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Agusto wrote:
I have, as the middle aged man I am, been grumbling to my gaming buddies a lot over the last previews. I really get the feeling we are seeing another era of hero-hammer. Many, if not most, of the named characters, the faction leader poster children seems to get some special rule making them very strong to the point of auto include. And before people start saying "we haven't seen their points yet", how much will be TS-player be willing to pay for Ahzek "No save for you" Ahriman? Twice the cost for a Sorceror Lord? Thrice? Because he will be taken. A lot!

It's a good ability, but it's 18", which means you need a mutalith to truly make it work. And then enough long range to make use of it, but the ability isn't very useful if your weapons are already AP3/4. So the weapons that really benefit are 24", which means it comes mid-game.

Rubrics are very squishy now so keeping Ahriman alive to get in place could be hard. Might need a rhino.

We also don't know what other characters do. You can only take one epic hero as well so no Ahriman & Magnus.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Agusto wrote:
I have, as the middle aged man I am, been grumbling to my gaming buddies a lot over the last previews. I really get the feeling we are seeing another era of hero-hammer. Many, if not most, of the named characters, the faction leader poster children seems to get some special rule making them very strong to the point of auto include. And before people start saying "we haven't seen their points yet", how much will be TS-player be willing to pay for Ahzek "No save for you" Ahriman? Twice the cost for a Sorceror Lord? Thrice? Because he will be taken. A lot!

It's a good ability, but it's 18", which means you need a mutalith to truly make it work. And then enough long range to make use of it, but the ability isn't very useful if your weapons are already AP3/4. So the weapons that really benefit are 24", which means it comes mid-game.

Rubrics are very squishy now so keeping Ahriman alive to get in place could be hard. Might need a rhino.

We also don't know what other characters do. You can only take one epic hero as well so no Ahriman & Magnus.

One of each epic hero. They just didn't want to say 'unique' for some reason.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/03/30/how-army-building-works-in-the-new-edition-of-warhammer-40000/

 ikeulhu wrote:
That is assuming 1 detachment only per faction in the Index. I expect more to be likely, with even more added by codex releases. Possibly something like 3 in the index and then double or triple that after.

Fairly sure on the stream they said only one. People will be stuck in their boxes for a little while.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 ikeulhu wrote:
That is assuming 1 detachment only per faction in the Index. I expect more to be likely, with even more added by codex releases. Possibly something like 3 in the index and then double or triple that after.

Fairly sure on the stream they said only one. People will be stuck in their boxes for a little while.

Yup, I missed that and the "one detachment" in a previous article as well, and it is indeed too bad we do not get a smaller sampling of options to pick from before codex releases.

Voss wrote:

 kurhanik wrote:
Huh, 1k Sons seems very interesting. I feel that at least at first the bookkeeping will be a bit much - as you have to keep track of how many points you generate per turn which will be different every turn. Once the numbers are fully internalized (or if they are very easy like jobber infantry sorcerers 1, not named leaders 2, ahriman 3, magnus 4), it shouldn't be too difficult. Ahriman granting a blanket "no armor for you" for free is downright dirty, as I cannot ever envision a situation in which someone would rather reroll a single saving throw with him over that for example.

Doombolt is probably going to have to be a consideration. Anti-tank (and monster) has been a lasting problem for pure TS, and since the powers that replace smite are looking infantry focused, its going to be even more so. (The S6, 1 Damage soulreaper certainly isn't any kind of AT against the improved vehicles). I doubt the missiles on the terminators plus dreads and predators, are going to be sufficient.

Pushing a chunk of MW from Doombolt every turn (via normal cabal points) is probably going to be a big contributor to the faction's AT.

I was exaggerating a bit there, really Doombolt and the free strat one both sound like good uses as well. Though its pretty much guaranteed damage (or did they preview an anti-mortal wounds thing I am forgetting?), using a ton of your Cabal Points for what could be as little as 1 damage and as much as 9 is also a bit swingy.

Tsagualsa wrote:

Agusto wrote:
I have, as the middle aged man I am, been grumbling to my gaming buddies a lot over the last previews. I really get the feeling we are seeing another era of hero-hammer. Many, if not most, of the named characters, the faction leader poster children seems to get some special rule making them very strong to the point of auto include. And before people start saying "we haven't seen their points yet", how much will be TS-player be willing to pay for Ahzek "No save for you" Ahriman? Twice the cost for a Sorceror Lord? Thrice? Because he will be taken. A lot!

I think people seriously overvalue this ability. He can use it once per game. The other rules for rituals still apply, i.e. you can't use the no-safe ritual a second time in the same turn. You also can use everything else only once, and you can't save ritual points for your next turn. And you need to be in range of the unit you'd want to delete, and have enough units in range as well to do the actual deleting.

It's powerful, but more situational than it appears - you run a real danger of missing the perfect timing for it, and sometimes you'll end up throwing a Doombolt instead.

Oh its very situational - if I whip out 300 Guardsmen and just play a game of tarpit, the ability is basically useless. On the flip side, something like an Imperial Knight is down to its invuln save only (or no save at all in melee). So far (until we see the rest of the datasheets) only the Vortex Beast seems up for that (and will already be reducing the saves to their invulns anyways), and unless it is priced in such a way that you can spam a bunch of them, that isn't overmuch anti tank.

Where it might excel the most will be heavy infantry without an invulnerable save like Meganobz (in their current form at least, as we don't know what their defenses will be in 10th yet), where even the Rubric bolters will be doing some work at least thanks to their wound rerolls.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Agusto wrote:
I have, as the middle aged man I am, been grumbling to my gaming buddies a lot over the last previews. I really get the feeling we are seeing another era of hero-hammer. Many, if not most, of the named characters, the faction leader poster children seems to get some special rule making them very strong to the point of auto include. And before people start saying "we haven't seen their points yet", how much will be TS-player be willing to pay for Ahzek "No save for you" Ahriman? Twice the cost for a Sorceror Lord? Thrice? Because he will be taken. A lot!

It's a good ability, but it's 18", which means you need a mutalith to truly make it work. And then enough long range to make use of it, but the ability isn't very useful if your weapons are already AP3/4. So the weapons that really benefit are 24", which means it comes mid-game.

Rubrics are very squishy now so keeping Ahriman alive to get in place could be hard. Might need a rhino.

We also don't know what other characters do. You can only take one epic hero as well so no Ahriman & Magnus.

I thought it was only 1 of EACH epic hero? Or is there a different rule for Abby and Bob?

Voss wrote:
One of each epic hero. They just didn't want to say 'unique' for some reason.

Whoops - I stand corrected!

In all honesty if Magnus is cool then I'm probably running him instead.

Ahriman's +1 to wound is nice so he could make for a nice tank hunting unit, but I feel like the rerolls do enough on their own for most tasks.

I imagine Ahriman on Disk could even have a different spell from Stalk. Given he has his name as a keyword that must be what controls the epic hero stuff.

 ikeulhu wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 ikeulhu wrote:
That is assuming 1 detachment only per faction in the Index. I expect more to be likely, with even more added by codex releases. Possibly something like 3 in the index and then double or triple that after.

Fairly sure on the stream they said only one. People will be stuck in their boxes for a little while.

.
Yup, I missed that and the "one detachment" in a previous article as well, and it is indeed too bad we do not get a smaller sampling of options to pick from before codex releases.

In 8th edition, Chapter Approved books gave the non codex factions a set of warlord traits and strats to hold them over. I am sure we can expect the same for 10th editions Campaign books

 Arachnofiend wrote:
Ahriman being an auto-include isn't a surprise, he's been in every Thousand Sons (and most CSM) army since 8th.

I'm still not sure what the army is supposed to do against heavy tanks, with the Cabal rule preventing you from taking your own vehicles as much as it did in 9th. Otherwise the army seems to be more or less what I'd want it to be.

Hopefully GW make stuff other than Rubrics/Scarabs/Sorcerers give cabal points.
If the Predator/Helbute/etc. give like 1 point each, it will make the army a lot more interesting IMO.
Hopefully they learned from 9th

Ahriman's lack of a good shooting power could actually be a boon. Presumably he will be cheaper than if he has some super devastating psychic shooting attack. Which is cool because while I was looking at it again I thought about this....

Ahriman leading a 10 man flamer Rubric squad. He gives them +1 to wound, they re-roll 1's to wound (or full if target on objective), so the worst they are wounding is 5+ re-rolling 1's. And while they lost the assault ability (so no advance and shoot) you can use the cabal points to move them twice for a total threat distance of 22". Use Ahriman to remove save if necessary, and let things burn. Unless they really increase points of Ahriman and Rubrics with flamers, that should be a pretty viable tactic.

 xeen wrote:
Ahriman's lack of a good shooting power could actually be a boon. Presumably he will be cheaper than if he has some super devastating psychic shooting attack. Which is cool because while I was looking at it again I thought about this....

Ahriman leading a 10 man flamer Rubric squad. He gives them +1 to wound, they re-roll 1's to wound (or full if target on objective), so the worst they are wounding is 5+ re-rolling 1's. And while they lost the assault ability (so no advance and shoot) you can use the cabal points to move them twice for a total threat distance of 22". Use Ahriman to remove save if necessary, and let things burn. Unless they really increase points of Ahriman and Rubrics with flamers, that should be a pretty viable tactic.

Once per phase on the cabals.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 xeen wrote:
Ahriman's lack of a good shooting power could actually be a boon. Presumably he will be cheaper than if he has some super devastating psychic shooting attack. Which is cool because while I was looking at it again I thought about this....

Ahriman leading a 10 man flamer Rubric squad. He gives them +1 to wound, they re-roll 1's to wound (or full if target on objective), so the worst they are wounding is 5+ re-rolling 1's. And while they lost the assault ability (so no advance and shoot) you can use the cabal points to move them twice for a total threat distance of 22". Use Ahriman to remove save if necessary, and let things burn. Unless they really increase points of Ahriman and Rubrics with flamers, that should be a pretty viable tactic.

Once per phase on the cabals.

"Each ritual can only be used once per phase"

So you can't warptime two units but you can warptime and strip saves in the same phase

Yea it sounded like he was surging twice.

I don't think stripping saves will be better than Doombolt in a lot of scenarios unless you have a lot of units that can focus on the stripped unit.

Poor design in my opinion. In 1k points ahrimans free ritual is huge. At 3k, worthless. The mutalith looks like a direct sales push as its being made into a much needed antitank.

 Sureshot05 wrote:
Poor design in my opinion. In 1k points ahrimans free ritual is huge. At 3k, worthless. The mutalith looks like a direct sales push as its being made into a much needed antitank.

It'd be a bit hard to make sure everything scaled at each point level. A once per game ability doesn't need to be that.

The Mutalith shooting some tank without an invulnerable --

1 * .666 * .666 * 9.5 = 4.2

The prior version could use two abilities. One that averaged 1.83 MW on any target and the other did 1.83 to any target and 2.1 to titanic. So, no. Going from 3.7 to 4 MW to 4.2 damage as long as the target doesn't have an invulnerable save ( unless you spike a 6 ) isn't a sales push.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Rubrics are very squishy now so keeping Ahriman alive to get in place could be hard. Might need a rhino.

If you put your sorcerers in a transport you won't get cabal points until they exit, right? I think they still count as not being on the field without special rules (like the Guard transport that lets you give orders).

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Hopefully GW make stuff other than Rubrics/Scarabs/Sorcerers give cabal points.
If the Predator/Helbute/etc. give like 1 point each, it will make the army a lot more interesting IMO.
Hopefully they learned from 9th

I think it's extremely unlikely that anything that isn't a sorcerer gives a cabal point. They even have a specific note that only the Aspiring Sorcerer gives the cabal point in the Rubric squad, so you lose it if gets sniped out somehow.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
If you put your sorcerers in a transport you won't get cabal points until they exit, right? I think they still count as not being on the field without special rules (like the Guard transport that lets you give orders).

A Mekaniak can repair and buff units firing from inside a battlewagon so I can't see why not, but you never know.

It's entirely possible that there's a rule on the KSons Rhino that gives you cabal points for units inside the transport but I'm quite certain that rule has to exist or they don't. Might make or break the viability of vehicle-based lists in general, you definitely have to bring Rubrics to have enough cabal points especially since your sorcerers likely can't be protected by daemon engines.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
It's entirely possible that there's a rule on the KSons Rhino that gives you cabal points for units inside the transport but I'm quite certain that rule has to exist or they don't. Might make or break the viability of vehicle-based lists in general, you definitely have to bring Rubrics to have enough cabal points especially since your sorcerers likely can't be protected by daemon engines.

Right. That's what makes it fairly complex to build a list to exploit this well, I think. Are people going to risk Ahriman in a unit of 5 rubrics? That's going to be target #1 for the opponent. Soften the unit and then finish it with anti-tank and let those wounds roll over into him.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Xyxel wrote:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

Allied Knight loaded with as much dakka as possible/some long ranged Forgeworld unit with dakka (not sure if TSons will have access to them still but w/e)

Allied Knight will have Thousand Sons faction keyword?

No, but there's nothing precluding them from taking advantage of a unit losing armor saves.

Except for the requirement to be a <thousand sons> army to have access to rituals

And you still are even if you have that 1 allied knight.

Knight ally without breaking purity bonuses was thing in 9e and confirmed to be a thing in 10e. Indeed will expand


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kurhanik wrote:
Huh, 1k Sons seems very interesting. I feel that at least at first the bookkeeping will be a bit much - as you have to keep track of how many points you generate per turn which will be different every turn. Once the numbers are fully internalized (or if they are very easy like jobber infantry sorcerers 1, not named leaders 2, ahriman 3, magnus 4), it shouldn't be too difficult. Ahriman granting a blanket "no armor for you" for free is downright dirty, as I cannot ever envision a situation in which someone would rather reroll a single saving throw with him over that for example.

Same as now though unless points drastically drop less points than 9e by look of it(rubric icon doesn't give 1 now>


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Agusto wrote:
I have, as the middle aged man I am, been grumbling to my gaming buddies a lot over the last previews. I really get the feeling we are seeing another era of hero-hammer. Many, if not most, of the named characters, the faction leader poster children seems to get some special rule making them very strong to the point of auto include. And before people start saying "we haven't seen their points yet", how much will be TS-player be willing to pay for Ahzek "No save for you" Ahriman? Twice the cost for a Sorceror Lord? Thrice? Because he will be taken. A lot!

Of course you don"t need him for that and odds are you can get that anyway with spare.

Hasn't Ahriman basically always been an auto-take?

Sort of like Eldrad, if you are going to take [Iconic Character type] its almost always been worth going for [Iconic Character Type+1]. Or at least it is if they aren't subfaction locked.

Points etc do add up - but if you are just getting an average "free" 5 mortal wounds a game, that's not so awful. And no armour saves on say Marines in cover on an objective that you want to shoot with Rubrics will add up fast.

Voss wrote:
Well, that was about what I expected for Waaagh. Not so much the battle round timing.

I am really disappointed that Waaagh is the Army Rule. It seems tailor made for a stratagem, since you use it once. Pay those CP and unleash the Waaagh.


It seems like some version of Mob Rule would have been much more thematic for an Army Rule, as it would come up all the time. I suppose for those Ork players fielding mostly kans, dreads, and other vehicles, Mob Rule would have been disappointing, but having an Army Rule that you get to use once each game is kinda boring, even if the rule itself is good. Doesn't every other Faction have an army rule that can be used from turn one and on every turn?

Voss wrote:


One of each epic hero. They just didn't want to say 'unique' for some reason.

Allows for situations where a Character may be rare but not unique or only-one-in-the-universe. Covers named heroes and super special rare heroes alike.

Da Butcha wrote:
Doesn't every other Faction have an army rule that can be used from turn one and on every turn?

No.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Sureshot05 wrote:
Poor design in my opinion. In 1k points ahrimans free ritual is huge. At 3k, worthless. The mutalith looks like a direct sales push as its being made into a much needed antitank.

It'd be a bit hard to make sure everything scaled at each point level. A once per game ability doesn't need to be that.

The Mutalith shooting some tank without an invulnerable --

1 * .666 * .666 * 9.5 = 4.2

The prior version could use two abilities. One that averaged 1.83 MW on any target and the other did 1.83 to any target and 2.1 to titanic. So, no. Going from 3.7 to 4 MW to 4.2 damage as long as the target doesn't have an invulnerable save ( unless you spike a 6 ) isn't a sales push.

I understand the comparison, but in 9th we had several other ways of getting those mortals. Now in 10th we have significant drop in effectiness against vehicles(an issue already for thousand sons) with squad smite gone. But the mutalith is boosted towards the role.

On ahriman I think it will depend on what the exalted sorcerors give us in comparison to him. So far psychic in this edition has been hit hard so I am.not expecting too much. Disappointed we didn't get the old bolt of change back. The original t'sons sorcerors were effectively the squads Las cannon and it would have been nice to see it return.

Da Butcha wrote:

Voss wrote:
Well, that was about what I expected for Waaagh. Not so much the battle round timing.

I am really disappointed that Waaagh is the Army Rule. It seems tailor made for a stratagem, since you use it once. Pay those CP and unleash the Waaagh.


It seems like some version of Mob Rule would have been much more thematic for an Army Rule, as it would come up all the time. I suppose for those Ork players fielding mostly kans, dreads, and other vehicles, Mob Rule would have been disappointing, but having an Army Rule that you get to use once each game is kinda boring, even if the rule itself is good. Doesn't every other Faction have an army rule that can be used from turn one and on every turn?

Although Tyranids have two, one is defensive and aura-based, and the other (Shadow in the Warp) is once per game and not guaranteed to have a significant impact.

Oath of Moment can ONLY affect five units across the whole game (barring special character weirdness, I think).

 Sureshot05 wrote:


I understand the comparison, but in 9th we had several other ways of getting those mortals. Now in 10th we have significant drop in effectiness against vehicles(an issue already for thousand sons) with squad smite gone. But the mutalith is boosted towards the role.

On ahriman I think it will depend on what the exalted sorcerors give us in comparison to him. So far psychic in this edition has been hit hard so I am.not expecting too much. Disappointed we didn't get the old bolt of change back. The original t'sons sorcerors were effectively the squads Las cannon and it would have been nice to see it return.

We still have yet to see enhancements.

On the anti-tank front - lascannons are going to D6+1 and demolishers will be D6+3 S14 AP3 DD6.

Doombolt can average 5 MW on its own and I'm sure we'll see firestorm with a bunch of dice, which can pick up devastating wounds.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Sureshot05 wrote:


I understand the comparison, but in 9th we had several other ways of getting those mortals. Now in 10th we have significant drop in effectiness against vehicles(an issue already for thousand sons) with squad smite gone. But the mutalith is boosted towards the role.

On ahriman I think it will depend on what the exalted sorcerors give us in comparison to him. So far psychic in this edition has been hit hard so I am.not expecting too much. Disappointed we didn't get the old bolt of change back. The original t'sons sorcerors were effectively the squads Las cannon and it would have been nice to see it return.

We still have yet to see enhancements.

Or the base powers for Exalted either. Ahri gets a character snipe, but during list building you might necessarily not need thar.

But yeah it's gonna be dependent on Enhancements. GW has been super quiet about those, huh?

EviscerationPlague wrote:


But yeah it's gonna be dependent on Enhancements. GW has been super quiet about those, huh?

Annoyingly so. I do worry that some of them will be stupid. I'm not sure how I feel about the Gaurd one.

Da Butcha wrote:

I am really disappointed that Waaagh is the Army Rule. It seems tailor made for a stratagem, since you use it once. Pay those CP and unleash the Waaagh.


It seems like some version of Mob Rule would have been much more thematic for an Army Rule, as it would come up all the time. I suppose for those Ork players fielding mostly kans, dreads, and other vehicles, Mob Rule would have been disappointing, but having an Army Rule that you get to use once each game is kinda boring, even if the rule itself is good. Doesn't every other Faction have an army rule that can be used from turn one and on every turn?

Considering how many factions have additional rules which directly interact with their faction rule, I'd be shocked if this is all that Waaagh does. Off the top of my head there could be:

Stratagem to make the effect last two turns
Warboss / banner Nob gives the Waaagh effect to his attached unit for an extra turn
Character enhancement allows Waaagh to be used as an aura ability
etc..