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2 forgefiends with the autocannons are a great anti tank option. They aren't core so they don't get re rolls.

I just bought 2 hell brutes and I'm going to play around with them as antitank. One thing I do to deal woth plagueburst crawlers is perplex. If you can sneak a unit within 30inches you can perplex that thing and it has to come out of hiding or it can't shoot you (most of the time).

Wrath of the wronged, the ignore dr relic, and the +1 str infernal power on a deathball terminator unit can totally take out a plague burster.

You also have presage, the +6inch range power and +1 storm bolter shots.

Against hordes use the strat to double your shots with soulreapers. Watch them die.

You have options and most of it means holding the center and burning down a target a turn. You are obsec and fearless and tough. 40 to 50 marines can just hold the center and hold objectives.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Did we lose the ability to summon demons?

I am kinda down on both the Vindicator and the Forgefiend... I spent three rounds with one Vindicator and One Ceberus Forgefiend blasting away at a Drukhari Raider sitting on an objective. Three rounds later, it was still alive and laughing at me... To say I was disgusted with both was an understatement...

In fact, because they underperformed so much, I think I ended the game with most of the Drukahri infantry dead, but with most of the Drukhari vehicles still alive ... Only one Venom was killed early on by a Hellbrute's plasma cannon.

Hades autocannons are where its at. You can kick up points to give it a plasma mouth if you want but I like the melee threat on my forgefiends.

cody.d. wrote:

 odorofdeath wrote:
just smite the gak out of them. i cant imagine orks have a lot of psychic denial

Eh, an ork list can have a decent amount of denies if it wants. We do have 3 different types of casters and 10 or so spells worth taking. Besides, 6d3 mortals isn't really enough to deal with 5 or so models, many of which may not be on the very front lines.

He tried taking a pair of vindicators, but got a bit unlucky and tried to put them on the squig riders first.

6D3? Just from smite maybe. But you should be doing way more then that. You should have at least 1 Sorc with Witch-Warrior casting Smite that requires 11+ min and auto passing with cabal points. IDK why you only have 2 casters in your army but you should definitely have more then that. I mean with a 1cp strat, 4 Cabal points, Smite, and Doom bolt a single caster can net you 6-9 mortal wounds. That's just 2 generic spells on a generic caster. That's not Ahriman, relics, or warlord traits.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I am kinda down on both the Vindicator and the Forgefiend... I spent three rounds with one Vindicator and One Ceberus Forgefiend blasting away at a Drukhari Raider sitting on an objective. Three rounds later, it was still alive and laughing at me... To say I was disgusted with both was an understatement...

In fact, because they underperformed so much, I think I ended the game with most of the Drukahri infantry dead, but with most of the Drukhari vehicles still alive ... Only one Venom was killed early on by a Hellbrute's plasma cannon.

It's important to not base your judgement of a unit on just one game.

TV Contemptor vs Triple Plas FF

vs Raider
TVC - 23.8%
TPFF - 8.3%

vs Buggy
TVC - 33%
TPFF - 51.4%

vs 4++ Terminators
TVC - 52% for 1 model, 17% for 2, 2.5% for 3
TPFF - 37% for 1, 26% for 2, 10% for 3, 3% for 4

TPFF is way more versatile.

Vindicators are not good at taking on Raiders, no, but they're hard to kill and you'll like having them if Grots ever hit the table and they're still hard to shift.



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dreadlybrew wrote:
Hades autocannons are where its at. You can kick up points to give it a plasma mouth if you want but I like the melee threat on my forgefiends.

Double Cannon / Plasma is 17% to knock a Raider and 50.5% for a Buggy - better at Raiders than triple plasma and about the same on Buggies.
Double Cannon is 5.1% and 12.6%.

Plasma helps push the total damage over that edge and I would probably never go just cannons unless I was point conscious.

Hmm... I didn't look at the Maulerfiend that closely previously. But I did and the Magna cutter version is only 140 points. That's pretty cheap. Plus Magna cutters are assault 2 shots with 6 inch range with D6+2 damage! So, the Mauler fiend can move advance 10+d6 inches, and then still shoot something within 6 inches. a threat range of 16+d6 isn't bad really. And the Magna cutters can be shot at engagement range at no penalty to hit because they are assault, not heavy. And of course, the Maulerfiend eats vehicles for breakfast once it gets into engagement range.

Its not a bad package really. Maybe two Mauler fiends might be a better alternative to two forgefiends ... They draw fire, which is great, and they kill vehicles pretty reliably once they charge into range, which again is what I want. They are the one unit in my Tsons army that wants to get up close on an objective and brawl away (other than spawn), and they don't care about any support because they are not core so they literally get no buff benefits anyway.

Maybe I will try out Maulerfiends in my next game. (I can't believe I am saying this given all my bad experiences last time with Maulerfiends...lol)

The only problem with maulerfiends is that they can't advance and charge or be double moved with temp surge.

I've found its something you keep in your lines to deal with bladeguard or other beatsticks that are slow. You can rip away its targets invuln and pump its own invuln to 4+

Not that it matters too much because melta will kill it in one turn.

It might be q great tool to outline with or web way

Was also wondering if a triple Hellbrute supported by a DP with the Egleighen's Orrery might make a more consistant firebase if supplemented by one Forgefiend.

The trio of Hellbrutes can have two with missile launches, plasma cannons, and the third behind them with plasma cannon and fist. So, the Hellbrute trio will shoot 3d3 plasma cannon shots and 2 missiles and benefit from ignoring all negative modifiers and rerolling 1s from the DP. And if they need to fight, the one hellbrute and DP will hit hard.

I was running 2 Hellbrutes, 1 forgefiend and 1 Vindicator for my anti tank. Might consider switching to 3 Hellbrutes and 1 forgefiend. What do you think ? Not enough anti tank ?

You can also spend a cp to give one of those +1ap. The 8 shots from the hades cannons str 8, ap 3 2 damage is great for clearing troops.

dreadlybrew wrote:
+1 storm bolter shots.

While the rest of your thoughts were interesting, I think this strat is really quite terrible.
On a max-sized unit, you're getting 10 extra shots. If you have BS2, re-rolls, and S5 on the bolters (bc sure, why not), then you'll get 9 more hits and 3-6 more wounds, depending on the target. Then they have saves, which will probably be at a 4+ or 4++ (Marines are 2+ in cover, Termies are 1+, many targets have a 4++, etc). That means you're pushing through 1-3 more wounds for 1CP
We are SO cp hungry, that I don't think that's worth the CP. I've never liked the strats such as Hellfire Rounds, where you pay a CP for d3 mortals. This seems like it's even worse, because the variance is much bigger.

They turned that strat from awesome to absolutely terrible. The one to fire double shots with a soulreaper is pretty terrible too, honestly, though I guess it's maybe worth thinking about on a 10-man scarab brick that has 2.

dreadlybrew wrote:
2 forgefiends with the autocannons are a great anti tank option. They aren't core so they don't get re rolls.

I just bought 2 hell brutes and I'm going to play around with them as antitank. One thing I do to deal woth plagueburst crawlers is perplex. If you can sneak a unit within 30inches you can perplex that thing and it has to come out of hiding or it can't shoot you (most of the time).

Wrath of the wronged, the ignore dr relic, and the +1 str infernal power on a deathball terminator unit can totally take out a plague burster.

You also have presage, the +6inch range power and +1 storm bolter shots.

Against hordes use the strat to double your shots with soulreapers. Watch them die.

You have options and most of it means holding the center and burning down a target a turn. You are obsec and fearless and tough. 40 to 50 marines can just hold the center and hold objectives.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Did we lose the ability to summon demons?

You can summon them, and summoning a demon prince is currently the only way to give rerolls to your demon engines, since the demon princes from the demon dex are not CORE locked.

 Elric Greywolf wrote:

dreadlybrew wrote:
+1 storm bolter shots.

While the rest of your thoughts were interesting, I think this strat is really quite terrible.
On a max-sized unit, you're getting 10 extra shots. If you have BS2, re-rolls, and S5 on the bolters (bc sure, why not), then you'll get 9 more hits and 3-6 more wounds, depending on the target. Then they have saves, which will probably be at a 4+ or 4++ (Marines are 2+ in cover, Termies are 1+, many targets have a 4++, etc). That means you're pushing through 1-3 more wounds for 1CP
We are SO cp hungry, that I don't think that's worth the CP. I've never liked the strats such as Hellfire Rounds, where you pay a CP for d3 mortals. This seems like it's even worse, because the variance is much bigger.

The +1 shots strat seems like it's probably better on big blobs of rubricae. But agreed. I'll probably use one of the other dakka boosting strats instead unless something absolutely positively has to die.

Any thoughts on where I should get my Anti-Tank if I don't happen to own piles of vehicles or forge fiends? I'm almost considering giving up our special ritual mechanic to ally in some regular CSM havocs and such.

Wyldhunt wrote:

Any thoughts on where I should get my Anti-Tank if I don't happen to own piles of vehicles or forge fiends? I'm almost considering giving up our special ritual mechanic to ally in some regular CSM havocs and such.

I keep seeing comments like this concerned about our lack of anti tank. Our anti-tank is built in to the entire army, smite, powers and volume of AP-2 shots.

You can do an average of 14MW with two models:

1. Ahriman Doombolt (6)
2. Ahriman Firestorm (6)
3. Ahriman Smite (5)
4. Ahriman Malevolent charge (4)
5. Exalted Sorcerer Use Psychic Maelstrom (8)
6. Exalted Sorcerer Doombolt (6)
7. Exalted Sorcerer smite (6) (Option to Malefic scroll for 1CP)

3+2+2+2+3+2 = 14MW

This battle report is a great example of our built in anti-tank:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn8m7IyQd4Y

Get's even better when you run warpflamers. Things just melt.

+1 shots hasn't let me down yet. Its compound value if you are using wrath of the wronged on a unit.

Show me where we have rites of summoning for 1ksons.

dreadlybrew wrote:
+1 shots hasn't let me down yet. Its compound value if you are using wrath of the wronged on a unit.

Show me where we have rites of summoning for 1ksons.

You still use the rules from the Daemons Codex. TSons are still Chaos.

 Mushkilla wrote:

I keep seeing comments like this concerned about our lack of anti tank. Our anti-tank is built in to the entire army, smite, powers and volume of AP-2 shots.

You can do an average of 14MW with two models:

1. Ahriman Doombolt (6)
2. Ahriman Firestorm (6)
3. Ahriman Smite (5)
4. Ahriman Malevolent charge (4)
5. Exalted Sorcerer Use Psychic Maelstrom (8)
6. Exalted Sorcerer Doombolt (6)
7. Exalted Sorcerer smite (6) (Option to Malefic scroll for 1CP)

3+2+2+2+3+2 = 14MW

I'm new to Thousand Sons and probably overly worried about it. With my other armies, I'm able to reach out shoot my opponent's scariest vehicle at a distance regardless of intervening units. Between smite targeting the closest enemy unit and many of our psychic powers having short-mid range (exposing them to enemy charges), I get a little nervous. Few things in 40k are as frustrating as running out of anti-tank attacks before your opponent runs out of tanks.

But you're probably right. If nickel and diming wounds away with inerno bolts and warpflamers isn't crazy, then we can probably kill off tanks at a reasonable clip even if they are screened.

Just move your marines and terminators from cover to cover. They are so amazingly tanky right now

dreadlybrew wrote:
You can also spend a cp to give one of those +1ap. The 8 shots from the hades cannons str 8, ap 3 2 damage is great for clearing troops.

Hmm, yea. FF with cannons and a plasma head it is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

yukishiro1 wrote:
They turned that strat from awesome to absolutely terrible. The one to fire double shots with a soulreaper is pretty terrible too, honestly, though I guess it's maybe worth thinking about on a 10-man scarab brick that has 2.

It's ok on 10 man rubrics. The old one should have never been a single CP. It was fine for it's time, because it was propping an old book.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mushkilla wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

Any thoughts on where I should get my Anti-Tank if I don't happen to own piles of vehicles or forge fiends? I'm almost considering giving up our special ritual mechanic to ally in some regular CSM havocs and such.

I keep seeing comments like this concerned about our lack of anti tank. Our anti-tank is built in to the entire army, smite, powers and volume of AP-2 shots.

You can do an average of 14MW with two models:

1. Ahriman Doombolt (6)
2. Ahriman Firestorm (6)
3. Ahriman Smite (5)
4. Ahriman Malevolent charge (4)
5. Exalted Sorcerer Use Psychic Maelstrom (8)
6. Exalted Sorcerer Doombolt (6)
7. Exalted Sorcerer smite (6) (Option to Malefic scroll for 1CP)

3+2+2+2+3+2 = 14MW

This battle report is a great example of our built in anti-tank:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn8m7IyQd4Y

Get's even better when you run warpflamers. Things just melt.

That means two of your most important pieces are both within 18" of a single model you want to kill and that it is also the closest visible. A lot of armies also have access to a 5+++ MW shrug.

Yeah you can't realistically use MW to kill vehicles against a decent opponent, unless they actively want your MWs to go into the vehicle. The big flaw with psychic MW spam is that it's almost all tied to the closest visible target, along with being short ranged to begin with.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Yeah you can't realistically use MW to kill vehicles against a decent opponent, unless they actively want your MWs to go into the vehicle. The big flaw with psychic MW spam is that it's almost all tied to the closest visible target, along with being short ranged to begin with.

Good thing the game doesn't revolve around killing things.

With the game being objective based and the amount of terrain on tables, vehicles that don't get close are not as effective (there just aren't that many firing lanes with obscuring).

With duplicity your opponent needs to screen the front and back. The catch is we can clear screens in the psychic phase with mortal wounds if we need to (smite away a screen so you can temporal surge or sorcerous facade past them).

Every squad of rubric in my list (each squad has 7 warpflamers) can do a reliable 11W to any 3+ save vehicle. 14W if you use veterans of the long war.

0. A psyker in your army needs to have attempted doombolt
1. Aspiring Sorcerer Use Psychic Maelstrom (8)
2. Exalted Sorcerer Doombolt (6)
3. Great Sorcerer 1CP
4. Exalted Sorcerer smite (5) Malefic scroll for 1CP
That's 6 MW

Then 7 warpflamers wounding on a 5+ against a 3+ does 5+ wounds.

With sorcerous facade that forces your opponent to screen everywhere. Which means they spread out which makes it easier for you to pick off what you need to to win the mission.

We are really good at trading (because we can make almost any psyker unit spike), we can also play really cagey and thanks to our secondaries do very well playing defensively.

So yes our psychic damage is limited to the nearest visible thing. In practice it works well enough as we have a tone of mobility tricks. That's been my experience anyway.

I've played a few games at 2k points with 5 4 10 man rubrics, 1 10 man terminator, 2 exalted ,2 thralls and an infernal and so far no one has wiped out a squad turn1

I play cult of magic because you can nuke hiding characters with Astral blast and the cabal point extra d3 wounds.

I run a witch warrior with aether charge and baleful devolution and tzeenches firestorm. Deleting necron warriors never felt so good.

I need a reality check on this. I'm looking at the Conniving Plate on a Daemon Prince of the Cult of Change who knows the Cult power Dysmanifestation. How would the order of operations work on this? For an enemy with an even number of attacks it's a wash, but for an enemy with an odd number of attacks I see two potential outcomes:

1) You halve the attacks against you in CC, then subtract 1 from that result. Example: An enemy with 5 attacks swings at you. You halve those (I assume rounding down, because if the model can only allocate up to half its attacks to you, it can't allocate 2.5 attacks) to 2 attacks, then subtract 1 from Dysmanifestation, resulting in one attack coming at you.

2) You subtract 1 from the enemy's attacks, down to 4, then halve those, down to 2 attacks coming at you (using the example above), meaning Dysmanifestation didn't really make a difference.

Which is the right way to do this? If it's the first option, then a Cult of Change Daemon Prince can get very tanky indeed.

Brian888 wrote:
I need a reality check on this. I'm looking at the Conniving Plate on a Daemon Prince of the Cult of Change who knows the Cult power Dysmanifestation. How would the order of operations work on this? For an enemy with an even number of attacks it's a wash, but for an enemy with an odd number of attacks I see two potential outcomes:

1) You halve the attacks against you in CC, then subtract 1 from that result. Example: An enemy with 5 attacks swings at you. You halve those (I assume rounding down, because if the model can only allocate up to half its attacks to you, it can't allocate 2.5 attacks) to 2 attacks, then subtract 1 from Dysmanifestation, resulting in one attack coming at you.

2) You subtract 1 from the enemy's attacks, down to 4, then halve those, down to 2 attacks coming at you (using the example above), meaning Dysmanifestation didn't really make a difference.

Which is the right way to do this? If it's the first option, then a Cult of Change Daemon Prince can get very tanky indeed.

The spell modifies the attack characteristic. It gives no benefit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mushkilla wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Yeah you can't realistically use MW to kill vehicles against a decent opponent, unless they actively want your MWs to go into the vehicle. The big flaw with psychic MW spam is that it's almost all tied to the closest visible target, along with being short ranged to begin with.

Good thing the game doesn't revolve around killing things.

With the game being objective based and the amount of terrain on tables, vehicles that don't get close are not as effective (there just aren't that many firing lanes with obscuring).

With duplicity your opponent needs to screen the front and back. The catch is we can clear screens in the psychic phase with mortal wounds if we need to (smite away a screen so you can temporal surge or sorcerous facade past them).

Every squad of rubric in my list (each squad has 7 warpflamers) can do a reliable 11W to any 3+ save vehicle. 14W if you use veterans of the long war.

0. A psyker in your army needs to have attempted doombolt
1. Aspiring Sorcerer Use Psychic Maelstrom (8)
2. Exalted Sorcerer Doombolt (6)
3. Great Sorcerer 1CP
4. Exalted Sorcerer smite (5) Malefic scroll for 1CP
That's 6 MW

Then 7 warpflamers wounding on a 5+ against a 3+ does 5+ wounds.

With sorcerous facade that forces your opponent to screen everywhere. Which means they spread out which makes it easier for you to pick off what you need to to win the mission.

We are really good at trading (because we can make almost any psyker unit spike), we can also play really cagey and thanks to our secondaries do very well playing defensively.

So yes our psychic damage is limited to the nearest visible thing. In practice it works well enough as we have a tone of mobility tricks. That's been my experience anyway.

Just to note that you used over 250+ points, 2 CP, and 8 cabal to kill a 11 wound vehicle, which will likely not be with more than half of that - not to mention the potential for failed casts. When those flamers roll up on T8 ( Custodes probably the ones getting their book in Dec ) and you didn't spend your spell on Pyric Flux those flamers will bounce and they'll spend a CP to make the MW bounce, too.

MW and flamers are great, but leaning too much on them will eventually lose you games.

 Mushkilla wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Weird that your opponent didn't opt for assassinate. Did they miss the most points on secondary or primary?

Primary turns 3 onwards I had hold more and was shutting down stranglehold (so he scored 9). Only two of my characters were killed so he would have scored less with assassinate. 45 rubrics is a very hard nut to crack to get to those characters.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Did you reliably use all 27 cabal points?

Yes, you're always going to spend 7 autocasting (don't want to risk your Sorcerous Facade failing), 8 to make something undeniable (mostly used on your warpcraft secondary), 4 for an extra d3, 4 for an extra CP, 8 to re-play doombolt or firestorm, 5 to add +1 to make something important pass, or to nudge your 4-5th smite into a pass or a smite into a super smite. Same with the +2 for 9 cabbal points. Basically it's easy to spend 45 cabbal point a turn and get lots of value.You also have less as you lose units, or if you have units in reserve.

Something that's not quite as obvious is your odds of super smite with a regular 2d6 cast is 8.3%, with +1 (brother hood of sorcerers) it's double at 16.6%. With +2 it's triple at 27.7% with +3 it's more than 4 times as likely at 41%. You can add +1/+2 after seeing the result. When you can re-roll the mortal wound dice with an infernal master, witch-warrior or a summoned changecaster with gaze of fate you can make things evaporate.

Mushkilla, I was very interested in how your list worked. I think you can save some cabal points each turn by doing the following. Take a exalted sorcerer on disk with the aethenaen scrolls. (let you roll 3d6 take 2 highest on a psychic power for the rest of the game). So, you use the scroll on Sorcerous Facade. 3d6+1, take the 2 highest I think results in a 80% chance you will get your Sorcerous Facade power off on a 8. If you still roll lower, you can use a CP to reroll that to make it a 96% chance it will go off. So, your exalted sorcerer can zip around in your backline to the rubric marine squad you need to teleport that squad to where you need it to be. That saves having to use 7 cabal points to autopass Sorcerous Facade each turn.

The other thing is to take a character with seeker after shadows warlord trait. That gives the character again a 3d6+1 take the highest 2 dice when performing psychic actions. Unless you face armies with a 4+ deny strategem (which is actually quite rare). Then you can comfortably roll the psychic and most of the time, you will end up with a high score which is extremely hard for your opponent to deny. So you can again save on the cabal points to use on cabalistic focus to force through a psychic.

The only must use cabal rituals each turn would then be the following:

Malevolent charge - 4 cabal points (to add d3 MW)
Echoes from the warp - 4 cabal points (to gain a cp)
Psychic Maelstorm - 8 cabal points (to cast doombolt again)

So, 16 as a minimum. Its obviously not requite as reliable as using Cabal points to force through the psychic action or to autocast Sorcerous Facade. But its pretty close. I mean, if you have the cabal points to spare, then sure, go for it. But for me, I like to plan with less. And this would continue to reliably work even as your forces get whittled down so that you have less cabal points to work with.






Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just thought of one way to save on possibly even Psychic Maelstorm. Give 4 or 5 of the Rubric Marine Squads the Doombolt power. The rest can have temporal surge. So you have the 4 or 5 Rubric squads that you will yeet somewhere every turn, and then these will blast something with doombolt plus a smite. If you are hiding most stuff, you may not need to cast psychic maelstorm. Only if he brings stuff into close enough range for you to come out of hiding with your main force to blast him, then you will recast doombolt. If its a standoff "trading" then you just yeet that one rubric squad per turn with doombolt for 5 turns.

Also, for your second detachment, you can take the cult of change. Then take the Capricious crest relic, so once each battle round, within 18 inches of the relic, you can change one of your roll of 1 in a psychic test to a 6, and you can change one of a 6 in your opponent's psychic test to a 1 (Just to check, a deny the witch test is also a psychic test right?). This makes it even harder for your opponents to deny your psychic and it makes your psychic tests even more reliable.

Between the infernal master's gaze of eternity, a cp reroll, aetherean scroll, seeker of shadows warlord trait, and now this relic Capricious Crest. You will have such a super reliable psychic phase.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Just to note that you used over 250+ points, 2 CP, and 8 cabal to kill a 11 wound vehicle, which will likely not be with more than half of that

For context this is the load out I was talking about:

8 rubrics, aspiring sorcerer, 7 warpflamer, icon - 220

This isn't a dedicated anti tank unit, it's a flexible multi role unit. It gives you objective secure, it's relatively resilient, it's good against most targets.

Think about it this way, it takes on average 5 raiders (475pts) with dark lances to take out an T7 3+ 11W model. 3-4 times the points cost of the target. That doesn't make the raider bad. Because it performs multiple roles.

It takes 3 ironstriders with twin cognis lascannons (220pts) to take out a T7 3+ 11W model. They are a dedicated anti tank unit, that don't perform well against infantry and are not objective secure.

Now of course I'm simplifying. There's nuances I'm ignoring, range, speed, stratagems, doctrinas, etc. But hopefully it helps put things in perspective. Are warpfalmer rubrics the best anti tank in the game? No. But they are still surprisingly effective.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

not to mention the potential for failed casts. When those flamers roll up on T8 ( Custodes probably the ones getting their book in Dec ) and you didn't spend your spell on Pyric Flux those flamers will bounce and they'll spend a CP to make the MW bounce, too.

You are right. There are points of failure, but our psychic phase is pretty reliable with rituals and stratagems.

Pyric Flux is going to go off reliably though, it's cast on a 5 (so 4+ with our bonus), and I run it on a sorcerer with the prism of echoes (so cast at 24" ) so denies aren't an issue. I'm not running an infernal master yet, but it might be necessary as a redundancy for and extra source of +1S.

The other interesting thing with large flamer units (something I learn't from running lots of tzeentch flamers) is that they are super consistent once you get to 5d6+ number of shots. The bellcurve means you get very little variance. The volume of shots also means you get very consistent results in terms of wounds. Making your turns very reliable, you can count on things being dead. On the other hand when you are down to 2d6 you get loads of variance which makes it very hard for your opponent to plan around a squad of rubrics that has been reduce to three models, it can still roll high and take out a unit of sisters, keeping them relevant throughout the game and allowing for clutch swings when you are on the back foot.

Wether the combination of a reliable psychic phase and low variance shooting is enough to make the army play consistently against a variety of lists I don't know.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

MW and flamers are great, but leaning too much on them will eventually lose you games.

That is something I plan to find out. I get the feeling it will cost me less games than most people think. We'll see.

Eldenfirefly wrote:

So, you use the scroll on Sorcerous Facade...

Unfortunately, the scroll only works on Vengeance and Change disciplines.

Eldenfirefly wrote:

The other thing is to take a character with seeker after shadows warlord trait. That gives the character again a 3d6+1 take the highest 2 dice when performing psychic actions. Unless you face armies with a 4+ deny strategem (which is actually quite rare). Then you can comfortably roll the psychic and most of the time, you will end up with a high score which is extremely hard for your opponent to deny. So you can again save on the cabal points to use on cabalistic focus to force through a psychic.

I really like this. Especially seeing as we can't do warpcraft secondaries with our rubrics (aside from mutate landscape).

Eldenfirefly wrote:

Just thought of one way to save on possibly even Psychic Maelstorm. Give 4 or 5 of the Rubric Marine Squads the Doombolt power. The rest can have temporal surge. So you have the 4 or 5 Rubric squads that you will yeet somewhere every turn, and then these will blast something with doombolt plus a smite. If you are hiding most stuff, you may not need to cast psychic maelstorm. Only if he brings stuff into close enough range for you to come out of hiding with your main force to blast him, then you will recast doombolt. If its a standoff "trading" then you just yeet that one rubric squad per turn with doombolt for 5 turns.

That's a really nice fine tuning point. Especially if I find end up using doombolt a lot.

Eldenfirefly wrote:

Also, for your second detachment, you can take the cult of change. Then take the Capricious crest relic, so once each battle round, within 18 inches of the relic, you can change one of your roll of 1 in a psychic test to a 6, and you can change one of a 6 in your opponent's psychic test to a 1 (Just to check, a deny the witch test is also a psychic test right?). This makes it even harder for your opponents to deny your psychic and it makes your psychic tests even more reliable.

Between the infernal master's gaze of eternity, a cp reroll, aetherean scroll, seeker of shadows warlord trait, and now this relic Capricious Crest. You will have such a super reliable psychic phase.

Another great point. Although currently I'm exploring running a single detachment for more CP. The downside is missing out on a second cult and in my case an infernal master.

Here's my current list for context (though I'll probably work in seeker after shadows as you suggested).

Don't forget perplex. That perplex can save you a whole lot of hassle with a risen rubricae

are 15 Terminators a good way to start a list? I don't see a weakness compared to other dexes.

 Manchild 1984 wrote:
are 15 Terminators a good way to start a list? I don't see a weakness compared to other dexes.

They are great! They are tanky, shooty, can fight well in melee, protects your key characters, they are immune to morale, core, has an aspiring sorcerer. Nothing I dislike about them.


Quoting Mushkilla:

"For context this is the load out I was talking about:

8 rubrics, aspiring sorcerer, 7 warpflamer, icon - 220

This isn't a dedicated anti tank unit, it's a flexible multi role unit. It gives you objective secure, it's relatively resilient, it's good against most targets."

I think I may have had an epiphany regarding Scarab occult. It's the 5++ that makes them less than stellar. As I recall, at the moment, any termie unit worth it's salt have a 4++ or are meant for shooting. The inferno bolters are good, but too big a squad and the blast wrecks them. The strat to reduce damage by 1 cost 3 and even then you still only have the 5++. You could weaver them I suppose, but they're just not resilient enough. Had a game tonight and tried a 5 man squad with a soul reaper and was well pleased. Gave em Surge to deepstrike and move into a table quarter to ensure engage. I also tried a pair of vortex beasts and was impressed. The fact that they're monsters meant I could port them with facade, give them the 4++, protect my winged prince, throw out a few mortal wounds and possibly get a charge off. for the points, I think they work. I'm running a lot of MSU and for the first time going this route, it went well.