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yukishiro1 wrote:
I dunno, I think "classic Ahriman" is dying in every single match. That guy dies more than Kenny in the early seasons of South Park.

This is my experience. Half through melee and half through blowing himself up, but hopefully no more of the latter with the rerolls now.

I am pretty sure Ahriman has died in every way possible. I bet a grot has meleed him to death, probably on multiple occasions. I've never, ever had a model who manages to die in more ridiculous and unlikely ways. The dude is legitimately cursed.

Well, he is a castor, not meant to be brawling in melee.

I once has him die trying to charge at an eldar jet, fun times.

But he most often survives for me, despite the best efforts of my enemy. he usually only dies if I'm caught unprepared by an enemy unit having a rule I'm totally unaware of, or I'm getting absolutely destroyed.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Interestingly, up till now. I don't think there are any broken combos or strategems or such at all in the codex. There is certainly ways to build a list with all sorts of synergy and such, but nothing outright so OP I can see like the enriched rounds from Admech or that killer succubus from Drukhari.

I mean, we could smite out 20 MW in a phase, but it would take us tons of smites and witchfire and cabal points. Its not from one smite. So, you can't call that OP. Tsons are supposed to be able to do that.

You really dont think 20MW per phase isnt broken ? What is wrong with you ? There is very little help against MW, they ignore every defensive rule.

 p5freak wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Interestingly, up till now. I don't think there are any broken combos or strategems or such at all in the codex. There is certainly ways to build a list with all sorts of synergy and such, but nothing outright so OP I can see like the enriched rounds from Admech or that killer succubus from Drukhari.

I mean, we could smite out 20 MW in a phase, but it would take us tons of smites and witchfire and cabal points. Its not from one smite. So, you can't call that OP. Tsons are supposed to be able to do that.

You really dont think 20MW per phase isnt broken ? What is wrong with you ? There is very little help against MW, they ignore every defensive rule.

Smite and a few other psychic powers target the closest enemy unit. Opponents can take this into account and make sure the cheap wound units take the heat. When the rubric marines start to die the amount of mortal wounds also start to dwindle. Still lots of D2 weapons out there. I played a few psychic armies and I always hated that lousy first round that I failed a lot of psychic tests and also rolling a bunch of 1/2 for smite damage and end up only doing a few mortal wounds. And then things started to fall apart.

Elite armies that pay a lot of points to protect each wound (deathguard, Custodes and big jumppack units with storm shields) might have to take the thousand sons armies into account but thats not necessary a bad thing.

Something I just realised this edition is we don't lose the Aspiring Sorcerer/Occult Sorcerer when they perils:

"When a PSYKER unit suffers Perils of the Warp, it suffers D3 mortal wounds. If a PSYKER unit is destroyed by Perils of the Warp while attempting to manifest a psychic power, that power automatically fails to manifest. If a PSYKER unit is destroyed by Perils of the Warp, then just before removing the last model in that unit, every unit within 6" of it immediately suffers D3 mortal wounds."

Which also means we don't get that crazy cascading nightmare where the sorcerer perils and does d3 to the unit from perils and then d3 to the unit from exploding, and d3 to everything near by.

What a relief. I've been playing it wrong all this time.

Edit: Nevermind, can't read.

The best cabal point alteration is the cheapest one. Warpsight. It lets you keep your super buffs and garunteed invuln removal out of denial range.if It also lets you perform psychic actions through other units It will be litterally amazing.

dreadlybrew wrote:
The best cabal point alteration is the cheapest one. Warpsight. It lets you keep your super buffs and garunteed invuln removal out of denial range. It also lets you perform psychic actions through other units. Its litterally amazing.

Err, I think you will still be in range of a deny. Deny does not need line of sight right?

It doesn't work that way. All it lets you do is cast out of LOS by using the LOS of another psyker of yours, it doesn't measure range from that caster or otherwise boost your range. And the opponent doesn't need LOS to deny.

The wording is admittedly a little wonky and if you really, really wanted to be that guy I guess you could argue that RAW it makes every power unlimited range as long as it's in LOS of any psyker in your army, but I think it is super clear that's not what they intended. What they meant with that wording is that you can cast out of LOS if all the other conditions are met, as long as some other psyker has LOS; it doesn't also mean you get to disregard any range or other targeting requirements.

If you look at the psychic action for our special secondary, you can put your guy on your back objectives that you haven't activated on and cast it through a forward unit without using up their action economy.

Unless you can't use cabal points on psychic actions.

It just doesn't do that, no matter how you read it. At most, if you can use it on psychic actions, you can use it for the single psychic action that targets a unit - psychic interrogation - to cast on an enemy character that isn't in LOS of the caster, but is in LOS of someone else, as long as you're still within the 24" range.

Go back and read it carefully. All it does it let you ignore the LOS requirement on something, if you meet all the other requirements, and if you have LOS from some other psyker. It doesn't remove any other restrictions - you still have to be in range, it still have to be an eligible target, etc. It doesn't cast through a forward unit. All it does is draw LOS from another unit. It's still cast by the original caster and all other limitations other than LOS still apply.

Herpy derpy. Ill eat crow. You are correct.

I wish it did work that way

 p5freak wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Interestingly, up till now. I don't think there are any broken combos or strategems or such at all in the codex. There is certainly ways to build a list with all sorts of synergy and such, but nothing outright so OP I can see like the enriched rounds from Admech or that killer succubus from Drukhari.

I mean, we could smite out 20 MW in a phase, but it would take us tons of smites and witchfire and cabal points. Its not from one smite. So, you can't call that OP. Tsons are supposed to be able to do that.

You really dont think 20MW per phase isnt broken ? What is wrong with you ? There is very little help against MW, they ignore every defensive rule.

Sisters have a prayer and a 10pt Canoness upgrade that make smites essentially do nothing.

 p5freak wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Interestingly, up till now. I don't think there are any broken combos or strategems or such at all in the codex. There is certainly ways to build a list with all sorts of synergy and such, but nothing outright so OP I can see like the enriched rounds from Admech or that killer succubus from Drukhari.

I mean, we could smite out 20 MW in a phase, but it would take us tons of smites and witchfire and cabal points. Its not from one smite. So, you can't call that OP. Tsons are supposed to be able to do that.

You really dont think 20MW per phase isnt broken ? What is wrong with you ? There is very little help against MW, they ignore every defensive rule.

Here's the thing though: There is a humongous difference between what is actually broken and what is perceived as broken.

No I don't think a potential 20MWs per phase is broken. Most powers have 18" range, can fail to cast, can be denied, and most of my casts I can't even choose the target so it can be played around.
There are a lot of things that will average a lot more damage, from further away than my psychic phase (2x3 eradicators for instance).

I understand when people say it is not fun that you can't take invul saves against my mortal wounds because historically invul saves have been something "you can always count on" and since last edition you can't anymore.
But people claiming it's unfair or broken because it's "free damage" drive me up the wall. Most powers are WC6 or 7 which is no different than rolling a 3 to hit and a 3/4 to wound.

Especially now that marines have 2 wounds, the power of MWs spilling over has diminished.

 p5freak wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Interestingly, up till now. I don't think there are any broken combos or strategems or such at all in the codex. There is certainly ways to build a list with all sorts of synergy and such, but nothing outright so OP I can see like the enriched rounds from Admech or that killer succubus from Drukhari.

I mean, we could smite out 20 MW in a phase, but it would take us tons of smites and witchfire and cabal points. Its not from one smite. So, you can't call that OP. Tsons are supposed to be able to do that.

You really dont think 20MW per phase isnt broken ? What is wrong with you ? There is very little help against MW, they ignore every defensive rule.

Except for FNP and denies.

 p5freak wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Interestingly, up till now. I don't think there are any broken combos or strategems or such at all in the codex. There is certainly ways to build a list with all sorts of synergy and such, but nothing outright so OP I can see like the enriched rounds from Admech or that killer succubus from Drukhari.

I mean, we could smite out 20 MW in a phase, but it would take us tons of smites and witchfire and cabal points. Its not from one smite. So, you can't call that OP. Tsons are supposed to be able to do that.

You really dont think 20MW per phase isnt broken ? What is wrong with you ? There is very little help against MW, they ignore every defensive rule.

Nope. It isn't broken. Its not like its all from one unit. The 20 MW is literally from the entire cast of castors we have supported by cabal rituals which is what Tsons get for playing pure Tsons. And Tsons aren't an easy army to play. Most of the Tsons armies featured on youtube battle reports since the codex launch have lost so far.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think one of the challenges of the new Tsons codex is that our smite and witchfire range are now all 18 inch, while last time it was 24 inches. This means that for max effectiveness, we need to get fairly close to our opponent's units. We won't do all our smiting at 18 inches. We need to get to 12 to 18 inches for most of our castors. 12 to 18 inches means that our opponent units could very likely move and charge us the following turn. And Tsons simply can't that good in close combat. Especially Rubric marines. Once we get mixed up in close combat that we can't win, we are in trouble. Falling back means we cannot cast psychic, which is our biggest thing.

At the same time, 9th edition is a game of objectives. And charging into combat on an objective tends to be what the good armies do. So, Tsons seems to be in an odd place in that we are not a long ranged army (since our best thing our psychic is max 18 inches), yet we do not like close combat. So like I said, it will take a good player to get the max out of a Tsons list. There are some weaknesses in a Tsons army that isn't immediately obvious.

20 MW a turn doesn't seem "broken". I mean, it's their main output of reliable wounds. Each MW does one damage. Lots of things have more than 1 Wound, especially now that every single Marine in the game (except us CSMs!) have 2.

Has no one though about laser rapier carrier that get 5++ for anti tank weapon.
What do you think about them the domage output is not bad even if not realy hard to kill.

taetrius67 wrote:
Has no one though about laser rapier carrier that get 5++ for anti tank weapon.
What do you think about them the domage output is not bad even if not realy hard to kill.

I don't have any forgeworld models actually. Thats the main reason for me. I suspect someone will try out a janky Tsons vehicle list in a list. Whether it will actually be good, I have no idea.

Cons

1. Most vehicles suck at fighting. And that's a Tsons list biggest weakness.
2. Vehicles are not core. Another weakness.
3. Vehicles are not obsec. Cannot capture or do the mission.
4. Vehicles are not psykers. 600 points into vehicles means 600 points which contribute zero help towards what is Tsons's biggest thing - its psychic phase. Meanwhile, 600 points of Occults or Rubrics have a lot of synergy towards a Tson's psychic phase.


Pros.

1. Vehicles have good anti tank weapons, so can help us out in this area.
2. Tsons vehicles get 5++.

I guess as with everything, we can achieve a good balance.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
2. Vehicles are not core. Another weakness.
3. Vehicles are not obsec. Cannot capture or do the mission.
4. Vehicles are not psykers.

Isn't that pretty much the same for everyone?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
2. Vehicles are not core. Another weakness.
3. Vehicles are not obsec. Cannot capture or do the mission.
4. Vehicles are not psykers.

Isn't that pretty much the same for everyone?

Yes it is. Probably why its tough to make a vehicle spam list. Hence why I mentioned about having a balance.

I got a Tsons list myself that has 3 hellbrutes, a forgefiend and a Vindicator. But it only has 8 psychic casts across all its psykers and 10 Cabal Points. So... you give up stuff to go with more vehicles, just saying.

Found a cute combo the other day.

Cult of mutation warlord trait (Touch of Vicissitude) and The Stave Abominus. This gives your Exalted Sorcerer 10 attacks S7 -1 1 where each unmodified hit of a 6 causes a mortal wound. You can get 14 attacks with Paradigm of Change and Swelled by the warp. Or just 12 if take swelled by the warp and Dilettante (the advantage of this is you can take Thrydderghyre).

Personally not the biggest fan of close combat sorcerers but if you want to run one it's not the worst set up.

Egleighen's Orrery is such a good relic. Suddenly, ALL your units within 6 inches of the relic bearer gets to ignore ALL modifiers including damage -1...

That irritating Redemptor Dreadnaught no longer gets to ignore -1. Mortarion or Magnus with -1 to hit, -1 dmg ? Now you get to ignore all that. A forgefiend with twin Heavy Hades Autocannon now gets to shoot 8 Str 8 shots and its dmg 2 shots don't get reduced to 1. That suddenly makes it damage output pretty amazing.

And there is a strategem to increase a shooting vehicles's AP by 1. So now the Hades Autocannon is shooting at AP3.

Hellbrute heavy plasma cannons do flat 3 damage. So, if they are in this relic's aura, each failed save is a dead terminator (even if you are a DG or Dark Angel's terminator).

This new Thousand Sons codex has too many good relics. lol

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 p5freak wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Interestingly, up till now. I don't think there are any broken combos or strategems or such at all in the codex. There is certainly ways to build a list with all sorts of synergy and such, but nothing outright so OP I can see like the enriched rounds from Admech or that killer succubus from Drukhari.

I mean, we could smite out 20 MW in a phase, but it would take us tons of smites and witchfire and cabal points. Its not from one smite. So, you can't call that OP. Tsons are supposed to be able to do that.

You really dont think 20MW per phase isnt broken ? What is wrong with you ? There is very little help against MW, they ignore every defensive rule.

Except for FNP and denies.

And how many armies do have FNP for every unit, and can deny 20 psychic powers ?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
20 MW a turn doesn't seem "broken". I mean, it's their main output of reliable wounds. Each MW does one damage. Lots of things have more than 1 Wound, especially now that every single Marine in the game (except us CSMs!) have 2.

Right, i forgot that tsons can only do damage in the psychic phase. Tsons are like tau, their shooting phase is the psychic phase.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Egleighen's Orrery is such a good relic. Suddenly, ALL your units within 6 inches of the relic bearer gets to ignore ALL modifiers including damage -1...

That irritating Redemptor Dreadnaught no longer gets to ignore -1. Mortarion or Magnus with -1 to hit, -1 dmg ? Now you get to ignore all that. A forgefiend with twin Heavy Hades Autocannon now gets to shoot 8 Str 8 shots and its dmg 2 shots don't get reduced to 1. That suddenly makes it damage output pretty amazing.

And there is a strategem to increase a shooting vehicles's AP by 1. So now the Hades Autocannon is shooting at AP3.

Hellbrute heavy plasma cannons do flat 3 damage. So, if they are in this relic's aura, each failed save is a dead terminator (even if you are a DG or Dark Angel's terminator).

This new Thousand Sons codex has too many good relics. lol

The Orrery is CORE only, I think that is just Rubrics/Scarabs/Helbrutes/Contemptors.

I'd say it is worth some experimentation, which I feel is the same for quite a few of our relics rather than them being autopicks.

Mushkilla's all warpflamer Duplicity list he posted a few days ago was interesting and very different to the Scarab heavy Time list I used to great effect in my first two games, but I notice he had 90 wounds of Rubrics and I had 100 wounds (60 Scarab/40 Rubrics). Has anyone ran a lot less wounds and regretted it?

Has anyone tried any Tzaangor heavy builds yet? Or even used any cultists?

I have seen quite a few battle reports on youtube where the Tsons list lost badly because it had too few wounds protecting its characters. Too much investment into characters and too little points into units that can protect our characters.

The thrall sorcerers in my opinion are a trap. Compare 90 points in a thrall sorcerer or 105 points for a termie sorcerer. For 105, we can bring a 5 man rubric squad already. It has more wounds, more firepower, can do mission, take objectives, etc. So is one more psychic cast even worth all that? Furthermore, both can only throw out one smite each. One Exalted Sorceror or an ahriman is probably enough if you want to load up on all the MW psychics in both trees. There is Doombolt, Tzeentch Firestorm and maybe infernal gaze. The rest are all just smites. Unless you are taking Cult of magic and get Arcane blast. Gift of chaos is too short ranged and iffy, baleful devolution can only be used against big units. So, we don't have to take that regularly, just swop that in if we get a good target.

So, I just don't see the benefit of taking that many characters.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

EightFoldPath wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Egleighen's Orrery is such a good relic. Suddenly, ALL your units within 6 inches of the relic bearer gets to ignore ALL modifiers including damage -1...

This new Thousand Sons codex has too many good relics. lol

The Orrery is CORE only, I think that is just Rubrics/Scarabs/Helbrutes/Contemptors.

Ah I missed that. Well, Hellbrutes are core, so they benefit. I guess the forgefiend will still have to get by on its own.

 Mushkilla wrote:
Found a cute combo the other day.

Cult of mutation warlord trait (Touch of Vicissitude) and The Stave Abominus. This gives your Exalted Sorcerer 10 attacks S7 -1 1 where each unmodified hit of a 6 causes a mortal wound. You can get 14 attacks with Paradigm of Change and Swelled by the warp. Or just 12 if take swelled by the warp and Dilettante (the advantage of this is you can take Thrydderghyre).

Personally not the biggest fan of close combat sorcerers but if you want to run one it's not the worst set up.

Yeah ! I had noticed this ! Next Friday I'll have a 1000 Pts game against a Space wolf player and I'll try it out then. I'll also bring a Termi Sorcerer with Exalted mutation and battle Psyker for the maximum slug fest.

Vengeance for Prospero !