky per turn (Ahriman and 2 Pals) or a chaos knight with the helm of warpsite mushes flyers for fun and they're tough enough to do it for at least 2 turns.

Yeah they hit hard but are only t6, bolter fire can do damage to these things since they are going to be close anyways to use their flamers. Following that, a slaanesh havoc team of auto cannons are pretty effective, especially with a reroll involved. Finally deamon princes will tear through them like a hot knife in butter, 8 attacks base with the talons hitting on 2's wounding on 3's with ap-2 and 2 dmg? Have something weaken one and the dp can finish it with ease.

 small_gods wrote:

 ph34r wrote:
Got absolutely obliterated by 3x Hemlock Wraithfighter 3x Crimson Hunter Exarch yesterday.

What the heck do we do vs Hemlocks?

Warptalons and winged daemon princes make pretty short work of them.

Outside of CSM TSon sorcerers can smite one out of the sky per turn (Ahriman and 2 Pals) or a chaos knight with the helm of warpsite mushes flyers for fun and they're tough enough to do it for at least 2 turns.

I charged one with my winged prince and he took 6 d-flamer wounds on overwatch and failed to kill it ;_;

 ph34r wrote:

 small_gods wrote:

 ph34r wrote:
Got absolutely obliterated by 3x Hemlock Wraithfighter 3x Crimson Hunter Exarch yesterday.

What the heck do we do vs Hemlocks?

Warptalons and winged daemon princes make pretty short work of them.

Outside of CSM TSon sorcerers can smite one out of the sky per turn (Ahriman and 2 Pals) or a chaos knight with the helm of warpsite mushes flyers for fun and they're tough enough to do it for at least 2 turns.

I charged one with my winged prince and he took 6 d-flamer wounds on overwatch and failed to kill it ;_;

You're basically forced into doing Raptorial Host with the Warp Talons. It's fething stupid but there ya go. You would do them as World Eaters, get a regular Warlord with the bonus to charging and then the Raptor Host Warlord adding to that. It's hard to not make the charge at that point.

Emporers children or Night lords are a decent shout also if you're wanting easier charges. Although with Emporers children you're missing out on double fighting.

I've had my skullreaver prince fail to kill one before but that's dice for you.

One final option is to take a contorted epitome. You can tag 2 or 3 with warp talons (preferablynight lords), stick epitome in middle of them, cast Phantasmagoria then they have to roll 6 or lower on 3d6 or not be able to fall back. And then boom they pop because they don't fly their minimum distance!

https://nightsatthegametable.com/blog/2019/09/11/how-to-beat-eldar-flier-spam-by-matt-root/

Eldar flyers rely on smoking you off the table – kind of like a faster, more annoying Tau player. The firepower is brutal, but the board control is garbage – flyers can’t get objectives, so in an ITC mission, earning “Hold more” is usually a pretty simple affair.

If you choose this option, you need to identify which planes need to die first and murder them – quickly. Playing orks? The nightwings need to die first, because they have loads of anti infantry. Running your Custodes? Smoke the crimson hunters and Hemlocks, because those things can put you down.

Playing the mission often means trying to kill planes, which is one of the most unsatisfying things in 40k, because the innate minuses to hit means it takes a ton of firepower to put them down. However, that being said, keep in mind that each plane lost is a significant blow to the Eldar flyer – most players don’t take scary ground units (maybe a few Nightspinners), so they’re losing their killy units.

How you'd deal with them tactically is going to depend on your units, but basically remove a critical component to their offence and then dominate the objectives. Against 3x CHE and 3x Hemlocks, they don't have a lot of volume so they'll have a very difficult time removing things like Cultists under a 5++.

I just had a rather wild idea for a list. Has anyone tried a ton of terminators in an alpha legion list before? Or in a world eaters list. Both had the pre game strategem that lets you move up a unit 9 inches.

So, a terminator with a chain axe and a combi bolter is now just 26 points. You can take 3 squads of 10. Spend 3 points to move these guys 9 inches up.

So, with their 5 inch move, they are now 14 inches up the board in turn 1. They can then pretty much shoot and reach anything with thedir combi bolters cos those are 24 inche range, so opponent needs to deploy outside of 38 inches.

14 inches up, they are also within range to charge or take over any mid table objectives. Then you can sort of dominate the midboard with those 30 terminators and your characters while the rest of your army does other stuff.

I mean, 30 2+, 2W terminators is pretty resilient. Plus -1 to hit cos they are Alpha legion. And 30 such terminators only cost 780 points. And at 4 shots each, 30 terminators will put out 120 shots each round. Should be more than enough to handle any chaff.

I am not asking for them to get across the board to charge the opponent backline. Just asking for them to dominate and stand on the midboard and form a bulwark for the rest of your characters too.

You can take them in different marks too, and further protect them if you want to. Like make one nurgle and cast miasma on it, make the other slanaash and cast the 5+ FNP on it.

If all three squads get into midboard cover, they will be 1+ save. And outside of dedicated melee units, I think few units want to tangle in melee with 30 combi axe attacks plus whatever characters you have nearby. With this setup, even if I go second, I would still use the strategem to move them up 9 inches. They are meant to soak up the enemy fire.


For a world eaters list, it can work too. Just less protection. So turn 1, pregame use the strategem, move 3 squads of 10 WE termis up 9 inches. Turn 1, mvoe them forward another 5 inches, the rest of your berserkers can be in Rhinos who will move advance forward along side them. So, the terminators will clear the chaff, so that when turn 2, the berserkers get out of their Rhinos and charge, there will be no chaff left to block. Do a one, two punch with WE warptalons dropping in on a raptorial host on turn 2 and it will be a really nasty turn 2 punch. You could maybe even try fitting it into a WE brigade if you are running warp talons too in such a list. Just bring stuff like 3 mauler fiends or 3 venom crawlers to fill out the heavy support slot.

 p5freak wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:

Azuza001 wrote:
Personally I have had a ton of luck with the nurgle oblits, master of possession, and nurgle gnarlmaw tree. Dropping the oblits and tree in turn 2 once you take out that setups number 1 enemy (small arms fire from large blobs, something chaos can easily take care of t1 thankfully) and then getting that master up to them.... man those things are incredibly hard to move and should be there the rest of the game which to me makes it a better setup than the slaanesh drop and endless co. The slaanesh setup seems to get nuked directly after deployment so you get 1 great round then nothing, over the course of the game nurgle can give you some staying power (plus the ability to regenerate wounds with the strat is useful)

So you summon the Tree into play on turn 2 ? What if your summoner gets sniped? Can summoning be denied like psychic ? Honestly I never tried summoning before.

There are many ways to plant the nurgle tree. You can deploy it in the deployment phase, you can deepstrike it for 1CP T2, or you can summon it T1. Summoning cant be denied, and its 99% guaranteed to work, because you need to roll a 3 for the nurgle tree, with 3D6. All you need is a chaos character, which didnt move in his movement phase. I have thought about using forward operatives, which lets an infantry unit move 9" before the first turn. Then you would need a screen of 30 cultists before him, which also move with forward operatives, if you dont have first turn. If your opponent has snipers you could conceal the character. Or you need a lord with -4 to hit, which could still be smitten, or flamed. Or you could summon in the psychic phase with a MOP, if he is WE and uses the strat for it the psychic power is successful and cant be denied.

However, against SM it really doesnt matter. They can remove/ignore the cover bonus, or shoot it with hellblasters, which have AP-5, in the first or second turn, depending on weapon type and what doctrine is active. LC have AP-4 in the first turn.

Point of order - Gnarlmaw don’t have the Daemonic Ritual rule. The only thing that can ‘summon’ one is Horrticulous.

I have to ask, how Do you get -5 to hit on a AL lord?

Belsibub wrote:
I have to ask, how Do you get -5 to hit on a AL lord?

I think that's only very specifically after stacking every single possible alpha legion warlord trait, strategem, relic and plus the chapter traits on it, and maybe by making him nurgle and casting miasma of pestilence on him too.

Belsibub wrote:
I have to ask, how Do you get -5 to hit on a AL lord?

Benediction of darkness -1 to hit (ranged), AL legion trait -1 to hit (ranged), clandestine warlord trait -1 to hit, shadeblade -1 to hit, miasma of pestilence -1 to hit.

 p5freak wrote:

Belsibub wrote:
I have to ask, how Do you get -5 to hit on a AL lord?

Benediction of darkness -1 to hit (ranged), AL legion trait -1 to hit (ranged), clandestine warlord trait -1 to hit, shadeblade -1 to hit, miasma of pestilence -1 to hit.

I thought the shadeblade replaces a power sword? (Discordant doesn't have a power Sword)

weaver9 wrote:

 p5freak wrote:

Belsibub wrote:
I have to ask, how Do you get -5 to hit on a AL lord?

Benediction of darkness -1 to hit (ranged), AL legion trait -1 to hit (ranged), clandestine warlord trait -1 to hit, shadeblade -1 to hit, miasma of pestilence -1 to hit.

I thought the shadeblade replaces a power sword? (Discordant doesn't have a power Sword)

A chaos lord can get -5, a disco lord only can get -4 to hit.