Wyldhunt wrote:Very cool. My own Thousand Sons army's fluff revolves around the recruitment of mortal psykers, so I wish there were more units like this one readily available to chaos. (Even having access to wyrdvane and primaris psykers would be nice.) Some disorganized thoughts:
Yeah, in general mortal cultists and followers seem to have been unnecessarily neglected in 9e; it feels like backlash against the way Cultists dominated
CSM lists in 8e. Adding more specific "cult" troops seemed like a reasonable workaround.
Wyldhunt wrote:* Corscuating Flames: S: User is an interesting choice. Is the intention that you use a psychic power from a sorcerer to up their strength thus upping their power as well as their melee power? I like that.
* Maybe add a wargear option in the same slot as the scroll and vulcharc to let them cast a psychic power (or use a psychic action) in the Psychic Phase to buff their Coruscating Flames strength until the end of the turn?
Coruscating flames are actually just copied direct from Horrors, who
do have a few ways to up their Strength. The eventual intent was to also add "Conjured Horrors" etc as an option for
TS, and make warpflamers, coruscating flames, etc, all part of the same "flame weapons" list, but I haven't got around to that. In the meantime, it's just... a thing they do. Watch this space, I guess!
Scroll of Dark Arts is basically just the new Icon of Flame, but with tweaked mechanics to feel different and suit the unit. It "gives" you 2
CP in one blob, instead of 1
CP each round, meaning you can sacrifice the Acolytes more freely once you've used it.
Wyldhunt wrote:* The vulcharc is interesting. Doing mortal wounds on a 2+ against
GK, 1k Sons, and Tzeentch daemon opponents jumped out at me as a red flag, but their limited availability (despite the low unit cost) and 4+
BS probably keep these from being
OP. Being able to harass the enemy from beyond line of sight could give the unit as a whole an interesting role, and the limited range forces you to keep them close enough to the enemy force to sweat a little. I think I like it.
It's sort of balanced against other, similar snipers; a mortal wound on a 4+/6+, on a 24" S3
AP-1 weapon, is weak even for a sniper. It makes up for it with the . The anti-PSYKER trait allows it to act as active anti-Deny (with it also hitting PRIESTS, who often have Deny tech), but it's still a 4+/2+ within 24", meaning you're doing less average damage than any of the "good" sniper rifles; no-one takes a Hexrifle, and even with a move-and-shoot penalty that'll still land as much damage on
anyone as a Vulcharch will do against a Sorcerer or Librarian (and three times as much against anyone else) with less range.
Wyldhunt wrote:Oh, and I assume it's intentional that a model can be equipped with both flames and a vulcharc (and thus shoot both)?
Fluff-wise, is this a gun? A daemon bird thing? Something else?
Yes, it's intentional, and oh, whoops – yes, it's a bird. Realised I forgot to include a link; the whole unit is just these guys:
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Kairic-Acolytes Wyldhunt wrote:* Cursed Blades: Rerolling to-wound rolls is an interesting choice. Any particular reason you didn't make the second blade offer +1 Attacks instead? Both work. Just curious about your thought process.
* Arcanite Shield: I love me some, "stop hitting yourself," mechanics. I wonder if the low invul save makes this a worse option than the second blade though. The double blades will up the amount of damage you do every time you fight. The shield will only up your damage when you're getting wailed on, and the 6+ invul isn't going to add a ton to your survivability. I guess the advantage of the shield is that you might take some enemies with you when you get charged, but a 10 man squad will average less than 2
MW via their shields before they die.
But also, this unit is very cheap, so I get that you don't want to make them too badass.
These guys are sort of meant to be the "ranged answer" to Tzaangors, with an 18" shotgun and a Sorcerer-boost, so I didn't want to emphasise melee too much – the cursed blades/arcanite shields are an
option, because those models exist, but making them especially buff in melee wasn't the intent. Partly because, as you've noted, that'd drive up their cost. Re-rolling wound rolls isn't much weaker than +1A, in practice, but it's less likely to explode. Then again, Chaos Cultists can get 2A and a pistol without trading on Tzaangor toes, so just making "Twin Cursed Blades" into a Chainsword/Brutal Assault Weapon might not be the worst idea. Would need to drop the
AP-1 entirely to ensure the costing's okay compared to Cultists.
Same deal with the shields – I'd actually also add those as an option for Tzaangors, who can after all use them in
AoS (probably up their "autopistols" to S4, too – so you've got either the ranged aspect or the +1AP of the double-blades).
Note that since these guys benefit from Brotherhood of Sorcerers, they get a 5+ invulnerable save regardless – the arcanite shield just means you're bouncing back damage on every
other save. It might be worth extending the mortal wounds to ranged attacks, as well, but I suspect that would make them too scary as Objective-Squatters; get a blob of 20, and it'll only take 30 wounds to kill them, but they'll do 5MW back in the process.
Wyldhunt wrote:* I really like Sorcerous Chant. This is exactly the sort of thing I want 1k Sons' mortal supporters to do.
* Don't forget to give the unit the Psyker keyword.
* These guys are cool, but their limited ability set doesn't quite scratch my itch for mortal psykers with a variety of powers supported by units that utilize those powers. I might have to stat that concept up and share it on here if no one beats me to it.
Good catch on the PSYKER keyword.
I'm glad you like Sorcerous Chant.
AoS handles "minor wizards" by just giving them a preset spell baked into their warscroll, and psychic actions seem like a possible mechanical workaround to the "no more than one of each power per round" restriction without just adding "you can do this more than once" to every power. I'm definitely going to reuse that tech on Horrors, who currently are useless for Smite purposes but also can't do much of anything else.
I didn't want to turn these guys into another Smite battery, or give them access to the full range of THOUSAND SONS powers, not least because their cheapness meant that could potentially be too strong. However, I also wanted them to be "minor sorcerers" – so giving another THOUSAND SONS PSYKER another power to use each round seemed like a decent compromise, and a fluffy one to boot. They're basically a "+0.5" power – you keep them hanging around a Rubric squad or something, and that Aspiring Sorcerer gets to Smite
and use another power. Warp Charge 6 looks a little high, but with Brotherhood of Sorcerers is effectively a 2+ (83%).
What sort of extra capabilities were you thinking of? I did consider creating a "minor Discipline" of weaker powers for cultists, horrors, etc to draw from, but that felt like a lot of work and potential mishaps for a fairly niche application. I could give them a half-damage Smite? Or an alternative "Psychic Action" that generates Cabal Points or ups the Strength of the unit?