Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So as the title says, what do you think about it? Kinda like how deathshroud can take wounds for mort. It would give people a reason to take occult terminators, would give Magnus more survivability and be pretty dn fluffy.
Thoughts?

Scarabs are more equivalent to the Blightlord Terminators. Nah.

I don't know...

On the one hand; Magnus really needs something to prevent him from being insta-killed on turn one,

But on the other hand; you can kind of make a case that, when Morty is standing (rather than flying) and hunched over, a Cataphractii sized model would be able to take the hit for him, but with Magnus being the towering giant he is? I don't think so.


Magnus definitely needs something, maybe you could buy Screamers as an upgrade for Magnus that act like shield drones: they'd fly around him and take shots for him.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Scarabs are more equivalent to the Blightlord Terminators. Nah.

yeah, the idea of a body guard unit is a good one (IMHO every army should have one) but you'd need something unique. I'd have gone with I dunno a unit called the "Rehati Guard" terminator armor clad Maybe make them sorcs who cast together ala brotherhood of psykers.

Mostly i was trying to make 1)Magnus have something to help screen him, and 2) To make people actually have a reason to take scarab occult terminators.

Magnus really does need something though.

I think it would be better to fix him through his own rules; but what about something that's kind of similar? e.g- each time he suffers a wounding hit, he can choose to allocate it against any unit within 6" (friend or foe) but must lose one manifest/deny attempt until the end of his next turn?

Alternatively, in Age of Sigmar the new rules for Morathi limit her to losing only 3 wounds in a single turn, this seems like something that every Primarch should really have, as really all of them are vulnerable to being killed in a single turn, not just Magnus.

Nah mort is hard to kill in a single turn, simply because of all his saves he has. Magnus you just need to get a few multi wounds in in him and he is fethed. Hell almost every game he just drops to volume of fire.

That's why I was thinking of something to pass wounds off on him.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Nah mort is hard to kill in a single turn, simply because of all his saves he has. Magnus you just need to get a few multi wounds in in him and he is fethed. Hell almost every game he just drops to volume of fire.

Which a wounds suffered per turn cap for Primarchs could solve; it doesn't matter if one Primarch (Mortarian) doesn't need it as often. It still seems like it would make sense for all Primarchs to have such an ability, as Guilliman is too easily killed as well; granted he has some ways to mitigate it, but he's still not that durable really, not for the huge power rating/points required.

I also gave an alternative way that Magnus could offload wounds btw; I just don't think that it's right to solve the problems of a character by creating or modifying another unit, as it doesn't actually fix the underlying problem (that the character's rules need improving).

Taking units to make characters more durable is all well and good, but the characters should be durable enough to justify their own cost in the first place, the added cost of a bodyguard should be more of an upgrade on top of that.

That sounds like an AWFUL rule.

 JNAProductions wrote:
That sounds like an AWFUL rule.

Curious as to why? As mort can do this with death shrouds

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
That sounds like an AWFUL rule.

Curious as to why? As mort can do this with death shrouds

Sorry, that was NOT directed at the OP. That rule is, if perhaps not fluffy, mechanically sound.

I was referring to the "Max X wounds per turn" mechanic. THAT is a steaming pile.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
That sounds like an AWFUL rule.

Curious as to why? As mort can do this with death shrouds

Sorry, that was NOT directed at the OP. That rule is, if perhaps not fluffy, mechanically sound.

I was referring to the "Max X wounds per turn" mechanic. THAT is a steaming pile.

Oh ok, yeah I'm personally not a fan of that.
Imo I think Magnus needs some work. I would give occult the ability to attach themselves to Magnus, limit one squad can do this at the start of the game. And they can soak wounds. Would also make it so smite can target any unit not just closest.

I was explaining it to a friend and Magnus imo is one of the weakest LoW because he is the easiest to counter. Simply put a screen unit infront of your big awesome unit and sure he can do 2d6 smite....against gaunts then get directly targeted turn one and nuked.

Nah, Magnus is even too resilient at the moment. Ok there are some armies that unleash a ridiculous amount of fire that can instant kill him, but those armies should be fixed, not Magnus' survivability. Nerf the shooty gunlines.

Mortarion should be a bit easier to kill. I hate those damned highlanders

No Magnus is not resilient lol, even with full survival buffs he is on a 3+ with no fnp. He drops really fast, he is only T7 with 18 wounds and can be targeted over units.

 Blackie wrote:
Nah, Magnus is even too resilient at the moment. Ok there are some armies that unleash a ridiculous amount of fire that can instant kill him, but those armies should be fixed, not Magnus' survivability. Nerf the shooty gunlines.

Are you kidding? Even when Magnus had his re-roll to save, if I didn't get first turn then Magnus was dead. With the first turn I could get off the 3++ save and he'd last two turns. This was against IG, SM, CSM, TS, Nids, Orks, etc.

Taking one thing down in two turns by focussing the entire army is insane

A TAC list (not something with basically only lascannons) should struggle to kill a dude like Magnus in 1-2 turns. Unless it's one of the few overpowered armies, and even then you need the entire list to shoot at him to take him down. How many lascannons or equivalents do you need to kill something like that in a single turn with average rolls?

With orks it's basically impossible to kill him by shooting unless (maybe) you bring a pure shooty army, which is going to lose against anyone, including the Magnus list.

Even if someone manages to kill him, it's only 445 points IIRC. I usually lose more points in turn 1 with drukhari and way more points with orks unless I bring a green tide

For average armies the best way to deal with those superheroes is to ignore them and focus on everything else.

 Blackie wrote:
Taking one thing down in two turns by focussing the entire army is insane

A TAC list (not something with basically only lascannons) should struggle to kill a dude like Magnus in 1-2 turns. Unless it's one of the few overpowered armies, and even then you need the entire list to shoot at him to take him down. How many lascannons or equivalents do you need to kill something like that in a single turn with average rolls?

With orks it's basically impossible to kill him by shooting unless (maybe) you bring a pure shooty army, which is going to lose against anyone, including the Magnus list.

Even if someone manages to kill him, it's only 445 points IIRC. I usually lose more points in turn 1 with drukhari and way more points with orks unless I bring a green tide

For average armies the best way to deal with those superheroes is to ignore them and focus on everything else.

That works... If you have nothing big and expensive. And even that might not work at Mortarion, since he pops mortal wounds to everyone nearby and has Sweep attacks.

As for how many Lascannons...

18 wounds is 5.14 d6 damage wounds, so we'll assume 5 (you spend a single command point rerolling low damage or something).
5 unsaved wounds is 10 wounds.
10 wounds is 15 hits.
15 hits is 22.5 at BS3+, or 30 at BS4+.

Plasma, meanwhile, takes exactly 9 unsaved wounds (if Overcharge).
9 unsaved is 18 wounds.
18 wounds is 27 hits.
27 hits is 40.5 at BS3+ or 54 at BS4+.
Which, if taking Scion Command Squads, is only...
640 points, INCLUDING the Primes. And that's WITHOUT orders making them better.

This is the problem with Magnus and why he is one of the weakest Lords of war. He is VERY easy to counter. As I said before, you screen with gaunt, sure he can charge and smite gaunt s but guess what you just used a 400 point+ model to kill gaunts or guard which will step out and let everything shoot at him.

For his points Magnus is a one trick poney which is hope you can kill something big and you go first turn. I have played dozens of games with him and only once did he make his points back. This was also fully buffed. He needs more survivability, you til he gets that he is a very weak LoW because of how easy he is to counter.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Taking one thing down in two turns by focussing the entire army is insane

A TAC list (not something with basically only lascannons) should struggle to kill a dude like Magnus in 1-2 turns. Unless it's one of the few overpowered armies, and even then you need the entire list to shoot at him to take him down. How many lascannons or equivalents do you need to kill something like that in a single turn with average rolls?

With orks it's basically impossible to kill him by shooting unless (maybe) you bring a pure shooty army, which is going to lose against anyone, including the Magnus list.

Even if someone manages to kill him, it's only 445 points IIRC. I usually lose more points in turn 1 with drukhari and way more points with orks unless I bring a green tide

For average armies the best way to deal with those superheroes is to ignore them and focus on everything else.

That works... If you have nothing big and expensive. And even that might not work at Mortarion, since he pops mortal wounds to everyone nearby and has Sweep attacks.

As for how many Lascannons...

18 wounds is 5.14 d6 damage wounds, so we'll assume 5 (you spend a single command point rerolling low damage or something).
5 unsaved wounds is 10 wounds.
10 wounds is 15 hits.
15 hits is 22.5 at BS3+, or 30 at BS4+.

Plasma, meanwhile, takes exactly 9 unsaved wounds (if Overcharge).
9 unsaved is 18 wounds.
18 wounds is 27 hits.
27 hits is 40.5 at BS3+ or 54 at BS4+.
Which, if taking Scion Command Squads, is only....
640 points, INCLUDING the Primes. And that's WITHOUT orders making them better.

So more than 20 lascannons or 40+ plasmas to take him down in a single turn. It's an INSANE amount of anti tank In fact I think only AM and eldar, the two most overpowered armies, can have TAC lists with the math to kill him in a single turn. If dark reapers are going to be nerfed maybe I'd even consider only AM able to do the job.

And even with plasma scions, the most reliable and undercosted source of plasma, you need to invest way more points that the cost of Magnus himself. And the LoW can be screened quite effectively against plasma and prevent the double tap since TS have access to cultists.

If GW makes him more tough, his cost should be raised as well.

 JNAProductions wrote:
That sounds like an AWFUL rule.

How constructive.

It's a perfectly fine rule if the goal is as suggested to ensure that a primarch can't simply be eliminated on turn one, and fits perfectly well with their fluff as supposedly incredibly resilient fighters without peer. You set the number low enough to prevent a single turn death, but high enough that you're still being punished for letting them get caught in a heavy crossfire, i.e- you can still lose them by turn two.

Functionally it's not much different to offloading the wounds onto a unit, but fits the fluff better as it seems ridiculous that a giant winged daemon prince should be able to be covered by significantly smaller troops who act as damage sponges for someone that's supposed to be formidable in their own right. The core problem here is that Magnus' rules don't match up to how he should play, requiring a player to spend even more on bullet sponges doesn't solve that problem at all, it's just an expensive patch job.


You, like everyone else it seems, appear to have also totally ignored my other suggestion, which is to make offloading wounds a property of Magnus himself, by letting him sacrifice a manifest attempt in his next psychic phase, in exchange for offloading a wounding hit on a nearby unit (not necessarily an ally) within say 6". Though this is limited by how many powers you're willing to give up for the turn (i.e- enough firepower could still overwhelm this ability), it feels a lot more fluffy and is a little more effective as you can potentially "reflect" damage onto enemies (though not on a first turn since you won't be near any).

 Haravikk wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
That sounds like an AWFUL rule.

How constructive.

It's a perfectly fine rule if the goal is as suggested to ensure that a primarch can't simply be eliminated on turn one, and fits perfectly well with their fluff as supposedly incredibly resilient fighters without peer. You set the number low enough to prevent a single turn death, but high enough that you're still being punished for letting them get caught in a heavy crossfire, i.e- you can still lose them by turn two.

Functionally it's not much different to offloading the wounds onto a unit, but fits the fluff better as it seems ridiculous that a giant winged daemon prince should be able to be covered by significantly smaller troops who act as damage sponges for someone that's supposed to be formidable in their own right. The core problem here is that Magnus' rules don't match up to how he should play, requiring a player to spend even more on bullet sponges doesn't solve that problem at all, it's just an expensive patch job.


You, like everyone else it seems, appear to have also totally ignored my other suggestion, which is to make offloading wounds a property of Magnus himself, by letting him sacrifice a manifest attempt in his next psychic phase, in exchange for offloading a wounding hit on a nearby unit (not necessarily an ally) within say 6". Though this is limited by how many powers you're willing to give up for the turn (i.e- enough firepower could still overwhelm this ability), it feels a lot more fluffy and is a little more effective as you can potentially "reflect" damage onto enemies (though not on a first turn since you won't be near any).

It's a terrible rule because then you can be sure I will be putting my Magnus out there in the open, first line with no cover whatsoever, because I know I will be getting a turn to play no matter what. I would have an immortal model on the table. In fact I could put ALL the important units of my army in reserve and just leave Magnus and some cultists on the field. This way I guarantee that you can spend your turn shooting at nothing but cultists, and I would have no worries about being tabled ever because I just happen to have an unkillable model.

This was really a terrible idea.

Here's a better one, quite thematic too: Magic made manifest.

Flavor: If Magnus is wounded, he can choose to siphon through the magic energies of his subjects and create a mystic field to protect himself from harm. The experience leaves the subject struck by the massive psychic backlash.

Rule: Whenever Magnus suffers an unsaved wound, you may select a friendly THOUSAND SONS psyker within 9" of him. Magnus ignores the suffered wound. Then randomly roll one of the psychic powers known by the selected psyker. The psyker loses that power for the remainder of the battle.

 Blackie wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Taking one thing down in two turns by focussing the entire army is insane

A TAC list (not something with basically only lascannons) should struggle to kill a dude like Magnus in 1-2 turns. Unless it's one of the few overpowered armies, and even then you need the entire list to shoot at him to take him down. How many lascannons or equivalents do you need to kill something like that in a single turn with average rolls?

With orks it's basically impossible to kill him by shooting unless (maybe) you bring a pure shooty army, which is going to lose against anyone, including the Magnus list.

Even if someone manages to kill him, it's only 445 points IIRC. I usually lose more points in turn 1 with drukhari and way more points with orks unless I bring a green tide

For average armies the best way to deal with those superheroes is to ignore them and focus on everything else.

That works... If you have nothing big and expensive. And even that might not work at Mortarion, since he pops mortal wounds to everyone nearby and has Sweep attacks.

As for how many Lascannons...

18 wounds is 5.14 d6 damage wounds, so we'll assume 5 (you spend a single command point rerolling low damage or something).
5 unsaved wounds is 10 wounds.
10 wounds is 15 hits.
15 hits is 22.5 at BS3+, or 30 at BS4+.

Plasma, meanwhile, takes exactly 9 unsaved wounds (if Overcharge).
9 unsaved is 18 wounds.
18 wounds is 27 hits.
27 hits is 40.5 at BS3+ or 54 at BS4+.
Which, if taking Scion Command Squads, is only....
640 points, INCLUDING the Primes. And that's WITHOUT orders making them better.

So more than 20 lascannons or 40+ plasmas to take him down in a single turn. It's an INSANE amount of anti tank In fact I think only AM and eldar, the two most overpowered armies, can have TAC lists with the math to kill him in a single turn. If dark reapers are going to be nerfed maybe I'd even consider only AM able to do the job.

And even with plasma scions, the most reliable and undercosted source of plasma, you need to invest way more points that the cost of Magnus himself. And the LoW can be screened quite effectively against plasma and prevent the double tap since TS have access to cultists.

If GW makes him more tough, his cost should be raised as well.

At this point, Orks are probably the only army that couldn't drop Magnus in a single turn of shooting. Dark Eldar can do it easily since Dark Lances are so cheap and readily available (lets not include poison in that, the nerf to the splinter cannon this edition means that you're probably not going to be able to put that much into him), Craftworld Eldar can easily do it without Dark Reapers (and when you take the Dark Reapers out you find that they're not that powerful). Heck, you can do it with just big squads of Guardians, a couple stratagems and psychic powers. Nids have lots of options to do it easily and it looks like Necrons are getting a few as well.

Daemon Primarcks are like Knights, they are very rock, paper, scissors in that you can either drop em real easy or you struggle.

 Imateria wrote:

At this point, Orks are probably the only army that couldn't drop Magnus in a single turn of shooting. Dark Eldar can do it easily since Dark Lances are so cheap and readily available (lets not include poison in that, the nerf to the splinter cannon this edition means that you're probably not going to be able to put that much into him), Craftworld Eldar can easily do it without Dark Reapers (and when you take the Dark Reapers out you find that they're not that powerful). Heck, you can do it with just big squads of Guardians, a couple stratagems and psychic powers. Nids have lots of options to do it easily and it looks like Necrons are getting a few as well.

Daemon Primarcks are like Knights, they are very rock, paper, scissors in that you can either drop em real easy or you struggle.

I've never killed magnus with dark eldar in a single turn of shooting. I haven't shot him off the board in one turn of shooting with SW either. Sure drukhari can have 25 dark lances but how does a list with mostly only anti tank perfom in a TAC meta? Very badly, according to my experience. So I never bring more than 11-12 lances to my list with also a 3-8 blasters. With average rolls it's very hard to kill him unless you tailor the opponent's list. Now if I tailor the TS list I may be able to kill the primarch in a single turn, but it's not I play my games.

SW can have tons of lascannons but they would perform terribly against lots of common lists. In fact with them I never bring more than 6 lascannons (tipycally just 4) and 3 plasma guns, which are the only ranged anti tank that I usually have.

In a meta in which dealing with hordes is the key, because if you can't do it you auto-lose the game, the possibility of instant kill a primarch is not that appealing. And losing 450ish points of stuff in a single turn of shooting is not that uncommon for orks or drukhari, that's why losing magnus in a single turn shoudn't be a big deal if the rest of the army is spared. Against a regular TAC list the TS player that starts second should have magnus damaged and a few other stuff killed or wounded in turn 1.

No a list of 25 dark lances performs pretty well considering they always hit on 3 regardless.

The problem with magnus as i have said outta all the lords of war he is the weakest, because he is the easiest to counter. The problem is that a 450 point model can esily, and i mean VERY easily be blasted off the table turn one, with only about 300 points of models. Like if magnus does not get buffed, 2 russ's can blast him off the field if they, which they would be, using stratagems.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
IMO magnus either needs to have any of the following combinations to make him worth taking again.

1) Point reduction

2) Master of the warp: Any warp power that says you must target the closest model, or unit, can instead target any unit or model within range of the spell. (Because right now, you can counter magnus by putting up a screen of the most basic units and sure you are smiting them for 2d6 but at the end of the day you are smiting chaff units. Magnus needs a way to attack stuff that is a threat to him. )

3) Scarab occult terminators need to gain the following rule: Court of the Crimson King: If a model in this unit is within 6" of magnus the red, and magnus takes a wound, on a 2+ this model may intervene and take the wound as if it was being hit. Armor and saves of this unit are used for saving throws. (Right now the only way magnus stands a chance is to blow 2 of the most powerful spells to keep his ass alive, Weavers of fate, and glamour of tzeentzch)

topaxygouroun i wrote:
It's a terrible rule because then you can be sure I will be putting my Magnus out there in the open, first line with no cover whatsoever, because I know I will be getting a turn to play no matter what. I would have an immortal model on the table.

Have fun doing that, as you'll definitely lose him by turn two in that case, meanwhile once he's wracked up the maximum wounds lost for that turn your enemy can go right to shooting whatever they want in the rest of your army; just because he can't take anymore damage doesn't mean the rest of the damage your opponent can dish out is somehow wasted, or that you're not still going to be hurting afterwards, especially with damage tables in effect.

topaxygouroun i wrote:
In fact I could put ALL the important units of my army in reserve and just leave Magnus and some cultists on the field.

Good luck ever finding another opponent to play against; alpha striking and reserves being a whole mess of broken right now doesn't make any one rule bad if it serves its intended purpose, especially when there are plenty of other ways to exploits reserves right now.

It is also in fact a rule currently in use by Morathi in Age of Sigmar.

topaxygouroun i wrote:
This was really a terrible idea.

I have tried to contribute constructively and got nothing but gak, and other ideas I have also given have been totally overlooked. You don't like one idea? Fine; say so and move on, yet apparently everyone here has decided that dog-piling and gaking on everything is better than trying to be constructive or having a little respect.

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Here's a better one, quite thematic too: Magic made manifest.

Flavor: If Magnus is wounded, he can choose to siphon through the magic energies of his subjects and create a mystic field to protect himself from harm. The experience leaves the subject struck by the massive psychic backlash.

Rule: Whenever Magnus suffers an unsaved wound, you may select a friendly THOUSAND SONS psyker within 9" of him. Magnus ignores the suffered wound. Then randomly roll one of the psychic powers known by the selected psyker. The psyker loses that power for the remainder of the battle.

This is basically the same as one of the other alternatives I suggested several times, but no, you had to waste your entire post attacking me and not actually reading half of what I said, didn't you?

Edited by RiTides

The idea of saying magnus can only take x wounds is a really bad idea, because at most you would have to say he can take 9 wounds a turn, other wise, he is guaranteed to stay on the board 3 turns. So yes what he did say by going "Im just going to run magnus forward" is exactly what you would do with him because you would have an importal model. "I took my x wounds, sweet what ever i cahrge into does not matter if they swing at me i already took my wounds lol good luck." Its a very bad mechanic.

This thread is getting too heated - if you don't like a proposed rule and have expressed so, please just move on and don't lash out at other posters.

This also goes for if you don't like the feedback given about a rule you've proposed - there's absolutely no need to attack other posters, just agree to disagree and move on, or if you want to engage further, politely make your case.

Any questions, just PM me - thanks all.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
No a list of 25 dark lances performs pretty well considering they always hit on 3 regardless.

It's too much anti tank for a TAC list. You value the drukhari list as a SM, but with that many points invested on anti tank it will struggle a lot against hordes. I agree that drukhari with tons of anti tank do pretty well against MEQs but luckily not everyone plays power armors My meta is full of hordes, if I don't counter them somehow by screening the gun boats or bringing close combat units like the beast I auto-lose turn 1, even with 25 lances. And drukhari untis that don't spam lances are all quite expensive for what they do.

Again killing the superhero is not the goal in 40k. I haven't played tons of games against TS but I never lost against Magnus with drukhari and I also never killed him before turn 3-4. Same with orks, pretty much every game I won against TS Magnus was alive at least till turn 4, if not till the end of the game.

It would be interesting to ask TS players how many times their LoW died in turn 1-2 and they still won the game.

Well ok if you are going against a horde sure they are not good, but you said against MEQ. So yes, Darukhai list is pretty good against MEQ but weak against horde.

Thats good you have not killed him before turn 2, but its very easy to do, and thats the problem with magnus. For a 450+ point model, he is really weak. Many people dont realize that T7 is not that big of a deal anymore and still really easy to wound through.

As someone who plays Tsons, i can tell you i have only won a single game with mangus in my list, and that was only because he took out a massive transport and the wolfen taht were inside before he got ripped to shreads by them in a single turn of combat. I ended up switching him out for 2 preds, and it performs MILES better because they have more wounds collectively, more firepower, the ability to place that firepower were i need, vs magnuses smite which has to hit he closest unit.