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I am still thrashing out my Ravenwing and Daemon lists. I am going to do a bat rep of how they got on.

Taking a page out of Jy2's book, I am going to put up a little poll and the lists before I post the bat rep. Maybe get some tactical info as well .

Btw, I have listed the Daemons greater rewards, I know they are randomly rolled for in case someone says that - just added them so know what they have got

Dark Angels 'Ravenwing' - 2,000 points

HQ

Sammael
Ravenwing Command Squad - grenade launcher, banner of devastation & apothecary
Techmarine - bike & power field generator

Troops

5 x Ravenwing Bikers w/ Attack Bike - 2 x meltaguns - Attack Bike w/ multi melta
5 x Ravenwing Bikers w/ Attack Bike - 2 x meltaguns - Attack Bike w/ multi melta
5 x Ravenwing Bikers w/ Attack Bike - 2 x flamers - Attack Bike w/ multi melta
5 x Ravenwing Bikers w/ Attack Bike - 2 x flamers - Attack Bike w/ multi melta
5 x Ravenwing Bikers - 2 x plasma guns
5 x Ravenwing Bikers - 2 x plasma guns

Fast Attack

8 x Ravenwing Black Knights - 2 x grenade launchers

Daemons - 2,000 points

HQ

Bloodthirster - blade of blood & dark blessing
Keeper of Secrets - corpulescence & lash of despair
2 x Heralds of Tzeentch - locus of conjuration
Herald of Tzeentch - locus of conjuration

Troops

13 x Pink Horrors
13 x Pink Horrors
13 x Pink Horrors
10 x Plaguebearers

Fast Attack

10 x Flesh Hounds
10 x Flesh Hounds

Heavy Support

Daemon Prince - daemonic flight, warp forged armour, daemon of slaanesh, lash of despair & touch of uncreation
Daemon Prince - daemonic flight, warp forged armour, daemon of slaanesh, lash of despair & dark blessing

Deployment

Ravenwing get the strategic trait which gives stealth and move through cover when in ruins and Daemons get -1 to opponent's reserve; like that's going to be useful.

Ravenwing win the roll off for table side and deployment, they choose the lower right hand side and go first. Super unit of Knights is deployed on the left inside a ruin while flamer units and Attack Bikes hang at the front of the formation. In the centre is the Command Squad supported by melta units and holding the rear the two plasma units.

Daemons got a pretty gakky half of the table, only three big ruins to hide behind and a reasonable size tower uint top left. The Princes, Thirster a Flesh Hound unit and Horror unit deploy behind the largest ruin on the far left. Keeper supported by two Horror units hides behind the tower unit while the other Horror unit and Flesh Hounds deploy in the other large ruin towards Daemons' table edge. Plaguebearers go into reserve.

Keeper gets invisibility power (one I wanted) and hallucination. All Heralds switch their powers for prescience.

Rolled off to see if Ravenwing can move up ruins (rulebook says agree with opponent), roll off says no. Objectives had been placed on first floor ruins near the Ravenwing while Daemons played two in their deployment zone on upper levels which the Ravenwing cannot reach.

* Tactical Notes

The flying monsters are a real threat to the Ravenwing. If the RW can scout and keep first turn, then they should be able to lay down dakka and take out a few flying monsters first. The Thirster is probably the biggest target among them as will drop down and assault units and murder them and is also the warlord.

Flesh Hounds are a real pain in the arse and can chew up depleted RW units pretty easily. Grenade launchers firing rad grenades and then some plasma treat should sort them out.

For the Daemons the Black Knights and Command Squad are going to be the high priority targets; the Command Squad because of the banner and also Sammy while the Black Knights because of sheer fire power. If the Knights can be whittled down and then assaulted, then the flying monsters stand a better chance. Command Squad can be hit with vector strikes, though Pink Horror shooting in order to soften them up is out the question.

Turn 1

Ravenwing scout forward and head towards the Bloodthirster and his mates. Next turn the Ravenwing will be able to easily spot the big monsters and gun them down.

Daemons attempt to seize the initiative though fail.

Ravenwing move up and form up so all units except one is within 6" of the dakka banner. Black Knights get in the grill off the Bloodthirster and are about 6" away from assaulting.

Shooting; Black Knights drop a rad grenade on the 'Thirster and it hits, the beast gets slammed by plasma talons though only drops down to three wounds thanks to good rolls from the dark blessing gift. Bolter salvos hit the Bloodthirster from several units and it drops down to a single wound - enough for the Black Knights to finish it off. Bolters and multi meltas fire into one of the Princes, saves are crap and it is wasted. A plasma unit moves flat out as not within dakka banner range - will be next turn though. An Attack Bike and three RW units fire into Horrors in the ruin on the Daemon table edge and hammer then badly, luckily after failing a silly amount of saves only a few Horrors can be seen so only those die - I think it was three.

Assault; Black Knights charge the Bloodthirster, Thirster gets an extra 2 attacks thanks to blade of blood, rolls crap and only kills two Black Knights - Thirster eats corvus hammers and gets mushed.

Daemons; lone Prince takes to the skies and vector strikes the Black Knights, kills three of them. Flesh Hounds move up to attack the Black Knights while Horrors take aim. Keeper and supporting Horrors remain in position due to open ground - Keeper casts invisibility power ok. Flesh Hounds in the ruin on table edge move out and make it to tank traps, with a reasonable roll they will make it into assault.

Shooting; Nurgle's rot hits two Horror units, one dies from one unit though four drop from another unit. I think a single Bike unit gets hit, though they are ok. Depleted Horrors in the ruin fire into a plasma unit which previously fired at them, they only kill one though unit fails toughness test and one Biker dies - unit passes morale. Prince lashes a flamer unit with support from Horrors, after the two flamer models remain and they have feel no pain. An Attack Bike gets shot by Pink Horrors mainly because everything else was out of range, Attack Bike passes armour saves and gains feel no pain.

Assault; Flesh Hounds in the tank traps charge a melta unit - take a single wound from overwatch, though the biker unit is wasted - Hounds consolidate back into the tank traps for cover. Other Flesh Hounds assault the Black Knights, the Knights roll like retards and two of them overheat and fail armour saves! Remaining Knight bricks it, fails to hit and dies to mass daemon dog attacks.

Turn 2

Ravenwing; the Bikers carry on the attack and move up the left flank ready to bbq Flesh Hounds and gun down Pink Horrors and the remaining Daemon Prince. Units lagging behind spread out max coherency in order to be in dakka banner range; they need to gun down the Flesh Hounds before the Hounds assault again.

Shooting; Prince gets blasted by Attack Bikes, gets hit several times, though stays up. Plasma unit support the Command Squad grounds the Prince, who takes a wound from shooting and a wound from grounded test, the Prince then eats plasma talons and krak grenades and is wasted. Flamers bbq the Flesh Hounds, though only two die. Bolters blast into the Pink Horrors who was supporting the Bloodthirster, only half of them remain now. Flesh Hounds get a lot of dakka come their way, but 4+ cover from the tank traps in the middle of the board helps them well and only two die.

Assault; both the depleted and full strength flamer units charge the Flesh Hounds, the Hounds don't do to well kill a single biker, they lose combat and lose two Hounds to daemonic instability.

Daemons; Keeper and supporting Horrors come out to play, Keeper casts invisibility. Plaguebearers fail to arrive from reserve. Flesh Hounds move to assault the depleted plasma unit with feel no pain.

Shooting; Slaanesh warp storm result goes off this time, all Daemons are ok though a single Attack Bike is hit and fails an armour save while takes a wound from a rend! Pink Horrors in the ruin blast the surviving melta unit, they kill two and the unit gains feel no pain. Depleted Horrors still out in the open fire into the plasma unit supporting the Command Squad, one dies and unit gains feel no pain. Other Horrors fire into an Attack Bike, they kill it dead.

Assault; Keeper tries to get into assault to help the Flesh Hounds engaged with flamer units though fails. Other Flesh Hounds assault the plasma unit close by, I think combat is a draw and the plasma unit does hit and run and falls back ready to unleash dakka pain and stay in banner range. Flesh Hounds vs flamers, combat is a draw after full strength unit loses a model, the lone flamer model manages to do hit and run while the bigger unit fails.

Turn 3

Ravenwing; lone flamer moves to bbq some Pink Horrors while Attack Bikes move up for support and to put fire on the Keeper. Supporting plasma unit and Command Squad move up to lay down fire power on Keeper and Horrors. Plasma unit who did hit and run on the Flesh Hounds up ready to dakka and assault. Depleted remaining melta unit moves up towards the Pink Horrors in terrain who keep taking pot shots at them.

Shooting; flamer and Command Squad blast the Pink Horrors, Sammy fails his gets hot roll and fails an armour save, idiot - only three Horrors left. Multi meltas and bolters long range fire into the Keeper and take a wound off of it - 5 wounds left. Plasma dakkas the Flesh Hounds, not many left now and some have a wound each. Depleted melta unit turbo boosts move over to the right as the Keeper could easily engage next turn.

Assault; plasma unit charges Flesh Hounds, Flesh Hounds don't do a fat lot and only one remains - passes instability test though. Single flamer model attempts to charge Pink Horrors though fails charge range.

Daemons; depleted Horrors fall back to get the objective in the tower while full strength Horrors move up with Keeper support. Plaguebearers also fail to arrive :( .

Shooting; warp storm table hits Daemons bad and they all suffer -1 to invulnerable saves! Pink Horrors in the ruin fire into the oncoming melta bikers and kill one, unit gets feel no pain again. Full strength Pink Horrors dakka the solo flamer model and the dude is brown bread.

Assault; Keeper charges the flamer unit engaged with the Flesh Hounds and wipes them out no problems. Keeper consolidates into terrain while only a few Hounds make it into terrain. Remaining solo Flesh Hound is slayed.

Keeper gets a wound back thanks to it will not die

Turn 4

Ravenwing; one Attack Bike moves up to assault the remaining Pink Horrors in order to stop them shooting while remaining units target the Keeper. Ravenwing who just beat the Hound in combat move and claim the objective in the shrine ruin. Unit of three melta move through the ruin to blast Pink Horrors on top.

Shooting; Attack Bike fires into the Keeper along with the Command Squad, though Keeper makes every save thanks to invisilbility power.

Assault; Attack Bike slams into the Pink Horrors and beats them in combat, Horrors pass daemonic instability test. Command Squad and Attack Bike charge the Keeper, Keeper challenges and Sammy accepts - Keeper smacks Sammy, though feel no pain and invulnerable save keeps him alive while Sammy takes two wounds off the Keeper.

Plaguebearers arrive and deep strike into terrain and hold the objective there - one dies from dangerous terrain.

Unengaged depleted Horrors move into the tower ruin, but get a crappy run roll in order to climb higher.

Shooting; warp storm table is unkind and the Herald with the Horrors in the ruin takes a daemonic instability test on 3D6 and massively fails and is wasted. Horrors fire into the Bikers on the ground by them, one dies and another dies to warp fire rule - biker fails morale and legs it.

Assault; Keeper and Sammy duke it out and Sammy drops to a single wound, both the Command Squad and Attack Bike attempt hit and run and both fail!

Turn 5

Ravenwing on the shrine ruin give up their objective and move through terrain towards the Plaguebearers - Sgt dies from dangerous terrain. Surviving Attack Bike moves over to the shrine ruin. Remaining plasma unit moves up to support the Attack Bike engaged in close combat with the Horrors.

Shooting; Attack Bike turbo boosts and holds the shrine objective while Ravenwing unit boosts and contests the Plaguebearers objective.

Assault; Plasma unit joins the fight and slaps the Pink Horrors about, only a few left now. Keeper and Sammy duke it out and Sammy survives again - unit does hit and run as Sammy cannot survive anymore and move 16" away from the Keeper.

Daemons; depleted Horrors climb the tower and claim the objective. Plaguebearers come out and assault the Ravenwing, combat is a draw. Keeper moves to assist the Pink Horrors in combat, fails getting through terrain. Horrors are wiped out in combat by the Attack Bike and plasma unit.

Ravenwing pick up a crushing victory with 8 points to Daemons 4 points.

Summary

Despite getting a very good early lead, it still took the Ravenwing sometime to tackle the Daemons. I put it down to the Flesh Hounds taking some fire power and the Black Knights folding to their own gets hot saves.

Ravenwing list I am more or less happy with. I did think at several times the Librarian would have been useful, but costs 15 points more for an extra wound but worse save. I am not 100% sure on this yet.

Black Knights did ok, took out a Bloodthirster, so almost their points back. They still went down to a Daemon Prince and saves went bad for them after that. I would still like two units of five if I am honest.

The extra plasma guns come in handy and gave me a little range. I am happy with them.

Dual flamer units did ok, I am happy with them, though I do not need any more of them.

Four Attack Bikes is enough. Speaking of melta, I may drop meltas from one unit and just use a single melta unit and the multi meltas. That way I might be able to squeeze in the second Black Knight unit.

I was expecting Daemons to get mashed, especially the start they had. I think if they was against a more numerous force then they would be in serious trouble.

I really like the Keeper, though I am not 100% sold on it. It's a bit slow and requires invisibility to survive - which does take a lot of fire power. I would prefer another Daemon Prince who can get the lash in range quickly and is also a flyer.

The Heralds are good, but I fear I am investing too much points into HQ choices and the Heralds aren't making their points back with my low number of Horrors. I think I may ditch the Heralds and use those points to boost up the Horror sizes.

Speaking of Horrors, they was giving out feel no pain like candy. Ok it is 6+ to start off with, but it stacks. I think though large units would see smaller units destroyed so no fnp or focus on vehicles.

For the same cost as a Biker with a plasma gun you can get a Black knight which is almost always better.
Also a ML2 Librarian would let all units with 6 inches deny on a 4+.

You are running a huge amount of Melta as well.
I have found the basic bikers with no special weapon actually work very well with the banner.
Remember if you run the full 6 bikers you can combat squad down to 2 sets of 3 bikes.
My basic 2000 point list would be

Sammael
ML2 Librarian with power Field and bike
Command squad with dev banner and apothacery/ 1 nade launcher

6 bikes with MM attack bike, typhoon speeder with MM

6 bikes with MM attack bike, typhoon speeder with MM

6 bikes with MM attack bike, typhonon speeder with MM

6 bikes with MM attack bike,

7 Black knights with 2 nade launchers

that leaves 40 points too give some bikes speciall weapons.

Very true about the Black Knight, however the Black Knight wouldn't directly replace the Ravenwing Biker in question.

Good point about the Libby.

Someone I know runs units of 6 and splits them into combat squads, the units of three don't last long at all.

I want to stop away from Speeders. Three of them isn't enough armour saturation.

The reason for taking the Techmarine was 2+ armour. I have tried a Libby in the past and mastery level 2 for invisibility power is nice, but it is random. I honestly do not see the point in investing 35 points for mastery level 2 and then taking a power field generator.

Black Knights can only take a grenade launcher per three. I put 7 in my list by mistake, there was 8 in use.

Your list also has 7 less bikers than mine. In a small elite force all the numbers count here.

The point about units of 3 is if you would lose the unit you would have lost 3 bikes of a bigger squad anyway and you remove the chance to kill more than 3 bikes at a time. It also allows you to split your fire and gives you alot more protection from assault.
For example say a unit of horrors fires at a unit of bikes and get alucky enough to kill 5 bikers, With a 5 man squad you have lost the entire unit but with 2, 3 man squads you only lose 3 bikes.
Even if they only do enough damage to kill 3 bikes you are still in the same situation of having 1 scoring unit left, just the models you have left do not have to make a morale test.
You can also use the units to screen each other from combat. For example save 5 bikes get charged by 10 flesh hounds atm you have good chance of survivng first round only to be killed on your turn (worst case scenario). While with 2 units of 3 you can use 1 to screen the other and protect em from the charge.

I can understand about wanting to stay away from the speeders and if you drop em there is enough spare points for another 6 bikers + a MM attack bike bike.

Good point about the Techmarine though as a not the Techmarine only has 1 so the 2+ save benifit does have drawbacks.

And yeh I only use the Powerfield as a backup for when i dont get Invisibilty If i dont have the points for it a spend 15 to get a conversion field which can be really good if it works.

The command squad does not have the limitation of 3 bikers to take a nade launcher.

So a sumup. If you drop down to a conversion field on the Libbie you can use the extra points + the spare points to get that 8th BK

You can drop the Speeders to get a extra Full unit of Bikers + attack bike which would equalise the numbers.

You do make some fair points though I don't think they justify units of three. There's too little troop numbers in the units and they can be easily taken out. Everything what can be done with units of three i.e screening can be done with units of five. The big disadvantage is they drop quickly. I've played against another RW player who uses his bikers in units of three, he only has saturation of the board equal to mine (as he takes other units) and his bikes get wasted pretty quickly.

The single wound on the Techmarine does worry me. It is swings and round abouts - 3+ save 2 wounds with the Libby and some psychic fun or 2+ armour save 1 wound with the Techmarine.

I said Black Knights about the grenade launcher, but ignore it anyway as I wasn't thinking

I've already got the 8th Black Knight biker in my list anyway. I ideally I want to run two units of five.

Your thinking about it the wrong way round, Everything that can be done with a unit of 5 can be done with a Unit of 3

They do drop faster but you get twice as many units so that more than balances it out.

A suggestion then for only a slight modification to your list. is drop the flamers and the plasma guns, that will give you an extra 100 points which will get you 2 more BK
you can then split into 2 squads of 5.

Is your daemon list post-roll for rewards? Corpulescence is great on that Keeper but it's not a guarantee, so I'm guessing this must be post-roll.

I'll admit that I haven't run them, but HoTz/Horror units strike me as points inefficient. The best power to get for a Horrors unit (especially w/ Khorne hounds) is Bolt of Change, and 10 bodies will be just as good at doing that as 13. You won't really need the spells that the Herald can bring at that point, either. I could see a Horrors unit being used for AA, but with the number of FMC you're bringing along the only AA issues you'll have is against the spammiest lists, which most of your army won't care about anyways since they'll be stuck in combat.

The Plaguebearers unit is of minimal utility in your list. Pink Horrors are better objective campers as long as you put your objectives in Ruins and they have a significantly greater threat radius from their objectives than Plaguebearers do. Plaguebearers are only slightly less reliant on cover for survival than Pink Horrors, and a ten man squad is not that much more likely to survive a determined assault. I've found it's better to go for the horrors and use threat saturation to keep the enemy away from them while they snipe during whatever opportunities they have to do so. You also should really consider grabbing an Exalted reward for the Portalglyph. I've used it for around ten games in a row, now, and it has never failed to generate at least one extra scoring troop. You essentially gain multiple extra scoring units for 30pts. It's absurdly efficient when you use it to spawn Horrors. In KP games you can always just go for Grimoire instead, of course.

I'm interested to see what happens to your Keeper in this game. My gut instinct is that it is too fragile to survive in a 2k level game, but I'd love to be wrong here as opening up those HS slaanesh princes is amazing. Still cursing at GW for not making a named slaanesh GD. In a 2k level game you can bring up to 4 Slaanesh DPs anyway, so I'm not sure the keeper's worth it.

I currently run a Daemonic Flying Circus list using a CSM allied detachment. If your Keeper ends up being as easy to kill as I think it will, try nixing it and some other stuff and fitting in a CSM DP and Heldrake. The equipment that a CSM DP has access to is excellent and the Heldrake is a really efficient flyer.

My overall suggestions would be to get rid of the Heralds (maybe switching them for a pair of Khorne Jugger Heralds to go with the hounds, but probably not--I don't think the heralds have much of a place in a monster spam list), get rid of the Keeper/HS Slaanesh DPs, and replace the 3*13 Horrors and 10 Plaguebearers with 4*10 Pink Horrors (going for Bolt and existing only to chill in ruins and contest/grab objectives late game). I'd then slot in two HQ Slaanesh DPs and an allied CSM contingent of a DP w/ Heldrake and whatever cheap troops unit you feel would fit. You probably won't, but if you do have extra points after doing that buffing up the size of the Flesh Hounds units would be a solid idea. If you find they die too easily, combining the two into a single unit might be a decent idea, though it would hurt your tactical flexibility a bit.

zamnath wrote:
Is your daemon list post-roll for rewards? Corpulescence is great on that Keeper but it's not a guarantee, so I'm guessing this must be post-roll.

I'll admit that I haven't run them, but HoTz/Horror units strike me as points inefficient. The best power to get for a Horrors unit (especially w/ Khorne hounds) is Bolt of Change, and 10 bodies will be just as good at doing that as 13. You won't really need the spells that the Herald can bring at that point, either. I could see a Horrors unit being used for AA, but with the number of FMC you're bringing along the only AA issues you'll have is against the spammiest lists, which most of your army won't care about anyways since they'll be stuck in combat.

The Plaguebearers unit is of minimal utility in your list. Pink Horrors are better objective campers as long as you put your objectives in Ruins and they have a significantly greater threat radius from their objectives than Plaguebearers do. Plaguebearers are only slightly less reliant on cover for survival than Pink Horrors, and a ten man squad is not that much more likely to survive a determined assault. I've found it's better to go for the horrors and use threat saturation to keep the enemy away from them while they snipe during whatever opportunities they have to do so. You also should really consider grabbing an Exalted reward for the Portalglyph. I've used it for around ten games in a row, now, and it has never failed to generate at least one extra scoring troop. You essentially gain multiple extra scoring units for 30pts. It's absurdly efficient when you use it to spawn Horrors. In KP games you can always just go for Grimoire instead, of course.

I'm interested to see what happens to your Keeper in this game. My gut instinct is that it is too fragile to survive in a 2k level game, but I'd love to be wrong here as opening up those HS slaanesh princes is amazing. Still cursing at GW for not making a named slaanesh GD. In a 2k level game you can bring up to 4 Slaanesh DPs anyway, so I'm not sure the keeper's worth it.

I currently run a Daemonic Flying Circus list using a CSM allied detachment. If your Keeper ends up being as easy to kill as I think it will, try nixing it and some other stuff and fitting in a CSM DP and Heldrake. The equipment that a CSM DP has access to is excellent and the Heldrake is a really efficient flyer.

My overall suggestions would be to get rid of the Heralds (maybe switching them for a pair of Khorne Jugger Heralds to go with the hounds, but probably not--I don't think the heralds have much of a place in a monster spam list), get rid of the Keeper/HS Slaanesh DPs, and replace the 3*13 Horrors and 10 Plaguebearers with 4*10 Pink Horrors (going for Bolt and existing only to chill in ruins and contest/grab objectives late game). I'd then slot in two HQ Slaanesh DPs and an allied CSM contingent of a DP w/ Heldrake and whatever cheap troops unit you feel would fit. You probably won't, but if you do have extra points after doing that buffing up the size of the Flesh Hounds units would be a solid idea. If you find they die too easily, combining the two into a single unit might be a decent idea, though it would hurt your tactical flexibility a bit.

I said at the top of the post I listed them and they are randomly rolled for and just showing what they actual got

I have been considering large units of Pink Horrors and just ditching the Heralds altogether. Plaguebearers are better objectives campers than Pink Horrors, they get shrouding! Pink Horrors just get threat radius and that is it. Pink Horrors wouldn't survive assaults either.

I agree on the Keeper, invisibility does make it survivable, but it is random. I think I'll be dropping it and loading up on another Prince or something.

Remember, bolt is a random power so I cannot take it for definite.








Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mythantor wrote:
Your thinking about it the wrong way round, Everything that can be done with a unit of 5 can be done with a Unit of 3

They do drop faster but you get twice as many units so that more than balances it out.

A suggestion then for only a slight modification to your list. is drop the flamers and the plasma guns, that will give you an extra 100 points which will get you 2 more BK
you can then split into 2 squads of 5.

Not getting twice as many. I currently have six units of five while what you're suggesting is four units of six, then combat squad them into units of three - this would give me two more units over all than my own list, though easier to kill.

I have considering ditching special weapons to get those extra Black Knights, though I am not sure. I am not fussed about the flamers going though I do want the plasma guns.

How did the Black Knights charge first turn?

 Makutsu wrote:
How did the Black Knights charge first turn?

They shouldn't have (naughty mercer), he evidently forgot that you're not allowed first turn assault after scout moves.

 Makutsu wrote:
How did the Black Knights charge first turn?

Wondering that myself as well...

Also, how the hell are Pinkies giving out FnP if the Attack Bike passed all its saves???


As for how to use Pinkies effectively...
Lv3 TzHerald w/Prescience + 18-20. Now you really do threaten units since you've got a total of 7D6 re-rolled shots hitting a target. Even without Locus of Conjuration, that's enough dakka to lay the real hurt on T3/4 units and is still decent against small T5 units like 5-man Biker squads.
Plus you're now a threat to av10/11 enemy aircraft as well.

Either that, or else just take 10 strong units and pray for Bolt. (which IMHO is a waste because there's a 50/50 chance of getting a useless power).

 CaptainJay wrote:

 Makutsu wrote:
How did the Black Knights charge first turn?

They shouldn't have (naughty mercer), he evidently forgot that you're not allowed first turn assault after scout moves.

Indeed, ooops


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Makutsu wrote:
How did the Black Knights charge first turn?

Wondering that myself as well...

Also, how the hell are Pinkies giving out FnP if the Attack Bike passed all its saves???


As for how to use Pinkies effectively...
Lv3 TzHerald w/Prescience + 18-20. Now you really do threaten units since you've got a total of 7D6 re-rolled shots hitting a target. Even without Locus of Conjuration, that's enough dakka to lay the real hurt on T3/4 units and is still decent against small T5 units like 5-man Biker squads.
Plus you're now a threat to av10/11 enemy aircraft as well.

Either that, or else just take 10 strong units and pray for Bolt. (which IMHO is a waste because there's a 50/50 chance of getting a useless power).

Maybe wrong bike I was thinking of. I remember them killing one dude from a 5 man unit and that unit got fnp, then later an Attack Bike lost a wound and got fnp and then a depleted unit got shot at twice and got fnp twice.

I do think using the Horrors in larger units is the way forward and taking a Herald with them would be effective. I would still take the locus personally rather than the extra mastery level.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Makutsu wrote:
How did the Black Knights charge first turn?

Wondering that myself as well...

Also, how the hell are Pinkies giving out FnP if the Attack Bike passed all its saves???


As for how to use Pinkies effectively...
Lv3 TzHerald w/Prescience + 18-20. Now you really do threaten units since you've got a total of 7D6 re-rolled shots hitting a target. Even without Locus of Conjuration, that's enough dakka to lay the real hurt on T3/4 units and is still decent against small T5 units like 5-man Biker squads.
Plus you're now a threat to av10/11 enemy aircraft as well.

Either that, or else just take 10 strong units and pray for Bolt. (which IMHO is a waste because there's a 50/50 chance of getting a useless power).

That's true too how did they get FNP if no wounds were done...interesting...

I think multiple squads of 11 pinkies w/ some of them using beam and some of them using flicker fire would be the best combination.

The beams to take out stronger harder units and could potentially take out vehicles at it is S5 base and with Conjuration goes up to S6.
Meaning that on average you'll have a S9.5 beam shooting at something.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 mercer wrote:

 CaptainJay wrote:

 Makutsu wrote:
How did the Black Knights charge first turn?

They shouldn't have (naughty mercer), he evidently forgot that you're not allowed first turn assault after scout moves.

Indeed, ooops


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Makutsu wrote:
How did the Black Knights charge first turn?

Wondering that myself as well...

Also, how the hell are Pinkies giving out FnP if the Attack Bike passed all its saves???


As for how to use Pinkies effectively...
Lv3 TzHerald w/Prescience + 18-20. Now you really do threaten units since you've got a total of 7D6 re-rolled shots hitting a target. Even without Locus of Conjuration, that's enough dakka to lay the real hurt on T3/4 units and is still decent against small T5 units like 5-man Biker squads.
Plus you're now a threat to av10/11 enemy aircraft as well.

Either that, or else just take 10 strong units and pray for Bolt. (which IMHO is a waste because there's a 50/50 chance of getting a useless power).

Maybe wrong bike I was thinking of. I remember them killing one dude from a 5 man unit and that unit got fnp, then later an Attack Bike lost a wound and got fnp and then a depleted unit got shot at twice and got fnp twice.

I do think using the Horrors in larger units is the way forward and taking a Herald with them would be effective. I would still take the locus personally rather than the extra mastery level.

The toughness test only happens at the end of the phase, so only 1 test per phase.
So you can't get multiple FNP buffs in 1 phase.

Mythantor wrote:
Your thinking about it the wrong way round, Everything that can be done with a unit of 5 can be done with a Unit of 3

They do drop faster but you get twice as many units so that more than balances it out.

A suggestion then for only a slight modification to your list. is drop the flamers and the plasma guns, that will give you an extra 100 points which will get you 2 more BK
you can then split into 2 squads of 5.



Not getting twice as many. I currently have six units of five while what you're suggesting is four units of six, then combat squad them into units of three - this would give me two more units over all than my own list, though easier to kill.

I have considering ditching special weapons to get those extra Black Knights, though I am not sure. I am not fussed about the flamers going though I do want the plasma guns.

If you are not using the Land Speeders you would get 5 units of 6 bikes. Smae number of bikes as you currently running just spread over more units which is almost always better.

Makutsu wrote:
So you can't get multiple FNP buffs in 1 phase.

They didn't get multiple fnp in a single phase, it was over two phases as Horrors shot at the same incoming depleted unit as they did in the previous turn.

Mythantor wrote:If you are not using the Land Speeders you would get 5 units of 6 bikes. Smae number of bikes as you currently running just spread over more units which is almost always better.

Ok, so we're back to the smaller units situation which doesn't interest me. I'll give it a whirl though and see how it works as I have got enough models to try it. Always worth trying it once I guess.

Keep in mind that a Pink Horrors unit GtG in ruins has a 2+ cover save. The Plaguebearers don't need to GtG to get this save, but they also can't do much sitting on an objective anyway. With a 2+ cover save a unit of pink horrors will fail 1 out of every 36 cover saves. This is significantly better than the 1 out of 6 you get with Plaguebearers, even considering the difference in toughness between the two units. Unless targeted by a cover ignoring weapon (most of which they can mitigate by staying out of line of sight/being on multiple levels) or assaulted in CC (which is not that likely if you build your list to maximize on mobile threats) your Pink Horrors are going to be better objective campers than your Plaguebearers. In all the games I've played so far with the new codex I have yet to lose a single unit of Pink Horrors to anything outside of assault. If you play with a decent variety of terrain (and thus have ruins on the board) there's just no comparison. My Plaguebearers have not been nearly so lucky when I've taken them.

The problem I see with big units of Pink Horrors w/ Heralds is that they're extremely expensive and prone to bad luck. Someone did the math online and any given use of Flickering Fire has about a 1/4 chance of not going off at all between rolling to cast and the enemy's deny the witch. When a 90pt unit fails to hurt the enemy, that's not a big deal. When half the shooting (or all if you cast prescience) from a 200ish pt Horror/Herald unit fails to do anything for a turn that's going to hurt a lot. Then, even after you've rolled to see if your power goes off, you have to see how many shots you get, how many hits, how many wounds, and how many wounds most regular enemies (read: Marines) will save. Compare this to the 90pt Bolt unit (50% of your Horrors should have access to Bolt in any given game) which still has to roll to cast, but can remove the enemy's deny the witch (read the FAQ: it says first unit effected by a beam, not first enemy unit, can deny the witch, so if you plink a wound off a hound first your enemy gets no deny the witch), then automatically hits, has no real targetting restrictions, is admittedly a bit weaker against large numbers of models than your Horrors, but has AP2 and, therefore, the ability to deny saves to the enemy, and there's no comparison between the two load outs for the price you pay. Take four 10 man Horror units for 360pts total, use the Horrors that get Flickering Fire to hold objectives, and use the Bolt Horrors to give some extra AV and AT shooting. Spend another 30pts for an Exalted gift to gain access to Portalglyph just to be sure on scorers, if you'd like. Put all the rest of the pts you were putting into your Horrors into models that will actually serve as a consistent threat. I think you'll find this making a huge difference in your list.

I have to say, I thought the double DP/wings, BT and KoS would have torn the DAs apart.

What went wrong for them Merc inho?
What was the terrain like? With wings/fleet all 4 of the above should have been out of LoS/in cover imho and then struck hard?

zamnath wrote:Keep in mind that a Pink Horrors unit GtG in ruins has a 2+ cover save. The Plaguebearers don't need to GtG to get this save, but they also can't do much sitting on an objective anyway. With a 2+ cover save a unit of pink horrors will fail 1 out of every 36 cover saves. This is significantly better than the 1 out of 6 you get with Plaguebearers, even considering the difference in toughness between the two units. Unless targeted by a cover ignoring weapon (most of which they can mitigate by staying out of line of sight/being on multiple levels) or assaulted in CC (which is not that likely if you build your list to maximize on mobile threats) your Pink Horrors are going to be better objective campers than your Plaguebearers. In all the games I've played so far with the new codex I have yet to lose a single unit of Pink Horrors to anything outside of assault. If you play with a decent variety of terrain (and thus have ruins on the board) there's just no comparison. My Plaguebearers have not been nearly so lucky when I've taken them.

The problem I see with big units of Pink Horrors w/ Heralds is that they're extremely expensive and prone to bad luck. Someone did the math online and any given use of Flickering Fire has about a 1/4 chance of not going off at all between rolling to cast and the enemy's deny the witch. When a 90pt unit fails to hurt the enemy, that's not a big deal. When half the shooting (or all if you cast prescience) from a 200ish pt Horror/Herald unit fails to do anything for a turn that's going to hurt a lot. Then, even after you've rolled to see if your power goes off, you have to see how many shots you get, how many hits, how many wounds, and how many wounds most regular enemies (read: Marines) will save. Compare this to the 90pt Bolt unit (50% of your Horrors should have access to Bolt in any given game) which still has to roll to cast, but can remove the enemy's deny the witch (read the FAQ: it says first unit effected by a beam, not first enemy unit, can deny the witch, so if you plink a wound off a hound first your enemy gets no deny the witch), then automatically hits, has no real targetting restrictions, is admittedly a bit weaker against large numbers of models than your Horrors, but has AP2 and, therefore, the ability to deny saves to the enemy, and there's no comparison between the two load outs for the price you pay. Take four 10 man Horror units for 360pts total, use the Horrors that get Flickering Fire to hold objectives, and use the Bolt Horrors to give some extra AV and AT shooting. Spend another 30pts for an Exalted gift to gain access to Portalglyph just to be sure on scorers, if you'd like. Put all the rest of the pts you were putting into your Horrors into models that will actually serve as a consistent threat. I think you'll find this making a huge difference in your list.

Excellent points, dude. I found when the Horrors were sitting in terrain they at least had some ranged offence.

Not sure how you can have 50% Horror units with bolt though.

Ratius wrote:I have to say, I thought the double DP/wings, BT and KoS would have torn the DAs apart.

What went wrong for them Merc inho?
What was the terrain like? With wings/fleet all 4 of the above should have been out of LoS/in cover imho and then struck hard?

Due to vanguard strike the Daemons had the gakky area, the ruins were spaced out over that side. Ravenwing just flanked up and blasted those winged monsters before they could take off.

Terrain is 9 buildings, over to the left in the Daemons area was a very large building (three CoD kits - bigger than shrine ruin), top left tower ruin and centre a building made from two kits. Rest was open ground. So the Daemons were deployed in clumps in the terrain. The scouting Ravenwing managed to by pass the winged monsters cover and the Keeper was lagging behind getting into the fight.

 mercer wrote:

zamnath wrote:Keep in mind that a Pink Horrors unit GtG in ruins has a 2+ cover save. The Plaguebearers don't need to GtG to get this save, but they also can't do much sitting on an objective anyway. With a 2+ cover save a unit of pink horrors will fail 1 out of every 36 cover saves. This is significantly better than the 1 out of 6 you get with Plaguebearers, even considering the difference in toughness between the two units. Unless targeted by a cover ignoring weapon (most of which they can mitigate by staying out of line of sight/being on multiple levels) or assaulted in CC (which is not that likely if you build your list to maximize on mobile threats) your Pink Horrors are going to be better objective campers than your Plaguebearers. In all the games I've played so far with the new codex I have yet to lose a single unit of Pink Horrors to anything outside of assault. If you play with a decent variety of terrain (and thus have ruins on the board) there's just no comparison. My Plaguebearers have not been nearly so lucky when I've taken them.

The problem I see with big units of Pink Horrors w/ Heralds is that they're extremely expensive and prone to bad luck. Someone did the math online and any given use of Flickering Fire has about a 1/4 chance of not going off at all between rolling to cast and the enemy's deny the witch. When a 90pt unit fails to hurt the enemy, that's not a big deal. When half the shooting (or all if you cast prescience) from a 200ish pt Horror/Herald unit fails to do anything for a turn that's going to hurt a lot. Then, even after you've rolled to see if your power goes off, you have to see how many shots you get, how many hits, how many wounds, and how many wounds most regular enemies (read: Marines) will save. Compare this to the 90pt Bolt unit (50% of your Horrors should have access to Bolt in any given game) which still has to roll to cast, but can remove the enemy's deny the witch (read the FAQ: it says first unit effected by a beam, not first enemy unit, can deny the witch, so if you plink a wound off a hound first your enemy gets no deny the witch), then automatically hits, has no real targetting restrictions, is admittedly a bit weaker against large numbers of models than your Horrors, but has AP2 and, therefore, the ability to deny saves to the enemy, and there's no comparison between the two load outs for the price you pay. Take four 10 man Horror units for 360pts total, use the Horrors that get Flickering Fire to hold objectives, and use the Bolt Horrors to give some extra AV and AT shooting. Spend another 30pts for an Exalted gift to gain access to Portalglyph just to be sure on scorers, if you'd like. Put all the rest of the pts you were putting into your Horrors into models that will actually serve as a consistent threat. I think you'll find this making a huge difference in your list.

Excellent points, dude. I found when the Horrors were sitting in terrain they at least had some ranged offence.

Not sure how you can have 50% Horror units with bolt though.

Ratius wrote:I have to say, I thought the double DP/wings, BT and KoS would have torn the DAs apart.

What went wrong for them Merc inho?
What was the terrain like? With wings/fleet all 4 of the above should have been out of LoS/in cover imho and then struck hard?

Due to vanguard strike the Daemons had the gakky area, the ruins were spaced out over that side. Ravenwing just flanked up and blasted those winged monsters before they could take off.

Terrain is 9 buildings, over to the left in the Daemons area was a very large building (three CoD kits - bigger than shrine ruin), top left tower ruin and centre a building made from two kits. Rest was open ground. So the Daemons were deployed in clumps in the terrain. The scouting Ravenwing managed to by pass the winged monsters cover and the Keeper was lagging behind getting into the fight.

Horrors count as a lvl 1 Psyker. As such they can only gain powers that are one warpcharge in cost. This means that they have a 50/50 chance of getting either Tzeentch's Firestorm or Bolt of Change.

Yes, dude, I forgot it was a D3 you rolled for psychic powers and not D6 like the others. What a lemon!

Are you playing against yourself?

Sorry about the late reply, yes, just testing lists. I guess at least I am going to win, or lose!

I find it quite hard to do so, cognitive bias and all that

I try not to be biased and play it down the middle. Sometimes one army has lost due to gakky dice rolls. Of course tactics are out the window, but if I am anxious or bored it's handy for testing new armies or units etc.