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The 9th Battalion

Regimental Doctrine: Cadian

HQ

Company Commander
- Chainsword, Laspistol, Kurov's Aquila, Warlord

Primaris Psyker
- Force Stave, Laspistol, Nightshroud, Psychic Barrier

Tank Commander
- Demolisher Cannon, Heavy Bolter, Storm Bolter, Relic of Lost Cadia

Troops

6x10 Infantry
- 8x Lasguns, Grenade Launcher, Sargeant: Laspistol, Chainsword

Elites

3x1 Astropath
- Telepathica Stave, Laspistol, 2x Psychic Barrier, 1x Nightshroud

1x9 Bullgryns
- 6x Slabshield, 3x Bruteshield, 9x Maul, Bone 'ead

Ministorum Priest
-Laspistol, Chainsword

Fast Attack

1x3 Scout Sentinels
- 3x Multilaser

Heavy Support

Manticore
- 4x Storm Eagle Rockets, Heavy Bolter, Fully Loaded

Manticore
- 4x Storm Eagle Rockets, Heavy Bolter, Fully Loaded

1x3 Leman Russ
- 3x Demolisher Cannon, 3x Heavy Bolter

2000 pts
10 CP

Okay, so Sentinels are one unit to better use potential strategms. Is it worth it? Or is it better to have 3 units of 1 to better picket against deep strikes and divide enemy fire? I haven't upgraded their weaponry so I dont know if its worth it to use SFSF. I could give them all HK missiles if I downgrade the Primaris Psyker to another commander.

Should I swap the primaris psyker for another company commanfer for extra MMM orders and to save points? Or maybe trade him and a russ for another tank commander?

Should I swap the priest for a sob priest? I hear they do the same thing for cheaper but have not confirmed.

Is the list too character heavy for 9th?

Would this list work better as tallaran?

So many questions! Thanks for the read

So, the problem Im thinking is you can only use the same power once a turn right? So even though you have like 3 different psychic barriers, you can only cast it once a turn.

Bullgryn blob is nice. I am not a big fan of stock sentinals, they arent really expensive but with only multi lasers its so hard for them to do anything. The enemy can just ignore them and not take any damage from doing so.

I think 2 tank commanders and 2 normal tanks is smart. Can spread the tank orders around a little more, and the extra accuracy is always a nice bonus.

4 demolisher russes is good though, and bullgryns are where you want to be with guard I do believe.

Thanks for clarifying that for me! I'm gonna cut out all but 2 astropaths, and use the points to upgrade a russ and the sentinels!

You could (!) think about adding 3 Wyrdvane Psykers, just for the PSYCHIC CONCLAVE stratagem that gives the Primaris +2 to his Psychic tests. They are not really expensive and can at least cast mental fortitude relatively reliably (83% success rate as they would roll 1D6+2 after Psychic Conclave). Maybe they even get a smite of now and then.
But mostly really to make the Primaris Psyker more efficent.

And don't forget to use the Astropaths ability to deny an enemy unit cover. It costs nothing, is risk free and does not count as Psychic power.

The way I usually go psyker heavy includes an inquisitor, a primaris, an astropath pair, and a trio of wyrdvanes.
inqusitor (malleus) costs only 10 points more than a standard primarius but since he has a different list of psy to pick from, you can get a pair of spells (he also can fire TWO a round) like castigate (essentially malstrom but with flavor) and something else. (I usually run him with a combimelta and psychic pursuit, allowing him to snipe with a meltagun after he casts that on himself. Pair that with 1 malstrom (cast at +2) from the psyker primaris, and you can put focused "sniper" mortal wounds and a melta shot into a very surprised enemy officer.

So the psyker group then has... (but you spent a cp to warm up the wyrdvane trio and the primaris)

wyrdvanes. +2! roll 1d6 and if its 5 or more (so 3 on the die or higher) you cast smite at wc5.
wyrdvanes (mental fortitude, maybe)
psyker primaris smite (+2 on the dice, wc6. So effectively, its a wc4 smite)
psyker primaris malstrom (effectively WC5, it will average about 2 mortal wounds on your target officer)
inquisitor (castigate) . similar effect to malstrom, and your target officer is now up to about 4 mortal wounds without having to lift a finger.
inquisitor (psychic pursuit) .. unlocks the inquisitor's guns as sniper weapons. Fire melta at target later in shoot phase. While not mortal wounds, combimelta (or combiplasma) are both wicked effective at hurting officers.
astropath 1 +1 to save (for a tank, or melee blob unit)
...and don't forget to strip cover
astropath 2 -1 to be hit (another tank, or even the same one)
... and don't forget to strip another cover.

You might not keep the triple threat sentinal group, but this little pack of psykers is pretty effective for whomping on the enemy's big buffer guy. (Could be, maybe, the chief apothecary that every marine group brings to give their whole army ressurections and stuff now...)

Now, you will be regularly making your bullygrun blob both harder to hit and harder to damage, but if they run out, its not a bad idea ot have a pair of tanks with the tank ace -1 to incoming wounds damage reduction trait.
THOSE can be very hard to shift, if you stack them in cover for +1 to save, and then put various thin shield effects like +1 MORE to save on them or -1 to be hit, as well.

Its not going to necessarily cover the bullygryn but in some situations where your enemy is not closing into range you can tuck the bullys behind LOS block and use the tanks ranged guns to full effect. Even crazier good if oyu also have a repair guy, because nothing shocks marines more than losing a firefight with a couple of leman russes that just ... won't ... why won't they ... oh, COME ON ... die.

slip wrote:
Thanks for clarifying that for me! I'm gonna cut out all but 2 astropaths, and use the points to upgrade a russ and the sentinels!

If you do choose to go for the primary psyker, you can use that guy in melee. His only other weapon is a pistol, so his force staff will allow you to wound even MEQ level targets.
You might also want to give him the Deathmask heirloom. As an invuln save of 4+ and being able to heal an additional 1d3, though that is only once a game.

You can also throw the Mask on an Ogryn bodyguard for some added fun.

There is a primaris pshyker character. Though as far as I know she's less survivable than the standard, but she can be a definite force multiplier.

You mean the slightly cheaper psyker primaris named character aradia madellan from blackstone game. She costs 5 points less than a standard psyker primaris, and knows a unique spell (which means, she can cast it even if lots of other people used all the other spells.)
Her lower survivability is from not being able to take the deathmasque, I think.

Yeah, I only got my hands on a few models from that box so I was a little iffy on her name.

It is a good buff, even though I've only seen it pulled off once. I usually run assassins with my GKs, so characters tend not to last long.

I had two relic pistols that could snipe, and three psyker powers that could snipe (one of them sniped with a meltagun, which was always a shock for the enemy officer). Taken together, I could usually kill an enemy chaplain dreadnaught with sniper fire in one round.

Aradia however, was my ace in the hole -- she would grant +1 to hit for asquad of 4 mordian command squad plasma rifles, that had been given an order to fire as snipers.

So it would be enough to kill multiple hardened marine characters a round, which nobody expects of a couple gaurd units.

Is that through the grace of RAW?
Because I haven't seen much in this edition that allows too much sniping on that level.

Marines and Guard anyway, yeah. Though I have seen some pretty nasty Eldar-cannon shenanigans. In my last few games.

You have actually slightly made me rethink my GT list and its due tonight. I SO want to run a psykerball again. Just ninth edition has made it unprofitable in victory points terms, you basically gave away 30 points to the enemy just by putting 5 characters with 3 psykers out front, while you took probably 9 points from the marine player by killing his captain and apothecary and chaplain. Cause of COURSE he can kill 40 to 80 of your team a round, and your entire bubble out front doign this is only at most a dozen bodies.

Result is an almost instant marine victory, based on your killing 300 points of officers and his killing 210 points of YOUR officers.
The 21 point loss that inflicts is clear evidence that the current ruleset is @#$!@ broken in favor of marine armies and against gaurd. You might situationally find a marine player who sticks his captain and 2 other officers far from his deathball, but its so unlikely that this tactic is rather theoretical at best.

Even more theoretical is the one that lets you snipe with 8 plasma guns and 6 melta guns, and only requires 2 characters and one of them a psyker, to pull off. I haven't tried that yet but its definitely the way I would go in ninth with this idea, leaving my opponent down a few characters in exchange for only 11 lost victory points in character and psyker. Its a more expensive and less flexible option, but anything to not bleed VP in a game written to coddle marine players.... is wise.

Hmm.

That's sort of viable and I hadn't thought about it in a while, so it sort of makes me think maybe I want to do something different in the upcoming GT and show people how to frustrate and kill marines with gaurd yet again!

hmmmmm

The Pyschic Conclave strat gives +2 to cast AND lets Primaris and Wyrdvane cast 2 powers.

I've included statistical chance of getting powers off.

Taking average chance of success as 50%+ - this 222pt set up gets on average 8 mortal wounds a turn and is an 'all in' using just guard psykers (just for fun - not run this)


45pts: Aradia Madellam

Psychic Augment -(Friendly unit +1 to hit) (8) - 6 with Psychic Conclave (72%)

SMITE 1 (5) - 3 with Psychic Conclave (97%)
Becomes Super SMITE on 9+ (28%)


48pts: 6 Wyrdvane Psykers -
SMITE 2 (6) - 4 with Psychic Conclave (50%)

Mental Fortitude (Auto-pass morale) (4) - 2 with Psychic Conclave (83%)


50pts: Primaris Pyker
SMITE 3 (7) - (58%)



25pts: Astropath (laspistol)
Psychic Maelstrom (mortal wound on 2/3/4/5/6) (7) - (58%)
Strip Cover

25pts: Astropath (laspistol)
Nightshroud (-1 to hit friendly unit) 6 (72%)
Strip Cover

25pts: Astropath (laspistol)
Strip cover
Psychic Barrier (+1 Saving throw) 6 (72%)

You are close to the psykerball my psykers and scions army uses/used, there. If you had put in wyrdvanes + primaris + malleus inquisitor you would have spent 194+25 points to do it my way, with the last 2 (astropaths) purely casting defense buff spells and stripping cover. The 25 points is a commisar with a relic bolt pistol that I often (but don't always) include. So, 8 guys that can ride a valkyrie to drop in on the foe, means you can also cram a command squad in there for the fun of it.
So the order of casting (Assumes only 3 wyrdvane, 1 primaris, 1 inquisitor, and astropaths on defense buffs side)
wyrdvanes (3) .. Cast first, not the primpsyker in the strategem. If you would rather make them work REALLY well, hell, include 6, giving up no more of the 15 points to the enemy on abhor the witch (they will already max it without any wyrdos...) This makes your first two casts +4, not plus 2, or basically "they worked" with no chance of perils, 100 percent, no failure possible, don't even worry. I consider the 6 wyrdvane option to support the gaze of the emperor spell well, too. The fragile wyrdvanes won't likely survive to cast it twice, but its going to go off on anything but a roll of 1, and situationally can drop some mortal wounds across the enemy's front line blocker troops and into an officer you dislike. )
...smite 67 percent at wc5, mental fortress 83 percent at wc4 (both casting at +2, that is reflected in)
psyker primaris (not necessarily aradia, here, because you want one that can do malstrom at +2.
... smite 92 percent (WC6 at +2) (and a 28 percent supersmite chance, just as likely here as when its WC5)
... AND malstrom (WC7 at +2) a 72 percent chance. This is a superior choice to running the aradia madellan stuff, because it lets you pretty reliably put mortal wounds 1 and 2 of 4 on a backfield officer, see also inquisitor below, and then finish it off with the combimelta.
then you swap over to the inquisitor for a moment..
There are two options here.
option 1. "enemyofficer is closest" ... the enemy (perhaps an angry herohammer leftover from eigthth) has charged in front of his chaff and you want to kill him. Smite at 57 percent with a 9 percent supersmite chance. This is followed by castigate-ing that same marine captain (who also just got hit by 2 smites above and a malstrom) for a grand total of a focused 3 smites (average 6 mw) and 2 malstrom/castigates (average 4 more) or roughly 10 mw. This option is particularly subtly nice if you can use it to clear chaff away from an officer whom you want to shoot in ninth edition, lowering his gaurd units below 3, and revealing him to normal fire. At which point, that officer is pretty dead, and the combomelta on the inquisitor is just another shooter. BUT, if you are still standing closest to the officer (the smites all target the closest) you can also add in the combimelta's melta shot (hits on 3+, S8, d6 or d6+2 damage) at more or less point blank to something that just ate about 8 mortal wounds. Even mortarion has reason to fear this option! Also the commisar can blam the enemy 3 times with his S4/-1/2 pistol freely, no matter if its front rankers or an officer, come shooting phase. Even if no officers that you care to target exist, your little psyker ball is putting out 5 attack spells and 4 decent shots with direct fire weaponry.
option 2. "I can't strip the flankers off the officers, but must kill the officers anyway".
Inquisitor doesn't smite at all (so only 2 from above go in) but he DOES add in malstrom's inquisition brother castigate, then psychic pursuit. These are not the highest ever probability of working, but its a situation where only those 2 are going to be able to reach the target enemy officer, and nothing else can. The 2 (out of a max of 3) smites don't suck, they just can't get past (for example) 20 intercessers with 40 wounds. The combimelta with psychic pursuit sniper power becomes the games nastiest single sniper gun here, and can one shot some enemy officers entirely, meaning you can (if against gaurd) drop 2 psych attacks on one target and 1 combimelta hit on another, for 2 officer kills, and if its really a matter of shooting at gaurd officers, don't forget to point your commisar's 3 shots at yet a third victim. Suddenly losing 3 charactes of the 5 you want to assassinate is a strong opening salvo. A dead marine apothecary is worth its weight in 200 points of psyker, when you then point your guns at his comarades and they don't have a 6+++ and ressurections coming to make your shooting fail you. Try killing a stack of eradicators in cover someday (that's where the astropath wants to strip it, of course) with your entire 2000 points of shooting, you might. But without the apothecary, you probably do, and they don't come back.

Anyway, that's how I run the psykerball. The whole group steps out of one of three valkyries in a mixed gaurd/scions army, so you can deliver it close enouhg to the enemy's front line (with no worry about auspex scan) to use these toys. The upgrade of adding in aradia madellan gives you one more smite (albeit at WC8, and her own unique power to support a command squad or veteran squad or even a special weapons squad or scions 10 man unit in fairly close combat with the foe. Which shifts the cost from 219 + cheap valkyrie (optional but highly recommended, although you CAN run them off a board edge if you must, using strat reserves)+ aradia madellan (optional).

If your army has 10 points leftover and you don't know what to do with them, you could make the relic pistol the toy on a lord commisar.
Basically, you are spending 1 cp to upgrade a zero cost weapon to fire sniper rounds at s4/-1/2 every turn, THREE of them. Over the course of the game, you can potentially kill about 10 marines that way, which is a great trade for 1 cp. Or you could say, he can shoot about 3 horde members a turn instead of 1, which is also a good expenditure. Its a little less favorable at 2 cp, but still, that's a good deal because it gives you the option to focus a lot of shots (as many as six, if you are going to push that combimelta) on someone's officer that you simply MUST kill in the back row. Note that if you run iotan gorgonnes, you don't need the commisar, just give one of their tempest primes the sniper capable blessed boltpistol. (2 S5/-2/2, 12 inch sniperpistol). Or do both, if you want to be a nightmare to enemy buffers.

The downside is, of course, that in ninth edition every single officer psyker is a massive loss of vp when he dies.

So for nineth / competitive purposes, its probably wise to strip this little group down to its barest target pile. The inquisitor carries his weigth that way with 2 spells + a melta for 1 liability, or 2 sniper effects (spell+melta). A single gaurd astropath capable of malstrom and stripping cover is a cheap and fruitful way to augment that casting against sniper targets, and an iotan gorgonne officer you planned to take anyway for your scions only splash faction is no additional liability.

So in 8 I ran the whole ball of wax. In 9, it looks more like
inquisitor, astropath, and tempest prime with sniper pistol, and six wyrdvanes, and the iotan leader lending a hand. Sure, you are giving up your 15 vp for dead psykers in many, many games, but you can also potentially hide this whole group in the back somewhere after an enemy looks over your forces, decides it will be simple to kill these 200ish points of gaurd and max out assassinate and abhor, and then realizes you never put more than 2 commander or tempests forward for him to kill. Your investment of 200 points has just made him lose 24 or so of his expected 30 secondaries, just by keeping the cheap valkyrie off board for turns 1 and 2, then come in someplace quiet and sit in the bird praying not to die. Then hop out (losing a couple wyrdvanes) and make the enemy come to pry you out from behind LOS obstruction WAY out of his way. Its quite possible your psykerball doesn't accomplish anything else all game, but that's really worth it -- if your enemy only scores 21 out of 45 on secondaries, you probably win.


Anyway. The psykerball used to be a full third of my eighth edition army, or rather, I ran a large scions battalion, a battalion with psykers and a few iotan gorgonnes in it (usually) and a commisar, and a small artillery group. In ninth, its so punishing to run extra kinds of detachments, this is less favorable. But that's my style of doing it, if someone wanted to.