Warhammer 40K Tabletop XX: "Barrage is the new Precision Shot."

[Cheesegear]

Warhammer 40,000 in the Playground

I'm new to the hobby. Which army should I start?
It really depends on what you want to play. And how your meta-game shapes up. Find out what everyone else is playing near you, and play anything not those armies for best results. Otherwise, if you're starting from scratch with no-one really to play with - or, you've got a friend who is also starting from scratch - buy the Dark Vengeance starter box.

What's Dark Vengeance?
Dark Vengeance contains a rulebook and a bunch of dice.

It contains roughly 850 Points worth of Dark Angels. However, it only contains around 500 points worth of Chaos Space Marines. Of course, if you're playing DV as it's meant to be played, you're never using all of the models at once so the points difference doesn't really matter.

However, in practical terms, the Dark Angels are only barely legal and lack enough Scoring models. And, while the CSMs are legal, they're almost 300 points behind and lack anything that packs a decent punch. You will also need the relevant Codecies for your faction as it will dramatically change the way you play the game as opposed to using the reference sheets that come with DV.

How much does it cost?
The Dark Vengeance box, one Codex, one other box of your choosing, and a Starter Paint Set costs you about the same as a Playstation 3 and one game*. In both cases, you'd be good to go for about a month. This author thinks of most boxes as console games, and Flyers and Land Raiders are the AAA-Title Collector's Edition game. The difference being that in this hobby you can use all your 'games' at the same time, and continuously.

Is WH40K expensive? Yes. I suppose it is. We all know it is. But, practically speaking, it's no more expensive than any other hobby.

*Priced in $AU where everything is more expensive - although the ratios should be the same.

Okay, I've got everything. What next?
Play some games. Playing some actual games, is a far, far better learning experience than anything you could glean from the internet. Although we really would appreciate some stories and how you're finding your army.
Find out what works for you, find out what doesn't (just because the internet likes something, doesn't mean you will too). You, more than anyone know who your opponents are and what they're putting on the table. You are in the best position to find out what you need to bring to the table.

However, if you're still stuck. Just ask.

How many points do I need? What size board do I need?
There are ways that you can play 200, 400 and 500 point games using altered rules. But, if you want to play the game as-is, the recommended minimum is 750.

The game 'balances out' at 1500. Most games should be played at this level since pretty much all armies get a fair shake.

However, in other meta-games, find out what the local tournament standard is. Most people in your area should be playing at that points level. While you're at it, here's How to write an army list. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8702512&postcount=1358)

As for board size; a 4x4' table can accommodate up to 1250 with reasonable room left for movement. But, after that you should probably look at finding a 6x4' area. The floor is never a bad start.

I did what you said and I still lost. What gives? :smallfurious:
First, this game is all about dice. Dice are random (most of the time anyway), sometimes you just get bad rolls all game and there's nothing you can really do about it. It's best to accept it, otherwise you're not going to have a very fun time.

Sometimes your opponent can make a minor change in his list - like changing from Plasma Cannons to Lascannons. That can totally alter the flow of the game and what happens when they next play you.

Sometimes the terrain placement is just bad (or the terrain itself is bad) and right from Deployment you can find yourself getting shot at and there's nothing you can do about it. Really, this can only stress how important terrain can be to how the game gets played.

And, lastly, maybe you just 'did it wrong'? Maybe you used [X] to shoot [Y] when they should have been shooting [Z]. Maybe you Charged, when the better move could have been moving backwards and Rapid Firing instead? There are all sorts of ways you can be out-played. You didn't just lose because your opponents' Queens are overpowered.

Terrain? You said this hobby was only as expensive as any other.
Yes and no. Most of your 'starting' terrain can be household items. Books. Soda-cans. Small boxes. Whatever.

If you look around the internet, you can also find a few tutorials on how to make some really decent-looking terrain. Made out of what you essentially would have otherwise thrown in the bin.

Only GW Terrain actually costs you any significant money. Making your own should only cost a few dollars tops - and your time and effort.

How much terrain do I need?
Up to 12 pieces is the official word. However, that can get crowded pretty fast if you've got big pieces.

A better guide is roughly anywhere between 25-33% of the board should be covered by terrain. On a standard 6x4' table, you would want anywhere between 6-8' square of terrain. It seems like a lot. But if you divide that up to 7-12 pieces, it doesn't look like much. Or you could just put a 2x3' block in the centre of the board. :smallsigh:

I don't like using Special Characters, and I think Allies are dumb.
Your opponents probably don't. Special Characters are pretty powerful and there's no real reason that you shouldn't be using them if your opponents are. That's not to say that all Special Characters are good - they aren't - and certainly don't get the impression that just because it's a Special Character that you need to use it - you don't. But some of them are still good and they do make certain armies a lot better.

However, Allies, on the other hand. Are often a required part of the game. Some armies just don't have the units required to fend off other units. Does this make the game unfair? Kind of. But, GW doesn't update their entire range at once (it's a big range), and so some units are always going to be better than others. But, allowing Allies is a big step to evening the playing field.

So which Allies should I pick?
This guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13492157&postcount=1424) is very rough. But should provide you with at least a starting direction.

I can't paint.
Like any skill worth having, you get better if you practice. 90% of a good paint job is just brush control - how much paint you put on your brush and where you put it. The other 10% is just colour theory (yeah, it's a thing). The most important tool this author has is a $5 Colour Wheel. :smallwink:

But, on a more serious note, the only real reason that you need to paint is if you want to participate in tournaments. Well, that and painted models just look better - if you've practised, of course.

Unfortunately, painting is a practical skill, not knowledge. The only person who can get you better at painting is you. Wraith has put together how you can go about Painting your army without losing your mind. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8722344&postcount=1421)

Which army is the best?
That's a loaded question. It depends what points limit you're playing at (at 1500 there really isn't one). But, there is no 'best' army. Plasma beats Terminators beats Mech beats Plasma. 40K is much like Rock, Paper, Scissors. None of the armies are 'best', as each army can be countered. Some armies are better than others, but there is no 'best'.

However, as you play the game you will notice that your Codex doesn't have the units that beat another Codex. That's not to say that you haven't won any games, and it's not to say that your opponents' armies haven't lost several games to armies that just aren't yours. It just means that your army can't beat your opponent's army with what you've got available to you. That's why Allies need to be in the game.

Wait, so there are bad Codecies?
Yes. But, every Codex should be usable between 1000-1500 points. So, no matter what army you pick, you'll be okay within those points limits, or, you should be. If you find that your Codex/Army isn't doing well against certain opponents, and there's nothing you can do; You may need Allies.

Helpful Army Building Guides
Updated for 7th
Chaos Space Marines (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17547175&postcount=1006)
Dark Angels (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17579222&postcount=1095)
Grey Knights (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17538310&postcount=973) by Squark
Necrons (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17533986&postcount=962) by Squark
Space Wolves (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17532761&postcount=948) by Squark
Tyranids (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17664323&postcount=1310) by Wraith

Forge World
Siege Assault Vanguard (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17668255&postcount=1326)


Old Guides from 6th Edition
Adepta Sororitas (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16440792&postcount=491)
Blood Angels (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15825876&postcount=1137)
Chaos Daemons (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14858222&postcount=851)
Chaos Space Marine Supplements (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?303801-Warhammer-40K-Tabletop-XIX-quot-Understand-the-gravity-of-the-situation-quot&p=17182178&viewfull=1#post17182178)
Dark Eldar (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15863892&postcount=1175)
Eldar (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15908731&postcount=1213)
- Codex: Iyanden (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?341687-Warhammer-40K-Tabletop-XX-quot-Barrage-is-the-new-Precision-Shot-quot&p=17348755&viewfull=1#post17348755) by Wraith
Inquisition (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?303801-Warhammer-40K-Tabletop-XIX-quot-Understand-the-gravity-of-the-situation-quot&p=17188866&viewfull=1#post17188866) by Wraith
Orks (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16334503&postcount=358) by Wraith
Space Marines (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16065638&postcount=66)
- Space Marines Supplements (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?303801-Warhammer-40K-Tabletop-XIX-quot-Understand-the-gravity-of-the-situation-quot&p=17194651&viewfull=1#post17194651)
Tau Empire (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15454276&postcount=563) by Tome
- Farsight Enclaves (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?341687-Warhammer-40K-Tabletop-XX-quot-Barrage-is-the-new-Precision-Shot-quot&p=17347839&viewfull=1#post17347839) by Tome

Guide to Apocalypse Units (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15727700&postcount=1014)
Warzone: Damnos (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16015574&postcount=1418) - Ultramarines vs. Necrons
Warzone: Pandorax (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=16466457&postcount=514) - Chaos Space Marines vs. Catachans, Dark Angels and Grey Knights
Warzone: Damocles (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17231655&postcount=1305) - Tau Empire vs. White Scars, Raven Guard, Imperial Guard and Knight Titans

Forge World
(IA1/2E) Imperial Guard Armoured Battle Group (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16838329&postcount=972) by Issabella
(IA2/2E) Space Marine Vehicles (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16977518&postcount=1084)
(IA3/2E) Elysian Drop Troops (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?341687-Warhammer-40K-Tabletop-XX-quot-Barrage-is-the-new-Precision-Shot-quot/page3&p=17310139#post17310139) by Issabella
(IA9 / 10) Space Marine Chapter Tactics and Special Characters (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16807713&postcount=890)
(IA12) The Dark Harvest (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16994548&postcount=1096) - Necrons
(IA12) The Minotaurs and Krieg Assault Brigade (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=17033958&postcount=1143) - Space Marines and Imperial Guard

30K/Legion Rules
Legion Crusade Army List (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17232158&postcount=1308)
Legion Special Rules (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17243267&postcount=1322)
The Primarchs (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17250802&postcount=1330)



Previous Threads
* Warhammer 40K Tactics (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29297)
* -II- Tactics for the Tactics God (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101608)
* III - Hats for the Hat Throne (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119333&highlight=Warhammer)
* IV - The Enemy of Your Enemy is Still Your Enemy. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=133984&highlight=Warhammer)
* V: Everyone Is On Fire. Some Moreso Than Others. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141538&highlight=Warhammer)
* VI: Chaos Bringing Eternal Darkness? I brought my flashlight. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=149084&highlight=Warhammer)
* VII: Common Sense is not RAW. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=156779&highlight=Warhammer)
* VIII: "You're Gonna have To Face It, You're Addicted To Maths (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165820)
* IX: "Mech Is King? I Never Voted For It!" (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=175990)
* X: "Everybody expects the Inquisition!" (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=184538)
* XI: "More Threads than your Tactical Squad has Room for!" (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=193025)
* XII: "Now in Rapid Fire range!" (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=199750)
* Warhammer 40K Tabletop XIII: "Ironclads, Furiosos and Soul Grinders, oh my!" (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=208838)
* Warhammer 40K Tabletop XIV: "Pray for 6s!" (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=221858)
* Warhammer 40K Tabletop XV: "More People Should Be Punched In The Head." (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=232277)
* Warhammer 40K Tabletop XV: "Terminator? I hardly know 'er!" (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=248423)
* XVII: "Tyranids Don't Have Friends." (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=265917)
* Warhammer 40K Tabletop XVIII: "Fortune Favours the Careless!" (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=282842)
* Understand the Gravity of the Situation (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?303801-Warhammer-40K-Tabletop-XIX-quot-Understand-the-gravity-of-the-situation-quot)

Here's a bunch of Battle Reports (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15044260&postcount=1114) for you to read. Plenty of army lists in there.

[Cheesegear]

So, only one Ally combo has come out of Astra, and it's the same as the old one, with the new favourite.

Azrael gives the Blob a 4++. In close combat, the Priest allows his unit to re-roll Invulnerables. That's about it.

Vendettas being more expensive means that they're less likely to show up in Allied Detachments.
1-3 ML2 Divination Psykers is pretty cool, especially for Sisters who have nothing. Or you can roll on Telekinesis and hope one of them gets Gate - roll for Psychic Powers before Deployment, remember?

Also, has anyone been defying the internet and doing really well with Tyranids? Specifically, I'm looking for people who have been doing well in 1000-1500 marks. I've been noticing that people with huge swarms dominate low point games, and I notice that lists with 6+ MCs are smashing the crap out of people. But, in the middle ground, where opponents actually get to have toys, and Tyranids don't get to have as many toys as they want, things kind of just...Blergh.

[Rakaydos]

Are 'Dettas still 10 man transports, of did the rumored nerf hit them?

[Saambell]

Are 'Dettas still 10 man transports, of did the rumored nerf hit them?

They were nerfed. 6 models now.

Also it is now possible to get 15 Leman russes into the list if you don't mind missing orders and want complete Armoured Power. I hear this is not actually that useful.

[Rakaydos]

sounds like my allies are shifting to laser/missile valkeries, then.

Does anything in the codex get Valkeries as dedicated transports?

[Cheesegear]

They were nerfed. 6 models now.

You can still put Commands or Special Weapons Squads inside, which is what people were doing anyway.


Also it is now possible to get 15 Leman russes into the list if you don't mind missing orders and want complete Armoured Power.

Just checking to see if you're right (you are), but then I found this gem;
"...count as an HQ choice for the entire of the battle."
Yay, editing!

Two Tank Commanders are 60 Points
Leman Russes average out to 145 Points each (depending on which ones you want in which combination).
Comes to 2235 Points, without Troops.
15 Eradicators make the list 1860, without Troops.

So, you can. But, like the Blood Angel army with 9 Dreadnoughts or 17 Land Raiders (BA/BT makes it an even 20), you can do it, but it's unusable.

Also, a Commander Squadron is worse because in Big Guns, Leman Russes can Score, except they wont when put in the HQ slot.
You're better off taking a single Tank Commander by himself, and another two Leman Russes straight from Heavy Support, and then for some reason they 'just so happen' to be in coherency, like what Sanguinor does when he doesn't want to get shot at. The Tank Orders aren't that good anyway.


Does anything in the codex get Valkeries as dedicated transports?

Nope. You're going to need Forge World for that. IA8, if I'm remembering correctly. Although with Fliers being in Reserve, I think the list is unusable in 6th only usable as Allies. I'll have to check.

[Renegade Paladin]

Yeah, but Russes in the HQ slot (with orders! And BS4!) have an argument for being more useful than in Heavy, especially given competition from Wyverns (seriously, I want one; that's a scary amount of firepower for a platform that cheap) and Manticores, and even more so because of the parenthetical.

[Caimheul]

sounds like my allies are shifting to laser/missile valkeries, then.

Does anything in the codex get Valkeries as dedicated transports?

Strictly speaking? No.
BUT: You can take the Airborne Assault Formation from the Militarum Tempestus Codex which doesn't count as your Allied detachment. 4 Valks, full stormtrooper Platoon loaded up in them, and a Commissar attached to one of the squads. Bare bones comes in at 82 melta guns.

[Saambell]

Tank Commanders only have 3 orders that only affect their unit. so if you want the orders for the other units then no such luck. they do however get to split their fire to target 2 units, which normal Russes can't. So its still good to get a command squad in a transport.

[Renegade Paladin]

Tank Commanders only have 3 orders that only affect their unit. so if you want the orders for the other units then no such luck. they do however get to split their fire to target 2 units, which normal Russes can't. So its still good to get a command squad in a transport.

I'm aware of the fact. But I'll pay the points to make a squadron of Russes better at their job any day of the week.

So here's a question. Yarrick has the Chain of Command rule, which states that he can't be Warlord unless there's no model with the Senior Officer rule in the primary detachment, but he himself has the Senior Officer rule and higher Ld than company commanders. What the what?

[Caimheul]

You're better off taking a single Tank Commander by himself, and another two Leman Russes straight from Heavy Support, and then for some reason they 'just so happen' to be in coherency, like what Sanguinor does when he doesn't want to get shot at. The Tank Orders aren't that good anyway.

Except the Tank Commander requires you to take at LEAST a second Leman Russ to be in his squadron... so with the cheapest tanks, it's a 27 meltagun investment.

Edit:

I'm aware of the fact. But I'll pay the points to make a squadron of Russes better at their job any day of the week.

So here's a question. Yarrick has the Chain of Command rule, which states that he can't be Warlord unless there's no model with the Senior Officer rule in the primary detachment, but he himself has the Senior Officer rule and higher Ld than company commanders. What the what?
I'l agree it's pretty pointless for him to have the CoC rule, but at least he fits the criteria for him to be Warlord... *shrug* not the worst rule to be added in... Unlike Executioner cannons suddenly "Getting hot" :smallannoyed:.

[Cheesegear]

So here's a question. Yarrick has the Chain of Command rule, which states that he can't be Warlord unless there's no model with the Senior Officer rule in the primary detachment, but he himself has the Senior Officer rule and higher Ld than company commanders. What the what?

Yarrick is always your Warlord, unless he isn't. Only Creed himself can tell Yarrick what to do.


Except the Tank Commander requires you to take at LEAST a second Leman Russ to be in his squadron.

No it doesn't. It just doesn't make much sense if you don't. Basically, the only reason the Tank Commander is there is because you want a Tank as your Warlord.

[Renegade Paladin]

No it doesn't. It just doesn't make much sense if you don't. Basically, the only reason the Tank Commander is there is because you want a Tank as your Warlord.
Yeah, it actually does. Read the army list entry.

[Cheesegear]

Yeah, it actually does. Read the army list entry.

That'll teach me for reading the unit entry in the fluff section. :smallyuk:

[Caimheul]

Yarrick is always your Warlord, unless he isn't. Only Creed himself can tell Yarrick what to do.



No it doesn't. It just doesn't make much sense if you don't. Basically, the only reason the Tank Commander is there is because you want a Tank as your Warlord.
From the book, second "option" under Tank Commander in the back part of the book: "The Tank Commander's squadron must include 1-2 other Leman Russ tanks chosen from those listed on page 102."
Edit:
Ninja'd! :smalltongue:

[Rakaydos]

Are the warlord traits any good? What warlord traits does Creed, Yarrik, or Straken get?

[Cheesegear]

Are the warlord traits any good? What warlord traits does Creed, Yarrik, or Straken get?

Creed rolls twice on any Warlord table and gets both, can roll on different tables.
Yarrick makes units immune to taking Morale checks from 25% casualties in a single phase (basically Fearless in the Shooting phase).
Straken makes his unit Relentless (also Straken is Fearless and Monster Hunter).
Pask has Preferred Enemy vs. any one Codex, chosen during Deployment, not list creation. Which is kind of great to pass onto other Leman Russes in his unit*.

*Basically, Pask is the only Tank Commander worth having.

[Caimheul]

Are the warlord traits any good? What warlord traits does Creed, Yarrik, or Straken get?


d3 units in primary detachment get outflank
Pick a Codex during deployment before scout/infiltrate, Warlord and Unit have Preferred Enemy against all enemy units from that codex
Units from this codex in 12" of warlord do not take morae tests for 25% casualties (Yarrick)
Warlord and Unit have Relentless (Straken)
Warlord gets Voice of Command. If already has VoC, can issue orders to units from this codex witin 18"
Warlord gets Voice of Command. If already has VoC, can issue one additional order each turn.

Creed gets 2 Warlord Traits instead of 1 (can be from different tables)

Edit: Some interesting ones, but overall I'm kinda meh. Probably going to stick with my Div Inquisitor as warlord.

[Renegade Paladin]

They took Stealth, Move Through Cover, Feel No Pain, and Infiltrate away from Harker. His points cost remains unchanged. :smallyuk:

[Caimheul]

They took Stealth, Move Through Cover, Feel No Pain, and Infiltrate away from Harker. His points cost remains unchanged. :smallyuk:

And Chimera's went up 1 meltagun in points, lost 3 fire points at the "gain" of shooting three flashlights out each side at BS3 so long as there are models inside to shoot them, potentially at different targets than the other guns. At least Vets went down in price by the same amount, so mounted vets still cost the same bare bones. No point really on buying the third special weapon now either, so saved a few more points.

Edit: Although I guess one could add a heavy flamer as the third weapon purely for overwatch...

[Renegade Paladin]

Measuring things, especially vehicles, in meltaguns isn't a particularly useful metric, both because meltaguns aren't the be-all, end-all of weaponry in the game (especially if everyone trades in their vehicles for meltaguns) and because the number of meltaguns you can have is rather more severely limited by the number of special weapon slots in the army than by points to buy them with.

[Caimheul]

It's a means of indicating point value to people with access to a book with the price for meltas listed, without posting actual point values, something GW tends to frown upon. Didn't mean to imply based on the melta's usefulness, as I too believe apples should be compared to apples. :smallsmile:

[Cheesegear]

It's a means of indicating point value to people with access to a book with the price for meltas listed

Which is pointless, because anyone who has the Codex to know what the point listing is, can clearly see what the actual points value is.

'1 Thunderfire Cannon' is really only used as a measurement for rumours and stuff that hasn't actually been released yet. Once stuff is actually released, hiding things in code is pretty much pointless.

EDIT: I had a look through IA8, Elysian Drop Troops with the Valkyries as Dedicated Transports. It's terribly underpowered right now because of the massive changes to Astra Militarum. Everything in the Elysian Drop Troop army list is over-costed and terrible. Besides, you don't need Valkyries to be Dedicated to put stuff in them.

[hamishspence]

They took Stealth, Move Through Cover, Feel No Pain, and Infiltrate away from Harker. His points cost remains unchanged. :smallyuk:

His heavy bolted did gain the Rending rule though.

Has there been a pattern of nerfing everything that was exceptionally good (to the point of being overpowered)? And would Harker's Catachan Devils squad qualify?

[Caimheul]

True, but sometimes people are away from their books but remember that a meltagun hasn't changed in points from the last version of the IG codex and is the same cost in I think all the different Imperial Codexes. It's a habit I picked up from other forums. And individual point value listings ALWAYS earn the ire of GW, released or not released. That's why so many fan forum's will moderate posts with point values in them.

[Cheesegear]

Has there been a pattern of nerfing everything that was exceptionally good (to the point of being overpowered)?

I guess the biggest nerf that I can think of is Tyranids not having access to Biomancy.
Everything is kind of a 'totally justifiable points increase' like Tervigons and Vendettas. So I'm not certain that that counts as a 'nerf'.
I'm trying to think of anything in the Chaos Codex that got worse, and I can't really think of anything being forced to Challenge with every character you own sucks. Other than that, everything in the Chaos Codex is 'bad' by the virtue of Cultists and Heldrakes being so good. inb4; Thousand Sons and Dreadnoughts Helbrutes were always bad.
Dark Angels are kind of crap, but, they always have been.

Oh. Oh. Daemons losing their Eternal Warrior. That's a huge nerf, especially in a Codex that has a lot of T4 multi-wounds with no saves (5++ doesn't count). However, that being said, in a Codex that does have a lot of T4- multi-wounds, giving them all Eternal Warrior is kind of overpowered.

Straight up removal of certain units; Doom, Marbo and Medusas though, does that count as a 'nerf'?


And individual point value listings ALWAYS earn the ire of GW, released or not released.

Not really. What they don't want you to do is say

Super Chicken (50)
Feathers of flight (20), Cluck of Doom(35), Beak of Piercing (10)

And replicate the Codex wholesale.

However, saying that a Dozer Blade is 5 Points is totally fine. Unless what you're talking about hasn't been released yet. However, in my Crimson Slaughter write-up, I did do this, and I compared things to a Sigil of Corruption's points cost, because, did you know that instead of this terrible Relic, you could take a Sigil of Corruption instead? Because I'm making a direct comparison. Comparing things to Meltaguns isn't helpful. Either it's pointless because the people you're talking to either know what you're talking about anyway, or, comparing Meltaguns to Dozer Blades doesn't work.

If nobody was allowed to mention points costs at all, whole sections of the 40K community would be shut down. That's not the case.


EDIT: So...No-one plays Tyranids? Or nobody has any success with them? Or both? Or did my question get lost?

[hamishspence]

I guess the biggest nerf that I can think of is Tyranids not having access to Biomancy.
Everything is kind of a 'totally justifiable points increase' like Tervigons and Vendettas. So I'm not certain that that counts as a 'nerf'.

That's pretty much how I'm using the term - for all changes of power downward - not just ones that make something nonviable.

From my perspective, Vendettas have been "nerfed from overpowered to moderately strong".

"Unit removed" I probably wouldn't include, since we can't compare "Old Unit" to "No Unit At All".


However, in my Crimson Slaughter write-up, I did do this, and I compared things to a Sigil of Corruption's points cost, because, did you know that instead of this terrible Relic, you could take a Sigil of Corruption instead?
You mean this bit?


Relics of the Crimson Slaughter

Balestar of Mannon: Sorcerer only. For the price of a Sigil of Corruption, gain a Spell Familiar. And you can roll on the Divination table. The downside? The Sorcerer loses any bonuses to Deny the Witch that he would normally have. Who cares? For 10 Points I have ML3 Divination now. Unfortunately, it is a Relic and you can therefore only have one.

[Cheesegear]

From my perspective, Vendettas have been "nerfed from overpowered to moderately strong".

That's one way to look at it.


You mean this bit?

Okay, I meant the Black Legion stuff. Which I wrote at the same time that I did Crimson Slaughter...


Spineshiver Blade: For double the points of a Mark of Slaanesh, you get a Power Sword, Daemon Weapon that also gives you the effect of a Mark of Slaanesh.

Crucible of Lies: For its points cost, and the cost of -1 Toughness, you get to have the ability of a Chaos Daemons Daemon of Tzeentch. You're paying the cost of a Sigil of Corruption

Last Memory of the Yuranthos: Psyker only. For the cost of the Burning Brand

The Eye of Night: For three times the cost of a Sigil of Corruption (yes, really, that many points)

Spineshiver Blade is asking you to ignore the Mark of Slaanesh and Power Sword combo, and look what you get for the exact same points.
Crucible is so bad. Re-roll 33% of your Invulnerables in addition to the price of having an Invulnerable in the first place.
Super Sunburst is effectively replacing the Burning Brand, so, I felt the comparison apt.
Eye of Night is just awful.

[hamishspence]

Eye of Night is just awful.
That said:

Vehicles hit by the Eye take D3 Penetrating Hits! (!!!!). That's auto-stripping Hull Points and doing damage. The only downside is its enormous points cost.

On Vendettas:

That's one way to look at it.

How would you rate Vendettas at the moment?

Regarding Interceptor - there's one IG unit (Forgeworld only) that has it - the Sabre platform.

Would you say that's probably the best way for IG to get it - or are Allies or Defences (Icarus?) better?

[Cheesegear]

How would you rate Vendettas at the moment?

Same as I rate Heldrakes or Sternguard. Really good. But you're paying for it.


Would you say that's probably the best way for IG to get [Interceptor]?

Tau.

[hamishspence]

Tau do seem to be some of the best Interceptors around.

I could see someone with a "no-allies" preference picking Sabres instead though.

[Cheesegear]

I could see someone with a "no-allies" preference picking Sabres instead though.

So, Forge World is allowed, but Allies aren't?
...What a weird meta.

[hamishspence]

It wouldn't be a case of "Allies not allowed" but of the person wanting to field an army that are all "Imperial Guard" in this sort of case.

[Eldan]

Yeah, I know people like that. They want a "pure" army.

[Cheesegear]

It wouldn't be a case of "Allies not allowed" but of the person wanting to field an army that are all "Imperial Guard" in this sort of case.

I guess it doesn't matter so much to Astra Militarum, because they can do anything. Adding Forge World into the mix makes it worse. The only thing right now in the game that Astra can't deal with are the 2+/+ rr units. I mean, Astra aren't even that afraid of the Heldrake. Great. You paid 175 Points for an AP3 Template. You know a 5-point Flamer does the same amount of damage, right? That being said, a Heldrake can wipe out a Command in one shot, FNP or not.


Yeah, I know people like that. They want a "pure" army.

I guess to me, that doesn't make sense, because the game doesn't work that way anymore.
Supposedly 7th Ed. is being announced sometime in May to boost the end-of-year financials (more likely Codex: Orks, but, rumour-mill will say anything to get page views).
If Allies make a return in 7th, then we'll know that GW wants us to use Allies and that not using Allies isn't the way that the game is meant to be played.

[Drasius]

Psykers have ML2 Divination. It's not great. But you can have three of them for a little over 200 Points (plus your Warlord)


Is this a sign of the metrics changing from what used to be OMGWTFBBQ overpowered to the new norm, is somewhat irrelevant due to orders, the old guard codex being fairly strong already or something else I'm missing?

[Cheesegear]

Is this a sign of the metrics changing from what used to be OMGWTFBBQ overpowered to the new norm, is somewhat irrelevant due to orders, the old guard codex being fairly strong already

...Yes.
Primaris Psykers can not be your mandatory HQ like they used to be. Which means you will be taking a Company Command Squad - or Yarrick. And then you have to spend extra points on a Primaris.
Company Command Squads are ML2 Psykers for 60 Points. They know 9 Powers each, that you don't need to roll for.
The best Power in most circumstances is Divination #4; Ignores Cover.
Company Command Squads have this Power as standard. You don't need to roll.
For 20 Points, the Command Squad becomes ML3 and knows the best part of Scrier's Gaze.

Company Command Squads are immune to all effects that target Psykers (i.e; Grey Knight Mindstrike Missiles) that are currently making a comeback due to needing to deal with Councils. Company Command Squads do not suffer Perils of the Warp either.

Look at Divination. Look at how Guard work. It's just not that important.

[Eldan]

I guess to me, that doesn't make sense, because the game doesn't work that way anymore.
Supposedly 7th Ed. is being announced sometime in May to boost the end-of-year financials (more likely Codex: Orks, but, rumour-mill will say anything to get page views).
If Allies make a return in 7th, then we'll know that GW wants us to use Allies and that not using Allies isn't the way that the game is meant to be played.

Probably, yes. But most people I know put more value on how their army looks on the table than on how well it plays.

[Cheesegear]

But most people I know put more value on how their army looks on the table than on how well it plays.

Can't people have both? In fact, I know people can have both.

[Eldan]

Sure they can. But if a model looks ugly, people won't play it. And many people only like the look of one or two armies, so they won't ally with any others.

[Drasius]

...Yes.
Primaris Psykers can not be your mandatory HQ like they used to be. Which means you will be taking a Company Command Squad - or Yarrick. And then you have to spend extra points on a Primaris.
Company Command Squads are ML2 Psykers for 60 Points. They know 9 Powers each, that you don't need to roll for.
The best Power in most circumstances is Divination #4; Ignores Cover.
Company Command Squads have this Power as standard. You don't need to roll.
For 20 Points, the Command Squad becomes ML3 and knows the best part of Scrier's Gaze.

Company Command Squads are immune to all effects that target Psykers (i.e; Grey Knight Mindstrike Missiles) that are currently making a comeback due to needing to deal with Councils.

Look at Divination. Look at how Guard work. It's just not that important.

Heaps of low accuracy, low strength shots that rely on volume of fire with easy access to ignores cover? I would have thought precience would have been worth it's weight in no-you-don't-even-have-to-roll-for-it gold. Does Precience affect entire tank/sentinal squadrons or just the one model, cause squadrons re-rolling to hit with blast weapons would be pretty boss, especially since you might be flooding the field with a heap of armour with a tank commander armoured company and some psychers in a Chim/Bushmaster Taurox. 4++ on guard is also pretty win, as is firing overwatch on full BS for an army that will get charged a bunch and has a billion shots.

But then we all know Div is full of win.

I just (as a new player) struggle to see where div is not a great thing, especially on very large blob squads pumping out masses of low accuracy fire. Or anything really, but I would have thought guard would have the biggest benefit from it, doubly so since they can also take a bunch of plasma on their command/special weapons squads and twin linked plasma guns are the best thing since the Emperor in the plasma edition.

Not having a go at you, just trying to understand where my thinking has taken a wrong turn.

[Cheesegear]

Sure they can. But if a model looks ugly, people won't play it. And many people only like the look of one or two armies, so they won't ally with any others.

The only armies that I don't like the look of are Necrons and Space Wolves, but, I must be weird like that. Everyone around me loves Space Wolves and thinks Prospero Burns is the best thing ever written. Which makes me mad because Prospero Burns actually is the best-selling Horus Heresy novel so far.


Heaps of low accuracy, low strength shots that rely on volume of fire with easy access to ignores cover? I would have thought precience would have been worth it's weight in no-you-don't-even-have-to-roll-for-it gold.
4++ on guard is also pretty win, as is firing overwatch on full BS for an army that will get charged a bunch and has a billion shots.

First Rank, Fire! Second Rank, Fire! basically does the same thing as Prescience, in a roundabout way.
4++ is fantastic. I'm not going to say you're wrong on that one at all. Unfortunately, it's random.

[Issabella]

If you want to do the Guard...err Astra Militarum Air Calvery route I would suggest using the FW Elysian drop troops (IA 3 volume 2) has the most updated rules. I will work on a guide as I have this week off (have not played them, but I do have the rules :) )

[Cheesegear]

I will work on a guide as I have this week off (have not played them, but I do have the rules :) )

Do you have the new Astra book? Is everything in IA3 totally over-costed and awful?

...I should get IA3...But I really want HH3...
ARGH!

[Eldan]

The only armies that I don't like the look of are Necrons and Space Wolves, but, I must be weird like that. Everyone around me loves Space Wolves and thinks Prospero Burns is the best thing ever written. Which makes me mad because Prospero Burns actually is the best-selling Horus Heresy novel so far.

I feel that way about Warhammer Fantasy, where I love almost every army (Dwarves and empire are a bit boring, Bretons are just old and I don't like the look of Beastmen), but 40k? I can't think of a single human model I like, they are boring, all of them. Especially all the marines. I'll never understand why GW produces so many almost identical-looking armies.

Otherwise... I play Eldar and Nids, the models are cool. Necrons would be my third choice, they are quite awesome. I like building my own models from leftovers or conversions in general, so I dig orcs, too. Dark Eldar aren't bad. Tau are bland.

[Renegade Paladin]

I prepared two lists for today's initial test games, the first a rewritten list from the old codex and the second built from scratch to test a couple of the new units and reduced point costs. Sadly, we only got one game in, since I wound up playing with one of the shop owners and he had to keep going to the counter to deal with the kiddies and their Pokemon cards.

1500 points

Company Command Squad - 185
-Medi-pack, vox-caster, carapace armor
-Two plasma guns
-Chimera dedicated transport

Infantry Platoon - 190
-Platoon Command Squad
--Vox-caster
--Three flamers
-Infantry Squad
--Vox-caster
--Autocannon, flamer
-Infantry Squad
--Autocannon, flamer

Veteran Squad - 155
-Two meltaguns, heavy flamer
-Chimera dedicated transport
--Heavy flamer

Veteran Squad - 155
-Two meltaguns, heavy flamer
-Chimera dedicated transport
--Heavy flamer

Veteran Squad - 95
-Vox-caster
-Three meltaguns

Militarum Tempestus Squad - 100
-Two plasma guns

Valkyrie - 125

Devil Dog - 155
-Recovery gear, smoke launchers
-Multi-melta

Leman Russ Demolisher - 170

Manticore - 170

1500 points

Company Command Squad - 103
-Officer of the Fleet
--Laspistol
-Vox-caster, camo gear
-Three sniper rifles

Tank Commander - 475
-Vanquisher commander
--Lascannon
-Battle tank
-Battle tank

Enginseer - 40

Infantry Platoon - 335
-Platoon Command Squad
--Vox-caster
--Three flamers
-Infantry Squad
--Vox-caster
--Autocannon, flamer
-Infantry Squad
--Autocannon, flamer
-Heavy Weapons Squad
--Three missile launchers
-Special Weapons Squad
--Three meltaguns

Veteran Squad - 86
-Forward Sentries
-Three sniper rifles, autocannon

Veteran Squad - 96
-Forward Sentries
-Three sniper rifles, lascannon

Hellhound - 130
-Heavy flamer, smoke launchers

Vendetta - 170

Wyvern - 65

In the game we played, I used the first list. He fielded Chaos Marines, with two winged Daemon Princes, two squads of Obliterators, a squad of Chaos Marines with meltaguns, two units of pistol/ccw cultists, and a lascannon Predator. We rolled Big Guns Never Tire, Dawn of War deployment, night fighting first turn. I parked my Manticore on an objective behind a hill, combined infantry squad on another objective in a ruin, and ran my Demolisher for one of the midfield objectives and the veterans in Chimeras at the other. He got first blood, and then I blew up everything that left cover for the next five turns. The game ended 3-1 on objectives with one unclaimed (he blew up the Demolisher in turn 5 with a daemon prince assault) with first blood to Chaos and slay the warlord to Guard.

So far I like the codex, though I didn't really try anything new. The list that this one was adapted from had a Vendetta instead of a Valkyrie, but it didn't fit in the points and the veterans didn't fit in it, which helped him a bit, since the Valkyrie kind of ran around being ineffective after unloading its missiles into the Predator.

[LordDavenport]

So, played a 500 point game, I ran tau versus eldar.
Best moment... my comand squad of fire warriors and an ethereal lasting a full round in combat with the farseer on a death mission... and killing the rest of the far seers squad.

the lists:

Etherial
Fire warriors(x9)
emp grenades
fire warriors(x8)
fire warriors(x7)
Broadside
twinlinked high yield missile pod, twinlinked smart missile system, velocity tracker.
Hammerhead
sub-munitions, darksun filter.



Farseer
2xavengers(x10)
warpspiders
extarch had twinlinked webspiners, the +accuracy one, and the +1 shot thing.

purge the alien, tau deployed first, no one sized the initative.
It turned into a long shooting war, as the eldar moved in while the tau held their cover. the 9 and 7 stacks hung around the etherial in one area, while the 8 firewarriors hung out with the broadside and hammerhead. The hammerhead had a long string of misses, but were that submunition blast hit... everything died. The broadside mostly drew fire and died without inflicting cassualties... as it tried to assasinate the farseer, who had that silly invulnerable and ghost helm. didn't even get a wound on it.

Warpspiders got to close and were met by pulse rounds. as did most of the farseers squad. The other squad coming in on the heavy weapons flank did a lot better, eliminating the fire warriors of that flank in one shooting phase. until round 3, were the hamerhead ate 6 with one shot, and other fire warriors cleaned up the rest. Still, the etherials warriors suffered heavy casualties from the farseers squad, and when the farseer charged they failed to crumple like normal fire warriors. The fact the eldar lacked AP helped, and the fact that by that point most of the farseers squad was dead. it ended turn 5 with the farseer being the eldars only remaining model... and the Tau having the hammerhead, 2 fire warriors, and the ethereal.

So, tau slay the warlord(the farseer cast death mission), eldar got first blood, the tau killed 4 squads, the eldar killed 3. so 5-4 tau win. would have been a win for the eldar if the farseer wasn't using death mission.

Lessons learned: Etherials aren't the worst assault units... making me halfway tempted to give it a pair of equalizers, but only halfway.
Hammerheads are really nice artillery against Gecs and tanks. Meqs are a pain.
The broadside continues to be iffy. his high S shots are nice among the 5/5 pulse rifles, but he can die to dedicated Dakka and draws fire like a distraction carnifex.
+6FNP is really bad... like really, really bad.


Also: If I made a tau army with a allied detachment of imperial knights, and made "counts as" conversions using Gundam action figures, how much grief would I get? If they were properly sized?
For that matter, where could I find the dimensions for the imperial knight models?

[Renegade Paladin]

Also: If I made a tau army with a allied detachment of imperial knights, and made "counts as" conversions using Gundam action figures, how much grief would I get? If they were properly sized?
For that matter, where could I find the dimensions for the imperial knight models?
How much grief you get depends on where you play and the attitudes toward counts-as there. If you play at a GW shop, they simply won't allow it. Otherwise it depends on the owner's/host's attitude towards that sort of thing.

[Cheesegear]

Also: If I made a tau army with a allied detachment of imperial knights, and made "counts as" conversions using Gundam action figures, how much grief would I get? If they were properly sized?

Look, from a competitive perspective, Counts As is subjective. You're better off telling your opponents or asking your TO about what you want to do, and see what they say.

From a casual perspective, Counts As is still subjective. The most important thing about Counts As, is that it has to look good. Using 'Counts As' as a way to circumvent GW prices is generally a **** move. It's understandable, in a way. But your opponents are paying GW prices (or at least getting some of sort of bargain on the internet) to get the models that they need. I've seen Heavy Gears used in place of Crisis Suits, the similarities are amazing, but, the most important thing about the Heavy Gears was that they had been repainted to fit the Tau army. But, ultimately, if it looks bad, you're going to get grief. If it looks good, you will still probably get grief, but less so.

And, the point was made, but I'll say it again; You can not use non-GW models in a GW store/event.

[Renegade Paladin]

In a sign of how awesome Techpriests are now, GW is sold out. :smallamused:

[Cheesegear]

In a sign of how awesome Techpriests are now, GW is sold out. :smallamused:

What do you mean rules sell models? That's crazy talk. :smalltongue:

[LordDavenport]

See, I just circumvent GW prices by playing on vassal...

[Eldan]

That doesn't really compare, in my experience. Sure, it's nice to test a list. But without seeing your opponents and the models, something is just missing. Plus, I can't paint Vassal tokens.

[Cheesegear]

That doesn't really compare, in my experience. Sure, it's nice to test a list. But without seeing your opponents and the models, something is just missing.

QFT.

There are plenty of free games on the internet which you can use to pass your time. Vassal - IMO - is probably one of the worst ways you can spend that time.

[Issabella]

Do you have the new Astra book? Is everything in IA3 totally over-costed and awful?

...I should get IA3...But I really want HH3...
ARGH!

Off work tommrow will look at the point costs of Astra vs IA 1 (vol 2) the IG tank vehicle one, and IA 3 (vol 2) the Elysians to see what has changed. Granted the IA 1's Hyrdra's still ignore jink! :)

[Trixie]

So. New IG book.

Precision shots are something that happens when certain models roll a '6'. You can then assign wounds.

The problem: new order makes all shots from an unit precision shots, without any mention of 6s rolled.

Is 2+2 = 4? :smallconfused:

To make it worse, new relic (bolt pistol) grants precision shots, too. Since everyone who can take it already can do precision shots on 6 anyway, it seems the writer really meant 'every shot is assignable'.

Yes, that includes lascannons and krak missiles, too. Please, tell me I am wrong :smalleek:

Then there is Pask. Precision shots on rending gun? What else do you want? Oh, yes, twin-linking all that newly getting hot plasma tanks. Oh wait, only available from half a dozen places :smallwink:


***

Also, is it me, or was virtually every single model nerfed? Hydras, half or artillery missing, Marbo, almost all ICs lost special rules or are entirely MIA, Vendettas, veterans, Yarrick auto-blocks himself from warlording, Chimeras, and new models (Taurox and Vyvern) are kind of entirely outshone by old units anyway. Only new, better thing seem to be the orders. I do hope I am wrong, though.

[Renegade Paladin]

The "Take Aim!" order says that it gives the ordered unit the Precision Shot special rule. There is no Precision Shot USR, so I presume it means that all results of 6 can be allocated as per Precision Shots on page 63 of the core rules, not all shots that hit.

I can't account for the Emperor's Benediction. I can only presume all this will be the subject of errata when they get around to putting that back on their website.

[Tome]

Just checked my Tau codex and the Precision Shot wargear in there gets it right. I guess the writer of the IG AM codex forgot that Precision Shots isn't a special rule and that all ICs have it.

That, or the rumours about 7th are true and we're looking at a hint about the changes. :smalltongue:

[Squark]

Soo... Guard allies took a hit with the Points increase. I guess that makes Tau the nearly undisputed allies champ. Great. Or are there other sources of reliable flyer defense?

[Renegade Paladin]

Soo... Guard allies took a hit with the Points increase. I guess that makes Tau the nearly undisputed allies champ. Great. Or are there other sources of reliable flyer defense?
Yeah, burn a hundred points on an Aegis line and quad gun. Alternatively, if all you want is flier defense, ally in some Hydras instead of Vendettas.

[Requizen]

If you can take Necron allies, Night Scythes are still pretty decent as flying anti-air.

[Squark]

Yeah, burn a hundred points on an Aegis line and quad gun. Alternatively, if all you want is flier defense, ally in some Hydras instead of Vendettas.

Didn't consider hydras, although they wouldn't work as well in a vehicle light list.

As for an Aegis, the problem is that the gun isn't sturdy enough on its own. It is very easy to knock the turret out if your opponent wants to rob you of flier defense.

[hamishspence]

Just checked my Tau codex and the Precision Shot wargear in there gets it right. I guess the writer of the IG AM codex forgot that Precision Shots isn't a special rule and that all ICs have it.

Precision Shots isn't a character rule - its a shots rule.

Characters: "All To Hit Rolls of 6 are Precision Shots"
Eldar Pathfinders (I think) "All To Hit Rolls of 5-6 are Precision Shots"
Illic Nightspear & Telion: "All shots are Precision Shots"
Sniper: "All To Hit rolls of 6 are Precision Shots"

Thus, I figure that Take Aim, and the Emperor's Benediction artefact, follow the existing precedent.

[Rakaydos]

So if I'm understanding this discussion, right, you can have an entire guard platoon focus their flashlights on the guy in artificer armor for a single order?

[Cheesegear]

So if I'm understanding this discussion, right, you can have an entire guard platoon focus their flashlights on the guy in artificer armor for a single order?

No. People aren't understanding the difference between Precision Shots, the rule, and Precision Shots, the thing that happens.

Take Aim!: All models have the Precision Shot special rule.
Precision Shots (special rule): If any of your character's shots roll a 6 To Hit, these are Precision Shots.

Basically, it's the 'level' joke from OotS. No-one thought to look in a thesaurus, so we get confusion.

Also, you're doing Precision Shots wrong. You can make Look Out, Sir! rolls against Precision Shots (which is why Precision Shots are totally not what they say they are, Barrage is more accurate), you're better off focusing all of the flashlights against the guy with the Missile Launcher who has to take it.


Also, how do people pronounce Kor'Sarro? I say it exactly how it's spelled. But, I know a lot of people who pronounce it sharro.

[Rakaydos]

Also, you're doing Precision Shots wrong. You can make Look Out, Sir! rolls against Precision Shots (which is why Precision Shots are totally not what they say they are, Barrage is more accurate), you're better off focusing all of the flashlights against the guy with the Missile Launcher who has to take it.

That's true if you're only getting a handful op precision hits. But if the "every shot is an automatic precision shot" interpretation was correct, well... with 100 las shots, 50 hits, 33 wounds, 5.5 through LoS, almost 1 wound through Terminator armor.

[hamishspence]

No. People aren't understanding the difference between Precision Shots, the rule, and Precision Shots, the thing that happens.

Take Aim!: All models have the Precision Shot special rule.
Precision Shots (special rule): If any of your character's shots roll a 6 To Hit, these are Precision Shots.
There is no "Precision Shots" special rule in the Special Rules section. Even in the character section, it's not laid out as a rule the character has, but as a rule their To Hit rolls of 6 have.

The Sharpshot rule for Telion (and its equivalent for Nightspear) say that all of their shots are Precision Shots.

It makes sense for this to be what "Take Aim" gets as well.

Otherwise, issuing the Take Aim order to a Ratling squad would be completely pointless.

As would the existence of the rule in the Emperor's Benediction weapon description.

[Drasius]

... Precision Shots are totally not what they say they are, Barrage is more accurate...

Also, how do people pronounce Kor'Sarro? I say it exactly how it's spelled. But, I know a lot of people who pronounce it sharro.

That should make it's way into the title of the next thr... oh, wait a minute! /sarcasm I C wot U did thar!

CoarseArro', but now you've made me think about it, he will forever be Cor, Blimey Khan. Thanks for ruining the White Scars for me Oh Mighty Cheesed One of Many Gears.

[Issabella]

OK Point differences between the New IG...ehhh Astra Militarum...and IA1 Vol 2. I am going to use the new IG book as the baseline (as more have access to that). Not doing vehicles that are FW exclusive now, such as the Vulture

Equipment: Camo netting for IA is 5pts more (expected on an all vehicle list)

Chimera: IA's is 10pts cheaper, and retains the old firing points (until FaQ)

Scout Sentinals: Same points, but IA's has search lights auto included, and can take HK missiles or multiple rocket pod. but a H.flamer is a 5pt upgrade while free for IG.

Armoured Sentinal: IA's is 15pts more expensive, same equipment differences as above.

Vendetta: IA's is 40pts cheaper and still has scout and deep strike...for now

Hellhound Family
Hellhound: IA's is 5pt more, Devil dog 15pt's less!, banewolf the same. Multimelta's are 5pts more expensive for IA.

Hydra Flakk Battery: IA's is 5pts more expensive, still denies jink saves (worth 5pts I would say).

Basilisk: Same (except IA can take Medusa and Colossus bombard! so big edge to IA there!)

The 'Russ family!

Upgrades: IA pays 5pts more for the hull Lascannon, Sponsons are 10pts more expensive for H.flamer, same for H.bolter, 10pt more expensive on other options

Battle Tank: same
exterminator: 20pts more expensive
Vanquisher: 25pts more expensive
Eradicator: 30pts more expensive
Demolisher: 10pts cheaper
Punisher: 40pts more expensive
Executioner: 35 more expensive (without gets hot)

So wide variety of pt's differences yeah FW/GW communication.

[ZeltArruin]

Also, how do people pronounce Kor'Sarro? I say it exactly how it's spelled. But, I know a lot of people who pronounce it sharro.

As spelled.

I'm reminded of how some people pronounce C'tan with an 's' sound rather than the hard 'c'/'k' sound. Are they playing Nesrons, then? Sanoptek Wraiths?

[bluntpencil]

As spelled.

I'm reminded of how some people pronounce C'tan with an 's' sound rather than the hard 'c'/'k' sound. Are they playing Nesrons, then? Sanoptek Wraiths?

How do you pronounce 'Cyclone Missile Launcher'?

English, unlike Turkish and Korean, doesn't have a phonetic alphabet. Letters don't have one sound each.

[ZeltArruin]

How do you pronounce 'Cyclone Missile Launcher'?

English, unlike Turkish and Korean, doesn't have a phonetic alphabet. Letters don't have one sound each.

No, but there are correct and incorrect ways to pronounce things, even made up names. Basically, GW uses Tolkien for a lot of things, Eldar words, Necron, blah, Tolkien used hard c's in elvish, GW does the same with their made up words.

[Eldan]

How do you pronounce 'Cyclone Missile Launcher'?

English, unlike Turkish and Korean, doesn't have a phonetic alphabet. Letters don't have one sound each.

Hey, we might have Greeks here who prefer "Kyklone". Don't make assumptions. :smalltongue:

[Issabella]

Elysian Drop Troops IA vol III, 2nd edition (most recent rules)

AKA: So I hear you like Valkyrie's and having a difficult army to transport...and possibly no friends at the end of the day!


Editor's Note: I lack IA 8, so no special character rules. Nor have I played Elysian's this is based of having the rules and a brother-in-law with the army.

The Elysians are the opposite of the mass swarm guard armies such Kreig, they can be considered a reverse of the other FW Imperial guard army The Armoured Battle Group (ABG). The Elysians play like guard with more manuverable options, no heavy armour, less heavy weapons, but more flyers then anyone save Necrons, and can infact out flyer even them. Every Elysian infantry has the OPTION of taking a Valkyrie. Note this means they do not always have too take the transport option unlike ABG where it is mandatory. The most current rules for the Elysians are in the Taros campaign, IA 3 second edition, with un-updated special characters still in IA 8 Raid on Kastorel-Novem.

Fluff wise the Elysians are supposed to be an elite void warfare and essentially a paratrooper esque regiment for the Imperial guard. Sadly the FW writers have a seriose snuff hard on for these guys that is only rivaled by the poor fluff fate of the Lamenters chapter. In near every fluff mention of the Elysians get summoned by a Space marine chapter to preform their usual mission of drop in, establish a beach head and withdrawl only to have the marines abandon the Elysians to a horrific massacre, seriosly it gets old like re reading WWII operation Market Garden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Market_Garden) over and over!


Combat drop: OK so your whole army can potentionally start in reserve on flyers which usually means auto loose, think of this as the Elysian version of drop pod assault. Controlling players first turn can select up to half of the Sentry gun batteries, drop sentinel squadrons and Valkyries and Valykrie sky talons (NOT Vendetta's) arrive via deep strike. Yes Elysian flyers can still arrive via deep strike (and I have no clue how that effects their movement first turn?)

Iron Discipline: (company/platoon comand) if within 6 of a model with rule can regroup on unmodified leadership even if <25%.

Equipment:
Tracking Beacon: "Friendly units" (no apparent restriction..) do not scatter via deep striking within 6 of the beacon

Auxillary Grenade launchers: shoot frag or krak grenages 12 inches

Long range ground scanner: set the mode "before the game begins". can not be changed mid game.
Long range sweep: Denies each infiltrating unit on 4+, and -1 to opponents reserves as long as the model with scanner is not falling back.
Short Range lock: a friendly Elysian unit within 12 (unlimited if recieving unit has a vox) on a 4+ gets twin linked this turn. Can not effect barrage and ordanance.

Imperial Navy Upgrades:
Flare/Chaff launchers: 4++ invul vs missles on the turn it is used
Armoured cockpit: ingore shaken/stunned on 4+
Infra-red: night vision
Illum Flares: drops like bombs cancels night conditions within 12 of final placement
Distinctive Paint scheme: one use, while on the board, a unit that can draw line of sight to the flyer can re-roll a single Morale Check


Elysians can Allie as per Imperial Guard, so all shenanigans are legal.
*can take a Valkyrie as a dedicated transport


Elysian Company Command Squad*; apparently Elysians forgot how to give or recieve any orders, so nothing to forget. This is a Basic Company Comand squad that can only add a Officer of the Fleet and bodyguards. The Comander can have a tracking beacon. This is your only source of the Long Range ground scanner, but each veteran can have one!

Lord Commissar who can also take melta bombs and a tracking beacon.

HQ:



Storm Trooper Squad*; two special weapons per squad, 5 man base. As this referes to the 5th edition IG book they still use the Special Operations from it, including "Hot Drop": On any turn after teh first in which a Storm trooper Squad arrives using deep strike while in a Valkyrie they can declare a charge as long as they do not run or shooti n the same turn, in addition the Valkyrie gains the Assault Vehicle special rule that turn...Yes assaulting from reserves exists still!

Drop Sentinel Squadron: can still take multi Meltas, can deep strike, combat drop, or take a Sky Talon (a complicated Valkyrie that can carry vehicles with an expensive kit, that really is not worth it)

You can safetly skip the entire Elite section, points are better spent else where. Altough the drop sentinels models are great



Elysian Drop Infantry Platoon consists of 1 Command Squad, 2-5 Infantry Squads, 0-4 Heavy weapons squads, 0-3 Special Weapons squads, 0-1 Drop Sentinel Squads

Elysian Platoon Command Squad*, a platoon command squad, no heavy weapons options, 4 specials, tracking beacon.

Elysian Infantry Squad*, a guard squad that can include a commisar, no heavy weapons.
Elysian Heavy Weapon*, H.bolter or Missle Launchers only.
Elysian Special Weapons*, 3 special weapons.

Elysian Drop Sentinel (see elites)

Elysian Veteran Squads* A vet squad 3 special weapons with a H.flamer option. May choose Carapace armour, or inflitrate (sergeant has a tracking beacon), or Demolitions so melta bombs for all!)

Troops: honestly both tactically and financially Veteran Squads, just take Veteran squads! Take them in Valkyries and forward Observers. These are your troop options!



Valkyrie it is your 5th edition Valkyrie for the price of one Thunder Fire Cannon, you will be building lots of these!

Valkyrie Skytalon, a (0.7 TFC) Valkyrie that has vector Dancer, deep strike and can carry two Sentinals or a Tauros. It's cool, it's fluffy, it's very skippable



Tauros Squadron a fast open topped scout all terrain vehicle with search lights and light AV that can be taken by sky talons. And like the Sky Talon, it can be skipped because you are spending your points on...

Imperial Navy Gunship Support Squadron.
1-3 flyers either Vendetta or Vultures (must all be the same)

Vendetta: same as the old 5th edition guard in all its undercosted glory! (1.3TFC) still with the 12 carry capacity!

Vulture: I am very biased I love the Vulture the ugly future bastard off spring of an attack helicopter/ A10 Warthog. it has Vector Dancer, deep strike and straffing run! It starts at (1.05 TFC) with a heavy bolter, two Hellstrike missles, twin linked multi-laser, and exta armour. Fromt ehre you can equip it for anti air, ground, vehicle, or horde, it has all the options!

Both Flyers have access to the Navy special equipment.

Fast Attack, take Vendettas and Vultures as points and money allows, you can do no wrong, skip the Tauros.



Elysian Sentry Guns, deep striking automated twin linked heavy bolters or lascannons that can have camo netting, with a game set firing protocal. Nice but not necessary.

Elysian Cyclops Demolition Squad* A Valkyrie carrying a cyclops demolition vehicle. This is pure pure Forge world. Cool, stupidly over complicated method of deliverying a one use str 9 ap 3 large blast ord. It is fluffy, but ultimatly not worth it.

Especially when you can take

Imperial Navy Air support: a Tunderbolt, Lightning or Avenger...go for the Thunderbolt,cool model best weapon options load out.

[Trixie]

There is no "Precision Shots" special rule in the Special Rules section. Even in the character section, it's not laid out as a rule the character has, but as a rule their To Hit rolls of 6 have.

The Sharpshot rule for Telion (and its equivalent for Nightspear) say that all of their shots are Precision Shots.

It makes sense for this to be what "Take Aim" gets as well.

Otherwise, issuing the Take Aim order to a Ratling squad would be completely pointless.

As would the existence of the rule in the Emperor's Benediction weapon description.

Yeah, the above. "Precision Shots" rule doesn't exist, and besides IG have it worded like Telion does, not like every single Codex until now that granted normal infantry targetable shots on 6s. By RAW, every single guardsman is mini vindicare assassin now. That's the problem.


Hey, we might have Greeks here who prefer "Kyklone". Don't make assumptions. :smalltongue:

Funny that, here 'Cyclone' is read with hard C, like 'Centurion' so that's two ways to get it wrong :smallwink:


Also, you're doing Precision Shots wrong. You can make Look Out, Sir! rolls against Precision Shots (which is why Precision Shots are totally not what they say they are, Barrage is more accurate), you're better off focusing all of the flashlights against the guy with the Missile Launcher who has to take it.

Yeah, except not only LOS rolls are just that, rolls (thus not entirely reliable, even with ICs), but with IG volume of fire some of these will get through. And that even if your enemy didn't used anything denying LOS tactics to limit your options.

[bluntpencil]

No, but there are correct and incorrect ways to pronounce things, even made up names. Basically, GW uses Tolkien for a lot of things, Eldar words, Necron, blah, Tolkien used hard c's in elvish, GW does the same with their made up words.

My point was that saying 'as it is spelled' isn't how the English language works. It's an utterly pointless statement, as most letters have multiple sounds associated with them. I could quite easily say that 'cyk' is spelling 'sick' as it sounds, even though the existing spelling is also, apparently, spelled as it sounds.

Elaboration on the complexities:

Do the first instances in the letter 'i' in both 'Sicarius' and 'Tigurius' sound the same to you? Personally, I, for aesthetic purposes, would pronounce the first 'i' in 'Sicarius' like one would the 'i' in 'it'. I would pronounce the 'i' in 'Tigurius' like one would pronounce the 'i' in 'tiger'. I could very well be wrong, but it feels right to me, and these two characters are from the same Chapter.

Furthermore, when pronouncing names of the different cultures in 40K, you would use the culture from which the names originate. German names using German pronunciation, Russian using Russian, Hebrew using Hebrew, Tau using some sort of mangled Far Eastern. Eldar? Necron? Hard to tell.

[Winterwind]

Funny that, here 'Cyclone' is read with hard C, like 'Centurion' so that's two ways to get it wrong :smallwink:'Centurion' is read with the same 's'-sound as 'cyclone' in English. I couldn't really come up with any English word that illustrates what a 'c' sounds like in Polish, so I went the lazy route and looked it up on Wikipedia, which offers the 'ts'-part of 'pits' as a rough equivalent. Which I guess is kinda sorta right. :smallwink:

EDIT:

Do the first instances in the letter 'i' in both 'Sicarius' and 'Tigurius' sound the same to you? Personally, I, for aesthetic purposes, would pronounce the first 'i' in 'Sicarius' like one would the 'i' in 'it'. I would pronounce the 'i' in 'Tigurius' like one would pronounce the 'i' in 'tiger'. I could very well be wrong, but it feels right to me, and these two characters are from the same Chapter.Since I figure both are supposed to be pronounced the way they would be in Latin, I would pronounce it with an 'i' like the one in 'it' for both of them.

[Rakaydos]

Yeah, the above. "Precision Shots" rule doesn't exist, and besides IG have it worded like Telion does, not like every single Codex until now that granted normal infantry targetable shots on 6s. By RAW, every single guardsman is mini vindicare assassin now. That's the problem.

Is it a problem? at the end of the day, lasguns are still lasguns, flak vests are still bolter fodder, and on average even a platoon of 50 guardsman needs luck to pick off even a sigle would from an IC.

[bluntpencil]

Also, regarding the Kor'Sarro Khan pronunciation...

It's a difficult one, since how do we pronounce 'Jaghatai'? The 'gh', I would put approximate a semivowel or glide, as seen with the Turkish letter 'ğ', as this language, which I'm somewhat familiar with, has very similar proper names.

[ZeltArruin]

In Japanese C'tan is spelled/pronounced Ka-ta-n, problem solved?

[Artanis]

My point was that saying 'as it is spelled' isn't how the English language works. It's an utterly pointless statement, as most letters have multiple sounds associated with them. I could quite easily say that 'cyk' is spelling 'sick' as it sounds, even though the existing spelling is also, apparently, spelled as it sounds.
Fun example: how do you pronounce G-H-O-T-I?

It's pronounced "fish"
Tough
Women
-tion words

[bluntpencil]

Fun example: how do you pronounce G-H-O-T-I?

It's pronounced "fish"
Tough
Women
-tion words

I was going to use that example myself! We use this as an example for our students here. :smallsmile:

[bluntpencil]

In Japanese C'tan is spelled/pronounced Ka-ta-n, problem solved?

Where are you getting that first 'a' sound from!? The lack of a vowel between 'C'' and 't' would imply a sound similar to the 'ct' in 'strict', or perhaps an unstressed schwa sound!

[ZeltArruin]

Where are you getting that first 'a' sound from!? The lack of a vowel between 'C'' and 't' would imply a sound similar to the 'ct' in 'strict', or perhaps an unstressed schwa sound!

Well, Japanese doesn't have consonants not followed by a vowel, so that's how they have to spell it. I don't add any vowel sounds, just the hard 'k' noise. My point was they were using katakana, the alphabet for foreign words, where they attempt to recreate them with their sounds. If C'tan had a soft 'c', they would have copied it as such rather than using their 'k' sound.

[bluntpencil]

Well, Japanese doesn't have consonants not followed by a vowel, so that's how they have to spell it. I don't add any vowel sounds, just the hard 'k' noise. My point was they were using katakana, the alphabet for foreign words, where they attempt to recreate them with their sounds. If C'tan had a soft 'c', they would have copied it as such rather than using their 'k' sound.

If we were doing that exclusively, we'd spell 'C'tan' with a 'k', as it's far less ambiguous. Unless followed by an 'n'.

[Trixie]

'Centurion' is read with the same 's'-sound as 'cyclone' in English. I couldn't really come up with any English word that illustrates what a 'c' sounds like in Polish, so I went the lazy route and looked it up on Wikipedia, which offers the 'ts'-part of 'pits' as a rough equivalent. Which I guess is kinda sorta right. :smallwink:

So, 'senturion'?? :smallconfused:

I'd say this surprises me, but after 'Jesus' nothing quite brings the same impact :smalltongue:

Anyway, it's not 100% (though close) 'ts', example included here (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Pl-centurion.ogg).


Is it a problem? at the end of the day, lasguns are still lasguns, flak vests are still bolter fodder, and on average even a platoon of 50 guardsman needs luck to pick off even a sigle would from an IC.

When order-able units can pack multiple heavy or special guns, it can quite sadly become a problem, yes.

[Winterwind]

So, 'senturion'?? :smallconfused:Well, and the 't' is actually more of a 'ch'-sound, as in 'chess' (no, wiesz, nasze 'cz' :smallwink:). :smalltongue:

[ZeltArruin]

If we were doing that exclusively, we'd spell 'C'tan' with a 'k', as it's far less ambiguous. Unless followed by an 'n'.

Uh, okay. At least you don't pronounce it 'Sea-Tan'.

[Eldan]

Yeah. So, "phonetically", "Sendshurien".

Terrible, really.I prefer the Latin.

[bluntpencil]

Uh, okay. At least you don't pronounce it 'Sea-Tan'.

I always assumed that the naming was to draw parallels to 'Satan'. Or, you know, 'Settlers of Catan'.

[ZeltArruin]

I always assumed that the naming was to draw parallels to 'Satan'. Or, you know, 'Settlers of Catan'.

It wasn't until very recently I heard someone say C'tan with a soft C, so the Satan reference was lost on me until then. Catan has always had a hard C in my gaming group, we've been playing for years and I've never heard it any other way.

[bluntpencil]

It wasn't until very recently I heard someone say C'tan with a soft C, so the Satan reference was lost on me until then. Catan has always had a hard C in my gaming group, we've been playing for years and I've never heard it any other way.

Same, yeah. It's one or the other! :P

[Saambell]

My understanding of the whole C=S or C=K sounds was that C only = S when E or I followed C. So Catan would have a K sound, while Centurion would have a S sound. My guess of where the confusion in C'Tan came from is that darn '. Its not a standard letter so that threw people off. It also seems to leave the C by itself, and when a C is being pronounced its said like "Sea". So the confusion comes down to whether the C is meant to be alone in pronunciation or which vowel the ' is meant to resemble(in effect, not speech).

[Renegade Paladin]

OK Point differences between the New IG...ehhh Astra Militarum...and IA1 Vol 2. I am going to use the new IG book as the baseline (as more have access to that). Not doing vehicles that are FW exclusive now, such as the Vulture

Equipment: Camo netting for IA is 5pts more (expected on an all vehicle list)

Chimera: IA's is 10pts cheaper, and retains the old firing points (until FaQ)

Scout Sentinals: Same points, but IA's has search lights auto included, and can take HK missiles or multiple rocket pod. but a H.flamer is a 5pt upgrade while free for IG.

Armoured Sentinal: IA's is 15pts more expensive, same equipment differences as above.

Vendetta: IA's is 40pts cheaper and still has scout and deep strike...for now

Hellhound Family
Hellhound: IA's is 5pt more, Devil dog 15pt's less!, banewolf the same. Multimelta's are 5pts more expensive for IA.

Hydra Flakk Battery: IA's is 5pts more expensive, still denies jink saves (worth 5pts I would say).

Basilisk: Same (except IA can take Medusa and Colossus bombard! so big edge to IA there!)

The 'Russ family!

Upgrades: IA pays 5pts more for the hull Lascannon, Sponsons are 10pts more expensive for H.flamer, same for H.bolter, 10pt more expensive on other options

Battle Tank: same
exterminator: 20pts more expensive
Vanquisher: 25pts more expensive
Eradicator: 30pts more expensive
Demolisher: 10pts cheaper
Punisher: 40pts more expensive
Executioner: 35 more expensive (without gets hot)

So wide variety of pt's differences yeah FW/GW communication.
With a few minor FW-exclusive equipment differences aside (rocket pods for Sentinels, mainly), you just described the differences between the 5e Guard codex and 6e Astra Militarum codex. IA1 volume 2 was written a year ago with the old codex as a reference; it isn't miscommunication so much as old rules.

[bluntpencil]

My understanding of the whole C=S or C=K sounds was that C only = S when E or I followed C. So Catan would have a K sound, while Centurion would have a S sound. My guess of where the confusion in C'Tan came from is that darn '. Its not a standard letter so that threw people off. It also seems to leave the C by itself, and when a C is being pronounced its said like "Sea". So the confusion comes down to whether the C is meant to be alone in pronunciation or which vowel the ' is meant to resemble(in effect, not speech).

The vowel sound is most likely a 'schwa' sound, which is a very neutral sounding vowel. It's close to the most common 'i' sound, and the most common 'u' sound, but, yeah...

Edit: 'C' tends to be hard before 'schwa', such as is heard in 'decorate'.

[Cheesegear]

So, on Friday, I order
Ahriman, Typhus, Tigurius, Dante and a Sanguinary Priest to get my free Captain (also, there's another Captain, you can get, if you spend more money after the first order)

On Saturday, Yarrick becomes one of the best things in the Astra Codex.

[CN the Logos]

I'm reminded of how some people pronounce C'tan with an 's' sound rather than the hard 'c'/'k' sound. Are they playing Nesrons, then? Sanoptek Wraiths?


It wasn't until very recently I heard someone say C'tan with a soft C, so the Satan reference was lost on me until then. Catan has always had a hard C in my gaming group, we've been playing for years and I've never heard it any other way.

Well, let's see. The Deceiver is an ancient, immortal being primarily known (as his name implies) for deceiving things. Since the C'tan have apparently existed since shortly after the Big Bang, the Deceiver is old enough to be one of the first liars in existence: a metaphorical "Father of Lies," if you will. And he brokered a deal in which the Necrontyr sold their souls in your standard Faustian pact, which the Necrons that were still capable of independent thought later came to regret a great deal. And his head has a very subtle pentagram shape. He's Satan. IN SPACE! Not that hard.

...Don't ask me why Vargard Obyron is named after the King of the Faeries though. :smallcool:

[LordDavenport]

My bet on Vargard Obyron is something subtle... though he is effectivly the rulers right hand, which could almost work as consort... of a magical race able to move far faster then human, possessing tech so far in advance of humanity that by clark's law it is magical. From human perspective they are inscrutable and alien, seeming to do horrible things for no reason. So... yes, I am suggesting that necrons are faries, and that Vargard Obyron is acting as Oberon to his rulers Titania from a midsummers nights dream. Bam.

[bluntpencil]

The Blood Angels totally got their Lucifer pattern engines from the Necrons after their horrific team-up. The Deceiver is Satan! :P

[hamishspence]

Yeah, the above. "Precision Shots" rule doesn't exist, and besides IG have it worded like Telion does, not like every single Codex until now that granted normal infantry targetable shots on 6s.

Pathfinders (rangers upgraded by Illic Nightspear) are a troop choice - and all their shots are Precision Shots.

The Take Aim order is good - very good - but it's not exactly unprecedented in power.

That said, Tau Empire's Advanced Targeting System suddenly looks a lot less advanced by comparison - since even on a Character it only grants Precision Shots on a 5+ To Hit,

[Cheesegear]

So, Astra best-in-slots;

HQ - Yarrick, Priests
Elites - Ratlings (?)...I want to like Tempestus Scions, but I feel like you need to build your army around them for that, and, in that case, they have a dedicated Codex.
Fast - Vendettas, Hellhounds
Heavy - Hydras, Manticores

With all the point swapping in the Astra Codex, I'm kind of surprised that nothing really changed. However, in an Allied Detachment, you probably can't afford Vendettas anymore, so, here's hoping that you have Flier Defense covered in your Primary Detachment. People who should be sad with the new Astra are SW/AM combos that now don't have any Flier Defense, and GK/AM in the same boat. Also, anyone playing Sisters, but Sisters players have been sad for a while.

Primaris Psykers look good, until you compare them to Command Squads, and then your Psykers can't be individual HQs, and that kind of neuters the point.

[Gauntlet]

Interesting things to note about Yarrick in the new book...

He has Chain of Command, so if your army contains a model with Senior Officer he can't be your warlord.

He also has Senior Officer, so if he is in your list he can't be your warlord- but at the same time, he can be your only HQ. ???

He's also a Commissar without Stubborn or Fearless, which is a little odd considering normal ones are (and he was Fearless in the old book).

It'll be interesting to see if they update those rules in the new FAQ and Errata when they come out.

[Cheesegear]

He also has Senior Officer, so if he is in your list he can't be your warlord- but at the same time, he can be your only HQ.

Most people seem to be playing that he must be your Warlord if he is your only HQ.
Basically, he seems to be triggering himself, and then triggering again.

You have to play him this way, or he is basically unusable. With no Errata, this is how he is being played.


He's also a Commissar without Stubborn or Fearless

Commissar Yarrick costs 170 Points, he is always accompanied by a Priest, Bulletshield the Magnet.

[hamishspence]

I want to like Tempestus Scions, but I feel like you need to build your army around them for that, and, in that case, they have a dedicated Codex.

It's not that good though. The main thing Militarum Tempestus gets that Astra Militarum doesn't, is formations.

The Astra Militarum orders might actually benefit them better, than their own.

[Requizen]

It's not that good though. The main thing Militarum Tempestus gets that Astra Militarum doesn't, is formations.

The Astra Militarum orders might actually benefit them better, than their own.

Well, just as a thought, doesn't it encourage you to ally MT with AM, so that not only do your Scions not take up an Elite slot but also makes them scoring? I almost feel like if you're playing AM and don't have any other allies planned, there's no reason not to take MT allies, unless you really don't want to take the Scion Command Squad/don't have the points for one.

[LordDavenport]

Am I the only one who wishes an Etherial squad(sides the three man space pope HQ) can't be a thing? Its just that the etherials could almost be ok in assault, Just no unit in the codex would charge with them. A separate honor guard unit would have been awesome, just for the insanity of the tau charging you.

[Jormengand]

Am I the only one who wishes an Etherial squad(sides the three man space pope HQ) can't be a thing? Its just that the etherials could almost be ok in assault, Just no unit in the codex would charge with them. A separate honor guard unit would have been awesome, just for the insanity of the tau charging you.

Pfft. EMP FWs versus any non-walker vehicle. Tau charge you. you heard it here first.

[Tome]

Am I the only one who wishes an Etherial squad(sides the three man space pope HQ) can't be a thing? Its just that the etherials could almost be ok in assault, Just no unit in the codex would charge with them. A separate honor guard unit would have been awesome, just for the insanity of the tau charging you.

Possibly, but there's the fluff to consider. If Tau were going to have an actual assault unit it'd be in the Kroot.

[Yaktan]

If you go to forgeworld they get Kroot Knarlocs, which I hear are good in assault, but that does require forgeworld.

Also, I think Ethereals are not that effective in close combat, compared to any real assault unit. Especially when you consider the downside of them getting squished.

[Cheesegear]

Am I the only one who wishes an Etherial squad(sides the three man space pope HQ).

There's an Ethereal Apocalypse Formation in Damocles. It sucks pretty hard. The only reason that it's any good at all is because it's a High Command.

[LordDavenport]

Pfft. EMP FWs versus any non-walker vehicle. Tau charge you. you heard it here first.

Tau FW squad knocked down to 2 models, start running. Turn later, make leadership check. They have EMP grenades. Take out a chimera.

1/72 chance to one shot a landraider with an EMP grenade for each throw, down to 1/36 if it didn't move on the charge.

[Requizen]

So Inquisition and Legion of the Damned have their own Allies matrix, that prohibits them from allying with Chaos, Orks, or Necrons. However, they can be taken as not-technically-allies detachments to, say, Imperial Guard. So conceivably could you have a force that was Primary Orks with Imperial Guard allies, who also have Inquisitorial and Legion of the Damned detachments, even though they can't group with Orks?

(Obviously not realistic to spread out points like that, but as a hypothetical)

[Cheesegear]

So conceivably could you have a force that was Primary Orks with Imperial Guard allies, who also have Inquisitorial and Legion of the Damned detachments, even though they can't group with Orks?

Yes. Correct.

[hamishspence]

If you believe Warseer, the individual supplements make it clear that even if they "aren't technically allies" - they treat the other army's allies as if they were their own:

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?392857-Supplimental-Detachments-and-the-Allies-Matrix

so - couldn't work.

[Cheesegear]

so - couldn't work.

Ah. I didn't actually check if Orks/IG/Legion was legal. I assumed the person suggesting it knew what they were doing.

So long as nothing in your army is Come the Apocalypse with anything else, you're good.

[hamishspence]

Regarding the Taurox - would you say that a big part of the problem is that it's tracked, and that it might look better with wheels?

There's some interesting Taurox with wheels conversions already:

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?392637-Any-Taurox-conversions-yet/page2

any thoughts?

[Cheesegear]

Regarding the Taurox - would you say that a big part of the problem is that it's tracked, and that it might look better with wheels?

There are some people - myself included - that think if it just has a different paint job other than bright blue/grey, it looks fine. Like the Centurions, the stock photos don't really do them justice, and if you see them, physically, with/out a conversion, a different paint job or some weathering, everything turns out fine. I've got two Dreadknights, after all, and I think they look fine.

[hamishspence]

I do agree that it looks better "in person" when one actually has a close look at the physical model.

[Requizen]

So I saw a rumor that the Hardcover version of Militarium Tempestus is actually Limited Edition, even though there was nothing denoting this anywhere on the site. Not wanting to blindly believe rumors, I emailed GW and asked about it. As it turns out, once the Hardcover stock is sold out, the Codex will only be available in digital format. I'm still kind of torn, as I love the Scions models and that's how I would play an Imperium army, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to start one yet. Still, I guess it's better to get it now in case I want it in the future? I don't have an iPad, and customer service said that there are no current plans to release it in other e-Reader formats, so I guess if I want to use it at some point I should get it now? I guess if nothing else I can eBay it off later and make a buck off it as a limited edition piece.

Anyway, I'm just overall kinda miffed about the whole thing. Why would they only do the one run of the physical edition but not say it anywhere? I know, I know, GW has done some pretty silly things in the past, but this is just bad business practices.

[LordDavenport]

Most things GW does are bad business practices.

[Wraith]

Well, this might cheer you up a little - Fantasy Flight Games have announced Dark Heresy: Second Edition (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp?eidm=264&esem=1&epmi=s).

New book includes:

Basic system remains the same, for veteran players
New "Subtlety" rules for investigation
Refined social interaction
Integrated rules for vehicle combat
New character classes, backgrounds and archetypes (including Blank and Inquisitor, under the new 'Elite Advances' rules)
New setting - the dark and dangerous Askellon Sector - which remains compatible with the original setting and rules
Apparent cross-compatibility with Deathwatch and other FFG/40k collaborations

Dark Heresy is already pretty damn good. I'm really looking forward to this :smallsmile:

[Cheesegear]

Most things GW does are bad business practices.

I think you'll find that most things that GW do are very, very good business practices for a company looking at its demise in the next 3-5 years.

[Renegade Paladin]

I think you'll find that most things that GW do are very, very good business practices for a company looking at its demise in the next 3-5 years.
I have a sneaking suspicion that if they didn't go way out of their way to piss off their player base they wouldn't be looking at the company's demise in the next three to five years.

[Cheesegear]

I have a sneaking suspicion that if they didn't go way out of their way to piss off their player base they wouldn't be looking at the company's demise in the next three to five years.

Yes they would. They can't compete with 3D Printing.

[Tome]

As they are now? Yeah, they've got no chance. They're too big to shift over to a business model that would work after a proliferation of 3D printers.

Smaller companies who focus a bit more on the game and actually interact with their customer bases might be able to manage something, there's a lot to be said for being able to influence the culture surrounding the hobby you sell, but not GW.

[Renegade Paladin]

Yes they would. They can't compete with 3D Printing.
Reaper doesn't seem to be going out of business. Neither is Paizo or WotC. As long as artistic and design talent isn't as readily available as bitTorrent and 3D printing, there will be a market. There's nothing intrinsic about miniatures or tabletop games (and they're a game company no matter how hard they try to deny it) that makes the business doomed to fail.

[Winterwind]

I, for one, would be ready to pay quite a lot of money still if it meant keeping the game existing and developing, and I wouldn't quite feel comfortable using "pirated" models anyhow. I imagine I wouldn't be the only one feeling that way, either - and I imagine the number of people feeling that way might be related to some degree to how GW manages the game now. As such, I'm really not sure if GW is doing themselves all that many favours lately.

Another game, game community and game company that I pay fairly close attention to is League of Legends. And I keep being flabbergasted just how much day-and-night the contrast between the way GW approaches Warhammer (both variants) and the way Riot approaches LoL is, and keep wondering how amazingly awesome Warhammer would be if GW approached it more the way Riot does LoL. With balance patches every few weeks, paying close attention to what the community thinks, what they play with, what they don't use, etc. (both pro-level and amateur), and considering not just how fun something is to play, but also how fun it is to play against. All things where, I feel, GW has utterly and completely failed. And yes, patching a video game is easier than patching a tabletop game, but c'mon, the Internet is sufficiently wide-spread nowadays. It would be perfectly doable.

[Trixie]

Pathfinders (rangers upgraded by Illic Nightspear) are a troop choice - and all their shots are Precision Shots.

The Take Aim order is good - very good - but it's not exactly unprecedented in power.

Pathfinders can't take 5 lascannons, though, and can pretty much first blood your warlord (unless EW) in the first seconds of the game. Even 2+ LOS only goes so far. Then there is the fact that banner/heavy/specialist weapon holders have no LOS and AM commander can just strip away all the upgrades you paid for with much lesser investment, leaving bare troops.

Ironically, thing hardest hit by that are AM blobs. 50 conscripts sans priest, psyker and sergeants suddenly look like declawed kitten.


Regarding the Taurox - would you say that a big part of the problem is that it's tracked, and that it might look better with wheels?

The problem is, it's basically MRAP copied from recent wars without understanding why MRAP hulls have that shape:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Caiman_mine-resistant,_ambush-protected_vehicles_in_Iraq.jpg

It looks off because you saw it a lot times with wheels already, and also because threads just wouldn't work as described, IMHO. Had it been half track, maybe, as it is, nope.

[Renegade Paladin]

I just noticed that the Tempestor Prime has I4 in the army list entry, but I3 in the summary sheet. Can anyone with Militarum Tempestus give insight on which is probably right?

[Cheesegear]

Can anyone with Militarum Tempestus give insight on which is probably right?

I played against Militarum Tempestus today, and I can for sure tell you that the Prime is I3 'cause my I4 Sergeant killed him before he could attack. Two attacks hit, two attacks Wound, double failed save. Flawless victory.

[Saambell]

I played against Militarum Tempestus today, and I can for sure tell you that the Prime is I3 'cause my I4 Sergeant killed him before he could attack. Two attacks hit, two attacks Wound, double failed save. Flawless victory.

I'm sorry, but that does not actually prove anything other then your opponent was using the summery sheet. If he had taken the time to look at the army list it might have ended with a mutual kill.

[Renegade Paladin]

On further reading, the Prime is I4 in both the main unit entry and the army list; of the three locations his stat line appears in, the summary sheet is the discrepancy. This leans toward I4, but I'd still like to know what it says in the MT codex just for further reference.

[Requizen]

On further reading, the Prime is I4 in both the main unit entry and the army list; of the three locations his stat line appears in, the summary sheet is the discrepancy. This leans toward I4, but I'd still like to know what it says in the MT codex just for further reference.

Tempestor Prime in the Militarium Tempestus Codex is listed at I4 in the unit entry and I3 in the profile summary page:

http://i.imgur.com/hY7lJDf.png

Granted this is from the scan that I'm currently using, my physical Codex is still in the mail. I would assume it's I4, though, since your squad leader types usually have that higher statline.

Now I'm wondering what army to ally my Scions with. After a certain point value I can't see just straight Scions being a truly competitive army, but I dunno maybe they can be. Still, they'd look pretty sweet next to some Terminators...

[Wraith]

Been thinking a lot lately about the next army list I want to write - dipping my toe into the foetid sea of Allies, that sort of thing - and it got me thinking about what I'd take, and why. This kinda evolved/snowballed into a "What's my favourite, what's my least favourite" train of thought, and I wanted to share it with the Playground. Please, join in:

Favourite Codex:
Despite the many 'controversies' that always get thrown about, I'd have to say Grey Knights. I've always liked the 666th Chapter even when they were Daemonhunters because of their style and appearence, and C:GK gives you a lot of different things to play with.
You want massed MEQ? Go ahead. You want a Deathwing analogue? Sure. Massed Armour? No problem. Small, elite army or vast horde? Easy. Bikes everywhere Absolutely anything that you could want, no exceptions, all in one book that has it's powerful tricks but has never been so over-the-top broken as some books could claim to be.

Honourable Mentions: Codex Daemonhunters, Codex Space Marines (2008)

Least Favourite Codex:
I might take heat for this one, but Dark Eldar.
I mean, look... I'm old. Like, ridiculously, stupidly old - next year, I'll be 30. Seriously.
As such, I can remember playing the game in 1998 when the original Codex: Dark Eldar came out, and even back then it was a niche army with only one or two tricks. The metal models were ugly, the plastic models were just "Guardians with spikes added on", and their popularity fizzled out pretty quickly - when they brought it back in 2010, I was pretty disinterested because I was expecting more of the same.
And I wasn't far wrong; the metal (resin, too) models were unappealing - in fact, universally worse than the few original models that I DID like - the plastic kits were the same, and they once again became a one-trick-pony that was there just to appease the vocal minority when it probably could have been combined into Codex: Eldar along with Harlequins and Exodites for a complete Codex *ELDAR* book.

(Dis)Honourable Mentions: Codex Necrons (2003)

Favourite Model:
The Space Marine Master of the Forge (http://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Space-Marine-Techmarine-with-Servitors). From the moment I saw it, I wanted it, and I'm damn pleased with how well it works with the colour scheme I've used. Everything about it - the unique helmet, the overlapping armour plates, the cog-wheel power axe, the spidery mechandrites - is great. I'd like to know who sculpted it, and shake their hand.

Honourable Mentions: Eldar Farseer with Singing Spear (http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/600x620/99800104020_FarseerSingingSpearNEW_01.jpg), the two Eldar Warlocks with Witchblades (http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/600x620/99810104012_FarseerWarlocksNEW_03.jpg)

Least Favourite Model:
The Dark Angel Darkshroud (http://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Dark-Angels-Ravenwing-Darkshroud). Exactly the opposite - from the moment I saw it, I hated it. That stupid pulpit/turret thing on the front.... Look, I know it's just a game of toy soldiers and complaining that it's not "real" looking is redundant, but come on, just look at it! It's like a reject from the GI Joe toy line! Were it just a normal Land Speeder with the Altar balanced on the back it would merely be silly, but as it is, it's just ridiculous. Which is a real shame, because I otherwise like the Dark Angel aesthetic; the robes, the talismans, the other flyers, and so on.

(Dis)Honourable Mentions: Most of the metal Dark Eldar range, Sisters Repentia.

Favourite Character (Rules)
Pedro Kantor. He's got good, solid abilities and decent stats/equipment, though you wouldn't call anyone with only a Power Fist for close combat "overpowered". He's decent on his own, and you build a great army around him - which is how heroes should work, I think.

Honourable Mentions: Grand Master Mordrak

Least Favourite Character (Rules)
Eldrad Ulthuan.
You're "the most powerful mortal psyker in the galaxy".... why do you only pick from 3 Psychic Schools and can't shut down other Psykers, Eldrad? Why? WHY!?! *sob*

(Dis)Honourable Mentions: The Avatar of Khaine, Lucius the Eternal

Favourite Character (Model)
Astorath the Grim. I know, I know.... Even I admit that he'd look much, much better with an elaborate helmet but I really admire the dynamic pose and handsome small detail in his armour and weaponry.

Honourable Mentions: Kaldor Draigo (Helmet On), Eldrad Ulthuan

Least Favourite Character (Model)
Lelith Hesperax (2010). A massive step down from the original, not just because it's even more stripperiffic but also because of the awful constipated expression on her face.

(Dis)Honourable Mentions: Asmodai (2013), Lucius the Eternal, the buck-toothed Bloodthister (2013)

[Cheesegear]

Now I'm wondering what army to ally my Scions with. After a certain point value I can't see just straight Scions being a truly competitive army

Depends what their Ally choices are. Scions aren't great at killing vehicles, nor are they any good at hitting Fliers. Anything that can cast Divination on them is good. Re-rolls To Hit means that many more rolls when you go To Wound with S3, and Ignores Cover makes AP3 deadly. However, remember that when used out of their Codex, they don't count as Astra Militarum units and can't benefit from Orders, so that's out. Can you at least take two Inquisitors for guaranteed Prescience?

Right now I'm a big fan of Grey Knights in the current meta. But, if you're in the Marine meta, can you run Scions with Daemons (you lose Inquisitors, though)?

[Requizen]

Depends what their Ally choices are. Scions aren't great at killing vehicles, nor are they any good at hitting Fliers. Anything that can cast Divination on them is good. Re-rolls To Hit means that many more rolls when you go To Wound with S3, and Ignores Cover makes AP3 deadly. However, remember that when used out of their Codex, they don't count as Astra Militarum units and can't benefit from Orders, so that's out. Can you at least take two Inquisitors for guaranteed Prescience?

Right now I'm a big fan of Grey Knights in the current meta. But, if you're in the Marine meta, can you run Scions with Daemons (you lose Inquisitors, though)?

Battle Brothers with all Imperium Forces (the actual term used in the book :P ), Allies of Convenience with Eldar, and Desperate with Tau and Dark Eldar. No allies with CSM, Daemons, Necrons, Orks, or Tyranids (obviously). Which kind of doesn't make sense considering there should be traitor Scions... whatever.

I was thinking Grey Knights would be cool, but I've also always really liked Blood Angels. BA would cover their Divination on Librarians, and Baal Predators would be pretty decent for taking out vehicles (though pretty good at getting taken out themselves >.>). I also have always just liked BAs, one of my favorite chapters.

The Tempestor Prime brings Orders, though. Twin Linked, Preferred Enemy, Crusader, Fleet, Sniper/Pinning, and Rending against Vehicles/MCs.

[Cheesegear]

Favourite Codex: Dark Eldar (5th Ed.). Did exactly what it was supposed to do. The fluff is there. The solid mechanics are were there. The rules actually matched the fluff and everything was great. You wanted to run a fast-moving Wych army. You could do that. You wanted to make a fast, shooty army. You could do that. You wanted to make a tough, slow army, you could do that. You wanted to blow holes in Land Raiders? Thin out hordes? You could do both of those things at the same time! No, the Codex wasn't perfect, it couldn't do 'everything' like Tau 6th, but, what it could do, was do everything that Dark Eldar could do. If there was some part of the fluff of Dark Eldar that you liked, you could make it happen on the table. However, 6th Ed., and the meta-change, made everything that was good and/or usable in the Dark Eldar army bad and/or unusable and turned the whole Codex into a mono-build spamming one particular type of unit.

Least Favourite Codex: Dark Angels (4th Ed). Remove everything fun out of Space Marines. Release new Codex. At least Black Templars had the good sense to have a completely different play style. Dark Angels (6th Ed) got everything right (except the Fliers). The problem with DA6 isn't DA6, but Space Marines 6th Ed.

Favourite Model: Castellan Crowe. For all of Black Templars' imagery, how come none of their characters look like Crowe? Dark Angels' Ezekiel is a close second. ...I sense a pattern.

Least Favourite Model (that I own): Look, if I don't like a model, I'm not going to buy it, that's what conversions are for. But, there are a couple that I do own...
Ragnar Blackmane. Anybody who keeps up regularly with what I write shouldn't be surprised that a Space Wolf model tops the list. But, Ragnar gets double stupid points for being a remnant of the 2nd/3rd Ed. era when models were churned out in blocks instead of the multi-part metal blisters we got a few years later. Mephiston escapes the Curse because he looks awesome even though he's in 'The Pose'.

Favourite Character (Rules): Be'lakor. No? Okay. Seriously, then...
Inquisitor Coteaz. He's cheap. He's got Divination. He gives unlimited Interceptor without the drawback of not being able to fire in your next turn. What else do you want? If you're allowed Codex: Inquisition, you can put him in any Imperial-side army that you want, too! Coteaz is like tomato sauce. He goes without everything...Except Daemons. Daemons don't like tomato sauce. Coteaz's model isn't bad either.

Okay, power-gaming aside...Typhus. If you're a fan of Nurgle, he's your guy. If you're using abusing Cultists like you should be, he makes them Fearless and gives them FNP for totally free. Okay, I get it. You don't want to use Cultists. Well, he's still making Plague Marines, Troops, and Plague Marines are the best. On an individual scale, he's not bad either, if you want to kill him, you either need Lysander or Grey Knights to smack him down, because he isn't going anywhere. Whose idea was a Daemon Weapon Force Axe?

Honourable Mention:
Azrael and Sammael (Jetbike): These two characters are costed appropriately, and they both do some amazing things. If you're playing Dark Angels, you are taking one of these characters (but not both). The only two downsides to these two characters is that they both have 'Primary Detachment only...' as part of their FOC swaps, and, secondly, you're playing Dark Angels.
Commissar Yarrick: If the definitive answer for the 'Warlord dilemma' is positive, he may well just be the one of the best characters in the game.
Asurmen: He's excellent. Unfortunately, he's not a Farseer, and so gets ignored.

Least Favourite Character (Rules): Kheradruakh, the Decapitator: Stupid name. Takes an HQ slot all to himself, can't join units, and he's T3 with no save.

Dishonourable Mention: There's a lot. But, I'll throw out a few that really disappoint me...
Captain Lysander: I don't like comparing older editions because it's pointless. But, Lysander really does get worse with every edition. 4th Ed., he had Phalanx Assault. Remember that? Remember when Space Marines made Dark Angels a joke (again), when they gave Space Marines the Deathwing ability? Good times. Now, in 6th Ed., his Bolter Drill is now part of the Chapter Tactics (and it doesn't even work with Sternguard anymore), so you don't need him for that, and, what's worse, is that GW gave everyone access to Shield Eternal, so now everyone can have a Lysander of their own. Lysander is used for facial hair and curdled milk purposes these days. You don't take Lysander for Lysander, you take him so you can stack Eternal Warriors, and if you do that, he can be replaced by Marneus Calgar. :smallsigh:

Ahriman: He shoots 4 Witchfires a turn. Except Witchfires suck, so he's better off rolling for four other Powers, instead of doing what he's supposed to do. He's still good, though. However, he's never used as intended, and that's a problem of design, when you straight up ignore one of the things that make a character 'Special'.

Drazhar, Master of Blades: I7, didn't bring any Grenades. Costs more points than Asurmen, which is insane. For ten more points you get Vect.
Inqusitor Valeria. Watch as she kills herself. It would be funny if she didn't actually cost points.

[Wraith]

Ragnar Blackmane [.....] Space Wolves

I very nearly said the same, but thought: "Nah.... To obvious." :smalltongue:

And it also seems like Dark Angels can do no right, unless it's burly men wearing dresses..... Must be a Commonwealth 'thing'. :smallwink:

[LordDavenport]

So, making sure I understand: If a model dosn't have a close combat weapon, it can still make its A value in attacks at S user AP-, but if it has two CC weapons or a CC weapon and pistol it gets a bonus attack? So CC weapons are only useful if you have a pistol/another CC weapon?

[Squark]

So, making sure I understand: If a model dosn't have a close combat weapon, it can still make its A value in attacks at S user AP-, but if it has two CC weapons or a CC weapon and pistol it gets a bonus attack? So CC weapons are only useful if you have a pistol/another CC weapon?

Barring one or two oddball rules, yup. That cc weapon on a vanilla guardsman doesn't really do anything. Assuming they still have that.

[Renegade Paladin]

Barring one or two oddball rules, yup. That cc weapon on a vanilla guardsman doesn't really do anything. Assuming they still have that.
They don't. Storm troopers lost their CCW and pistol as well.

[LordDavenport]

Also, just noticed that the farsight enclave works as a stand in for the mobile infantry of starship trooper, at least with a pure crisis suit army. With other kinda of suits, or tanks it get a lot shakier.

It's funny, because of how much space marines want to fit the MI they really don't. To low mobilaty, and a focus on close combat. Crisis suits are fast, modular, can be heavily armed, and oh so very durable.


Separate thing thats always bugged me... the drop pods. MI drop pods made sense to me... making its own chafe to protect against anti aircraft, and disintegrates do deny the materiel to the enemy. I get that 40K is all about being the most over the top... but really, mini space capsules that survive landing? enough that you just ignore ground defenses?

edit: also, realized a cool thing about enclave... they have the cheapest minimum primary detachment in the game that I know of. Anyone else break 138 points? etherial 50 points, team of 3 naked suits 66 points, team of 1 naked suit 22 points... sadly 8 points to much to bring a imperial knight to a 500 point game. Which I think is probably a feature, not a flaw. How many weird looks would a 510 point game get? Such a terrible army, but... but... random gigantic mechs in the lowest point value game! The suits and ethereal would have no weapons of any kind... but then again, knight erant with a giant melta gun running at a green tide!

[Hootman]

Oh wow, Monday is going to crazy. Six of us at my FLGS have decided to celebrate Marathon Monday with a marathon 3v3 Apocalypse-type game at 8500 points per side. We'll only be using regular 40k rules, with no Lords of War or Forgeworld allowed.


Order
Eldar, 3500pts
Eldar, 3500pts
Iron Hands, 1500pts

Destruction
Orks (me!), 3500pts
Chaos Marines, 3500pts
Necrons, 1500pts

We've decided on a few special rules of our own, in lieu of the real Apocalypse rules.
1. All teams are considered to be perfect Battle Brother-type allies, regardless of what the BBB has to say on the subject.
2. Psychic blessings CAN be used on models/units owned by another player on your team.
3. Mechanical items/abilities that provide "bubble" effects likewise benefit all models/units owned by players on your team, as appropriate.
4. Under no circumstances can models from one player attach to another player's models, enter another player's transports, or benefit from the Leadership of another player's characters.
5. The table will be 8x6, and the terrain will be set up both balanced and aesthetically pleasing by a third party.
6. Last man standing wins; if you can't tell who won at the end of the day just by looking, it's a draw.


I think that's about everything. I'm currently planning on going very infantry heavy, with Battlewagons for kannon support. Chaos Dude is going to be packing the anti-tank, with a tide of zombie cultists to keep the pressure on. At least 2 Dakkajets and 2 Helldrakes will be making an appearance as well. The Necron guy wants to bring every Destroyer he owns (he's got the classic "warrior-in-a-flying-recliner" ones) and generally neglect everything else, since he's been out of the game since Newcrons came out.

Does anyone have any particular suggestions for strategies that might work well with the Disorder Faction? Warnings of what in particular I should watch out for from the other side of the table? I'm pretty confident, but I could always use an outside perspective.

[Tome]

Also, just noticed that the farsight enclave works as a stand in for the mobile infantry of starship trooper, at least with a pure crisis suit army. With other kinda of suits, or tanks it get a lot shakier.

There's a reason I play Enclaves. :smallamused:

Lots of reasons really. I don't care if spamming Crisis Suits is sub-optimal - how can it be wrong when it feels so right?

[Drasius]

edit: also, realized a cool thing about enclave... they have the cheapest minimum primary detachment in the game that I know of. Anyone else break 138 points? etherial 50 points, team of 3 naked suits 66 points, team of 1 naked suit 22 points... sadly 8 points to much to bring a imperial knight to a 500 point game. Which I think is probably a feature, not a flaw. How many weird looks would a 510 point game get? Such a terrible army, but... but... random gigantic mechs in the lowest point value game! The suits and ethereal would have no weapons of any kind... but then again, knight erant with a giant melta gun running at a green tide!

Inquisition

HQ - Any Ordo Inquisitor 25 points.

Fin.

Or if you want to argue main rule book over codex, then

HQ
- Inquisitor 25

Troops
- 3x Acolytes - 12
- 3x Acolytes - 12

49 points, 1 HQ and 2 scoring units.

Knights are BB with Inq IIRC, so you could have:

HQ
- Inquisitor, ML1 Psycher, 1x servo skull - 58

Troops
- 3x Acolytes - 12
- 3x Acolytes - 12
- 3x Acolytes - 12
- 3x Acolytes - 12
- 3x Acolytes - 12
- 3x Acolytes - 12

Knight Detachment
- Knight Errant - 370

500 points.

Divquisitor, 6 troops and a knight. Or remove psycher, servo skull and 1 troop to give the Xenos Inquisitor a conversion beamer.

Face roll opponent unless he brought flyers. In which case, get face rolled by opponent.

[Cheesegear]

1. All teams are considered to be perfect Battle Brother-type allies, regardless of what the BBB has to say on the subject.
[...]
4. Under no circumstances can models from one player attach to another player's models, enter another player's transports, or benefit from the Leadership of another player's characters.

So, what you really meant was;

1. All players on the same team are considered to be Allies of Convenience, regardless of what the BBB has to say on the subject.
2. Blessings may be cast on another player's models, despite not being Battle Brothers.

[Darthteej]

So I just ordered a Battle Sisters(NOW EVEN MORE EXPENSIVE) from the site to get the new captain model, which now means that I have a canoness, four sisters models, and a converted Avenger Strike Fighter. This means that with another purchase or two I'll actually have the base of a small allied detachment with a nice flyer in tow to attach to my equally small Grey Knights force. If I get a box of Stormtroopers(refuse to call them scions) and an inquisitor I can also attach a small =][= detachment as well. So right now my Grey Knights force consists of a single box of PAGKS, some terminators armed with swords and modeled like Paladins, Draigo, and a Dreadknight. My only other models are Chaos and thus can't be allied. In other words, I have a hodgepodge bunch of models that I've purchased for different ideas for armies and I have no idea how to make them a cohesive force. Does anyone have advice on how to expand this?

[Cheesegear]

Does anyone have advice on how to expand this?

Can you give us a more accurate list of the models you have?

[Darthteej]

Can you give us a more accurate list of the models you have?

Sure thing.

Lord Kaldor Draigo
3 Grey Knights w/nemesis swords
2 Grey Knights w/nemesis halberds
2 Grey Knight Termies/Pallies, w/sword and storm bolters
1 Grey Knight Apothecary w/sword
2 Grey Knight Termies/Pallies w/psycannons and swords
1 Dreadknight with greatsword and heavy psycannon
1 Canoness with combi flamer and inquisitorial symbol(intended to convert to dark apostle)
3 Battle Sisters with boltguns
1 Battle Sister with storm bolter
1 Revell A-10 Warthog, converted to stand in for Avenger Strike Fighter

As I said, I have more, but those are all chaos models

[Cheesegear]

So, if I'm reading right...

Draigo - 275 Points
Paladins (x5); Apothecary, x2 Psycannons - 390 Points
Strike Squad (x5); x2 Halberds - 110 Points
Nemesis Dreadknight; Heavy Psycannon, Nemesis Greatsword - 195 Points

Total: 970 Points. I'm assuming you do something to make it an even thousand.
Draigo hasn't been good since 6th came out. Do you play against a lot of Daemons? 'Cause that's the only reason you should use him, over say...Coteaz or Crowe. Coteaz is just amazing, as you surely must know. Crowe is extremely useful because he is a lot like Pedro. But, since you're nowhere close to building the army that Crowe requires, we'll ignore that. So...Yeah. Drop Draigo. He's not doing anything for you except chewing up points (and I do know that the 12-model Paladin army is attractive to people that don't have a lot of money, unfortunately, that doesn't make it a good army).

Here are your options;
Coteaz - 100 Points
Malleus Inquisitor; x2 Servo Skulls, Terminator Armour [Daemon Hammer], Psyker - 101 Points
Xenos Inquisitor; x3 Servo Skulls, Rad Grenades, Psychotroke Grenades, Psyker - 94 Points

Some people put a Psycannon the Malleus. IMO, I don't think it's viable anymore, simply because Coteaz is right there for 100 Points. Since the Malleus is in Terminator Armour though, he gets style points. But, unless you're in a tournament that actually uses Comp/Theme, it doesn't mean much. The Malleus also can carry Brain Mines, but, since everything in-meta that the Brain Mines would be useful against have high Initiative, they're not going to do anything, especially since Rad/Psychotrokes don't even get tested for. Speaking of...the Xenos Inquisitor is there purely because he carries Grenades - and has Stubborn. If you want to put on the Plasma Siphon, great. But, in-Meta, Eldar and Daemons don't have Plasma, and while it's funny that Pulse Rifles actually are effected, Tau are using Kroot. If you already have a Warlord (i.e; Coteaz), then you can take the Xenos Inquisitor as part of an Inquisitorial Detachment and stick the Liber Heresis on, just because you can. ...Unless your meta doesn't allow that.

Since you're no longer using Draigo anymore, your Paladins don't Score. Is it possible to remove all the gubbins from the Apothecary to make him 'normal', or is that not possible because you used Plastic Glue instead of Super Glue? Doesn't really matter. Since you're buying up Sisters models, I know you can use the online store. If you can't transition the Apothecary, the online store has the GK Captain-with-Halberd that works well as Thrawn. Since I already had the (metal) model, I used Stern, and replaced his Sword with a Justiciar-looking Halberd for my Thrawn. But, the Captain is cheaper.

(PROTIP: As someone who has been in the hobby for over 15 years, I've seen a lot of meta changes. I use Super Glue because it 'snaps' off quite easily, wheras if you use plastic glue, you're basically stuck with that model as-is for a long time. "But Cheese, melting plastic gives a better bond so my models don't break." I'll respond with "How are your transporting your models so that they break at all?")

If you've done things right, you should have two Inquisitors at roughly 100 Points each, plus Thrawn, making 275 Points to replace Draigo. Easy.
However, dropping the Paladins to Terminators, and losing the Apothecary, puts you 150 Points down. Buy more Terminators! If it's possible, you may even find enough decent looking parts to make a Thrawn without splurging for a whole separate model. That being said, Halberds. They're good.
If you can, bump up the Strike Knights to ten models, you get two Psycannons that way! Since you're not using Crowe, you don't need Halberds at all.

Dreadknight. Drop the Sword. Or, at least explain to your opponents that you don't actually have it. A lot of people aren't going to complain simply because the 'Knight with the Sword actually does look better. But, if you don't have those opponents, then drop the Sword. Lose the Heavy Psycannon, pick up a Heavy Incinerator (again, players who use Plastic Glue make me sad). You should now have enough points to trade for a Personal Teleporter. That, plus a Torrent weapon, is GG for most units that rely on Cover Saves to stay alive. I also really think you need two.

Since you aren't spamming Psycannons or Hammers, you don't have much S8+ and/or AP<2.

In come the Allies. You have an Avenger Strike Fighter, which AFAIK can only be used by Sisters or Guard. Sisters are pretty much terrible as Allies and only work as Primaries. However, if you're stuck using the models you've got, you should invest in Coteaz and use Sisters as a Warband (more Scoring doesn't hurt).

Guard Allies;
Company Command Squad - Lots of Plasma. Good.
Tempestus Scions - They bring more AP3. Which can be helpful. But, they can also Deep Strike with Melta or Plasma weapons, and that's good. Remember that you need at least two boxes of them to field them at all. Not just one like the 'old days'. A cynical me would say it's GW's way of selling even more kits, however, the realist in me knows that it's just an accident simply because they copy-pasted over from Militraum Tempestus.
Infantry Platoon - Lots of Scoring, which you apparently don't have. You're relying on 10 Scoring models in 1000 Points. Again, I know Draigo and Paladins is pretty much the cheapest army in the game, that doesn't make it good.
Veterans - More Plasma.
Fast - Sentinels. Better snap them up off eBay quickly before sellers realise their newfound value and keep them.
Heavy - Avenger Strike Fighter. For the same points you can have a pair of Hydras. But, currency appears to be a limitation and you already have an Avenger.

I think that's everything. But I've barely played Grey Knights - with or against - in 6th, so there's probably something I'm missing.

[thedavo]

isters as a Warband (more Scoring doesn't hurt).

Guard Allies;

Tempestus Scions - They bring more AP3. Which can be helpful. But, they can also Deep Strike with Melta or Plasma weapons, and that's good. Remember that you need at least two boxes of them to field them at all. Not just one like the 'old days'. A cynical me would say it's GW's way of selling even more kits, however, the realist in me knows that it's just an accident simply because they copy-pasted over from Militraum Tempestus.

According to my AM Codex, minimum unit size is five, and the platoon is 0-1 MT command squad and 1-3 Scions - so you'd only need one box. You can take up to five extra Scions in a squad.

[Cheesegear]

According to my AM Codex, minimum unit size is five, and the platoon is 0-1 MT command squad and 1-3 Scions - so you'd only need one box.

Here I thought MT Commands weren't optional.
Okay. Now that your minimum squad size isn't 155 Points, Stormtroopers just became a lot more usable. Scratch everything I've said about MTs before now. Good thing I don't write Guides in one day based on gut reactions (I'm looking at you, other website...).

[thedavo]

They may not be optional in Codex MT? I don't know, I don't have it.

[Requizen]

In Codex:AM, a Tempestus Platoon is 0-1 Command Squads and 1-3 Scions Squads.
In Codex:MT, Command Squads are an HQ choice (more or less mandatory because Commissars can't give Orders), and each Scion Squad is a Troops choice.

[Darthteej]

Good advice on pretty much every point Cheese, and roughly in line with what I was thinking anyway. Coteaz is actually a model I wanted anyway, considering his unbelievable value. I also just so happen to have a friend who plays Imperial Guard who I'll be allying with, which is mostly why I bought the "Avenger Strike Fighter" in the first place. I'm definitely limited by currency, and big orders like the ones I've placed recently are rare for me, it's why I didn't buy a Crowe army in the first place(all of those transports and units)! Warbanding the sisters into just acolytes with power armor and boltguns is a much better idea right now, and I imagine they'll do fine with some hot-shot toting acolytes behind them. I DO use super glue for the above mentioned purposes. As for the Apothecary, it's kind of already painted and has the Diagnostor helmet in addition to the arm, so I'm not sure how I'm going to handle that. That said, I originally conceived the Draigowing army with the dreadknight as a massive, deep striking distraction to assist my guard allies. The idea was that the terminators would be held in reserve while the dreadknight scouts and then teleports up, dropping an incinerator template/pie plate onto the enemy troops before the deathstar comes in to further wreak havoc. Regular terminators are a cheaper option, but unless there's another guaranteed way of getting Scout then I'd prefer to just use Draigo as a regular grandmaster- especially since I've already painted the model.

Also, to the idea of two hydras being better than an Avenger-why? The Avenger may be expensive, but the worst case scenario is that it comes in and dumps a bolt cannon shot, two lascannons, and possibly a missile at whatever it was aiming for before being blown away. The A-10 model has options for pretty much every missile and bomb the avenger can take, and that means that if I'm aiming at ground targets it could wreak serious havoc before being targeted, enough to at least put down a transport or two and wreck a scoring unit. I know it's only one flyer, but my meta is fairly casual and non-flyer oriented. The most competitive player has two stormtalons and was still caught off guard by my single Heldrake. Me and my guard friend have the potential to field three-a vendetta, a valkyrie attached to my Inquisition detachment, and the Avenger, but we'd only do that if we were feeling really mean :smallbiggrin:

[Cheesegear]

Regular terminators are a cheaper option, but unless there's another guaranteed way of getting Scout

Not guaranteed per se. But, a Xenos Inquisitor with Liber Heresis does it nicely from an Inquisitorial Detachment. Of course, you can use any Inquisitor, but, Xenos has Grenades.

[Renegade Paladin]

The errata page is now hosted at the Black Library site. (http://www.blacklibrary.com/faqs-and-errata.html)

[LordDavenport]

In a farsight enclave list, would a single crysis suit with two flamers be a silly unit?
You leave it in reserves. If the opponent is fielding a large tarpit blob you deepstrike it as close as possible and take a chunk out of the blob. If they aren't then leave it in reserves, then pop it out in the last couple turns to hold an objective. Hell, might even grab one behind enemy lines with a deepstrike and jump. At 32 points, it is really really cheap for a scoring unit... that might just kill a mob of cultists in one shooting phase. Getting cover is easy with one model, and moral checks shouldn't come up except against fear/pinning.
Downside is purge the alien were they are a free victory point, or if the opponent moves for a table.

Would a similar build with a pair of burst cannons work better, as it could deepstrike, shoot, and jump for cover be more viable? Might even kill a leman russ with a lucky back attack(8 shots each hitting on a 4, getting a penitrating hit on a 6, each shots got a 1/12 chance to get piss the tank off...)

[Cheesegear]

In a farsight enclave list, would a single crysis suit with two flamers be a silly unit?
[...]
At 32 points, it is really really cheap for a scoring unit

Your conclusion is sound. Your reasoning is wrong.
Is a 1-man Crisis Suit good for grabbing late-game objectives and free Linebreakers? Yes.
Is a 1-man Crisis Suit with double Flamers good for Deep Striking down at some random turn and Flaming the horde unit that your opponent may or may not have? No.

Besides, you're Tau. If you can't kill hordes - even in cover - you're doing it wrong.

EDIT: Give it Drones too, just to be extra annoying. Reminds me of a Lone Wolf, or a Solodin Apothecary.

[Tome]

As CG said, a dirt cheap one-man crisis team is great for late game objective grabs. The actual damage it does is minimal and more of a nice bonus.

That said, a three man team with double flamers? That can do some damage. Mathematically speaking it's going to kill as many marines as you can fit under the templates, which holds up in play, and anything less durable than marines is going to simply evaporate. Be sure to have a couple of gun drones so that the flamers can spill over to the rest of the unit.

My troops setup tends to be:

1x 3-man team with flamers
1x 3-man team with plasma
1x 2-man team with fusion
2x 2-man team with missiles
1x fire warrior team

[Cheesegear]

Why Farsight's Friends all so...Bad? The only good one is O'Vesa, and only because of IC shenanigans that allow Riptide stacking.

Speaking of, who wants to do a summary of the Farsight Enclaves? It shouldn't be too hard. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?303801-Warhammer-40K-Tabletop-XIX-quot-Understand-the-gravity-of-the-situation-quot&p=17182178&viewfull=1#post17182178)

I also wont be doing Iyanden - ever? - because an eBook version doesn't exist and I wont buy from Apple. So, if anyone has Iyanden and feels like summarising that one for the Guides, know that I'm not doing it anytime soon, so, any time you're ready.

[Tome]

Speaking of, who wants to do a summary of the Farsight Enclaves? It shouldn't be too hard. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?303801-Warhammer-40K-Tabletop-XIX-quot-Understand-the-gravity-of-the-situation-quot&p=17182178&viewfull=1#post17182178)

Sure.


Codex: Farsight Enclaves
Through Fire, Revelation.
Through Revelation, Rebellion.
A much better subtitle than the Crimson Slaughter got.

Battlesuit Spearhead: The reason you are playing Farsight Enclaves rather than Tau Empire and something Tau players have been after for ages. Allows Crisis Teams as troops so long as you take at least one unit at maximum size - which isn't even much of a restriction because you were going to do that anyway. This is great. You get a durable, mobile scoring option that can carry some actual firepower, something Tau otherwise lack. You probably don't want to fill all your troops slots with suits though - even ignoring the costs, Kroot and Fire Warriors still have their place in an Enclaves list. You should fill every slot though, even a one man team with two flamers or missile pods is useful when it's scoring. Otherwise, kit them out like you normally would.

Ork Hunters: Absolutely useless. It only applies in assault and nothing in your army can go up against Orks in assault even with PE.

Ta'lissera Bond: The price you pay for having crisis teams as troops. Everything in your army that can take Bonding Knives must do so. Not too bad, because bonding knives are dirt cheap and hey, you might one day get some actual use out of it. My current list spends all of 35 points on this in total, to give you an idea of how much it's going to cost you.

Divergent Destiny: No Aun'Va or Shadowsun. Big whoop on the space pope, you probably won't be running enough Fire Warriors to really benefit from him. Shadowsun is actually worth her points though, but you can just Ally her back in if you really want her. Interestingly Darkstrider, Aun'Shi and Longstrike have no such restrictions. Generic Ethereals are similarly unrestricted.

Allies: Same as the standard Tau Empire list, but you can also be Battle Brothers with them. This is where the filthy cheese that allows you to field five Riptides happens - don't do that unless your meta is already composed of solid cheddar. Unbound is a thing if you want to be that beardy.

Warlord Traits:

It's a buff for assault commanders. Which means it's useless for Tau. If you're in assault, you've already lost. Doubly so for your warlord. Fortunately you can re-roll this if your warlord isn't in a crisis suit.
Like the PEN chip from the parent codex. You can't change it turn by turn but it's still very good. Monstrous Creatures and Vehicles tend to be an either/or situation.
Messing with your opponent's reserve rolls. Sometimes useful, you have to both be facing an opponent with reserves and roll this trait. It's also a one-use thing and only applies a penalty. Still, better than nothing.
Your Warlord is Fearless and everything within 6" is Stubborn. Unless you were already using an Ethereal this is very good.
A boost to reserves for the scoring deepstrikers that probably make up a good portion of your list? Yes please, I would like that very much.
One turn of your warlord and his unit having the Shred rule? That's pretty good actually.

All in all you have one useless trait (that can sometimes be re-rolled), one situational one and four good ones. Better than the BRB warlord traits for Tau and better than most other codices tables. Roughly on par with the parent codex table, so you aren't loosing anything here.

Signature Systems of the Farsight Enclaves
You loose access to the Tau Empire Signature Systems. This is bad, since a lot of what makes battlesuit Commanders great is their access to those same systems. The upside is that Riptides get access to Signature Systems, which means you take any actually useful ones on them instead. It does not state that Signature Systems take up one of your support systems either, or that you can only take one per Riptide.

For this reason, and being able to re-roll the only bad warlord trait, I'd advise going with an Ethereal or Fireblade for your Warlord. Probably a Fireblade if you're like me and are only running the one unit of Fire Warriors.

The Mirrorcodex: Turns out getting all your plays from the same book makes you kind of predictable. Expensive, it boosts rolls to seize the initiative and can randomly hand out Preferred Enemy against Space Marines (and sometimes everyone else too). It's value is proportional to the number of space marines in your meta. Which usually makes it decently useful if you have the points.

Seismic Fibrillator Node: It's got a huge range, enough to cover most battlefields completely, and forces all enemy models to move through difficult or dangerous terrain. That can be enough to earn you a whole turn of shooting versus some assault armies. It's expensive though.

Warscaper Drone: Moderately priced, it does two things. The first is giving it's unit Outflank, Acute Senses and Move Through Cover. The second is forcing any enemy unit outside it's deployment zone and within 12" to treat difficult terrain as dangerous. Unfortunately a lot of these benefits don't synergise terribly well. Anything that can take this will already have a Jetpack, which makes Move Through Cover considerably less useful (Dangerous Terrain is a joke in most cases), while the the terrain effect doesn't mix particularly well with the outflanking - chances are if you're outflanking it'll be into the opponent's DZ. Not really worth it.

Fusion Blade: No. Just... it's an assault weapon for a Tau commander. That might randomly not work, incidentally disabling their gun as well (which must be a TL Fusion Blaster, a sub-optimal choice to start with). It's also six times the cost of the Onager Gauntlet.

Earth Caste Pilot Array: Now this is good. One Riptide gets to be WS 1 (who cares?) but gets to re-roll 1's to hit in the shooting phase and re-roll nova-reactor rolls. Excellent. Makes the Long-Barrelled Burst Cannon much better and still provides a benefit to the Ion Accelerator. There should always be a Riptide with this in your list.

Talisman of Arthas Moloch: Gives a 5++ and boosts Deny The Witch. By which I mean 'renders witchfires useless against you and any unit near you'. If witchfires or maledictions are actually something that gets used in your meta this can be useful. If not then the same points will buy a Shield Generator for a 4++ instead. If there's lots of Witchfires and Maledictions in your meta this is great, particularly if you ally in some GKs or Daemons to give you lots of charges to deny with. Otherwise a shield generator is the same price for a better save.

In summary the only real stand out is the ECPA, which is amazing. The Mirrorcodex, Talisman and SFN are potentially useful, though expensive. Everything else is trash). A huge change from the parent codex list which has very good wargear options. Forget what I said about the Ta'lissera Bond, this is the real cost of using Enclaves.

Farsight's Commander Team
Farsight's super-bodyguard deathstar can now be even more super (and expensive). Instead of taking a bunch of customised Shas'Vre you can opt to take up to seven unique ICs. They're not all that great mostly terrible apart from O'Vesa. Fortunately you don't have to take the full unit, which means most of the time folks will be paying the Farsight tax so they can take just O'Vesa.

For the most part you'll be better off with a standard bodyguard built using the Tau Empire codex if you want to use the Farsight bomb, because they'll have better wargear and be much cheaper. They do have a few advantages though. They're all Commanders, including the buffed statline and IC status, so you can attach one to each unit in your army if you want and try fielding a bunch of 4-man crisis teams. That's expensive though, and you'd probably be better off just taking three generic Commanders by allying with Tau Empire if you want that effect.

O'Vesa: This is where you get your fifth Riptide from if you're doing that (don't). He has a decent load-out but a standard Riptide with the same setup is exactly the same price. So take that instead unless you really need that fifth Riptide or want to pull shenanigans with his IC status (again, don't do either of these things, your opponent will be fully within the rules to throw their rulebook at you). And no, you can't take another Riptide with an ECPA if you have him in your army - they're one per army and the generic Riptide still has to pay attention to that.

Commander Bravestorm: Not a very good loadout, but he's the only way to get the Iridium battlesuit in an Enclaves list. He's decently tanky at least - but so is a regular Tau Empire Commander with his gear, and for the same price.

Commander Brightstorm: I'm seeing a trend in these names. Run out of ideas GW? He has a terrible loadout, do not bother. Remember those Fusion Blades? That's his gimmick.

Shas’O Sha’vastos: Has a PEN chip! Yay! Except you could just ally in one on a Commander with a much better loadout from the parent codex.

Shas’O Arra’kon: A terrible loadout. He has three guns, none of which mesh and he can still only shoot two of them at once.

Broadside Shas’vre Ob’lotai 9-0: He's in a Broadside! And that's pretty much it. You could, instead, take a regular Broadside for less points. He also lacks a jetpack, so you can't really stick him in a unit with crisis suits.

Sub-commander Torchstar: He carries the MS3... but no C&CN. Also the only one to have a Target lock. Also the only one who doesn't need a Target Lock.


There are two reasons to go Enclaves. Either you want Crisis Suits as troops (yay!) or you want to pull shenanigans with O'Vesa (don't). Farsight himself is much better off building his bodyguard using the standard Tau Empire codex. Commanders got nerfed with the loss of the Signature Systems, so take a Fireblade and a single unit of Fire Warriors instead.

Pros:

Crisis Teams as Troops!
O'Vesa, if you're willing to pay the Farsight tax.
The Earth Caste Pilot Array.
The Warlord table is just as good the Tau Empire one. This is good.
The Talisman of Arthas Moloch is actually a very good bit of Psyker Defence if your meta use a the sorts of powers it works on.


Cons:

A much worse set of Signature Systems.
The Eight are pretty much useless.
You have to take bonding knives on everything that can.
No Shadowsun. Or Aun'Va, but nobody cares about him.


EDIT Updated for 7th. By which I mean I added some comments on the Talisman and did a check to make sure there were no references to units of Riptides.

[Cheesegear]

Ork Hunters: Absolutely useless. It only applies in assault and nothing in your army can go up against Orks in assault even with PE.

Tyrannic War Veterans have the same problem. They have a special ability that will simply get them annihilated should they actually try to make use of it.


Divergent Destiny: Interestingly Darkstrider, Aun'Shi and Longstrike have no such restrictions.

Isn't Aun'Shi an Ethereal? Did Farsight get all of his Ethereals killed and that's how he was able to take over in the first place?


Fusion Blade: No. Just... it's an assault weapon for a Tau commander. That might randomly not work, incidentally disabling their guns as well (which must be a TL Fusion Blaster, a sub-optimal choice to start with).

I'm assuming this is to replace the biggest trap in the Tau Empire book (no, not Vespids), the Onager Gauntlet? How does it compare to that?


Talisman of Arthas Moloch: Gives a 5++ and boost psyker defence.

Is that the one with 4d6 to Deny rolls to make Witchfires utterly useless?


Instead of taking a bunch of customised Shas'Vre you can opt to take up to seven unique ICs.

You can 'opt' to take them? Does this mean Farsight can replace all of his best friends with no-name mooks who actually have good wargear?
EDIT: No. By 'opt' to take them, you mean 'take them or don't'.


There was, if I recall, some debate over whether they could be taken on their own as standard HQs or if you needed Farsight to unlock them.

(I'm reading this off a screenshot...So...)
"Commander Farsight does not allow you to take an XV8 Crisis Bodyguard Team as normal; He has the Commander Team instead. [...] consists of up to seven other...

So, you do need to take Farsight to have access to the Commander Team. However, since they're all ICs, you don't need to stick them together, and, you can take up to seven other Commanders. Which is fine, because you're only taking O'Vesa anyway.

Basically, running Tau Empire lets you use a Farsight Bomb.
Running the Farsight Enclaves allows you to run 4-man Crisis Teams apparently. Or it's supposed to. Or something.

Do you even want to? If I had Enclaves I'd be at least statting out one unit for every Commander to see if I could get anything out of them.
Are the Commanders even costed appropriately? I imagine that Drones are factored into their points cost, most of which you wouldn't take.


Shas’O Arra’kon: A terrible loadout. He has three guns, none of which mesh and can still only shoot two of them at once.

(Again, from a screenshot)
Then what does his swanky 'Enforcer' suit do, if not allow him to shoot three guns?


If anyone knows whether the Eight can be taken on their own let me know and I'll update it.

From what I'm reading, The Eight replace the Bodyguard entry in the Codex, and you can't take Bodyguard by themselves. Except they aren't Bodyguard. Because they're all Independent Characters for some reason which completely destroys the Fluff (and the point).


Also, while you can take five Riptides, I think points limits means capping out at four Riptides if you want to have any real Scoring units. Still a **** move though.

[LeSwordfish]

The commanders are costed appropriately at least- none of them has anything unique, so each of them is exactly the same cost in terms of points as if you'd built them yourself from a commander base.

[Requizen]

So I was still thinking a bit about what to Ally my potential MT with, and I thought I should ask the more fundamental question: What are the main "checkboxes" that every force wants to hit that you should be trying to shore up with Allies? So far I have:


Flyers/Anti-flyer (the most obvious)
Vehicle killing (high strength, maybe high AP)
HQ/Deathstar/MC killing (High AP, Plasma or the like)
Horde Killing (High volume of shots, templates/blasts)
Assault units
High-range support units


Does this seem like a comprehensive list of gaps to fill when writing an army list? Anything that I'm missing or got fundamentally wrong?

[Wraith]

Codex Iyanden
"The Light In The Darkness"

Codex: Iyanden uses ALL of the units from Codex: Eldar, however it allows the following changes:

Heroes of Iyanden
A single Wraithlord or Wraithknight can be your Warlord, however it's specifically NOT in a HQ slot - you will still need to take that separately. Exactly what the long-time, die-hard Iyanden fans were NOT asking for.

Shadow Council
Your Spiritseers can be bought as units of 5 models per HQ choice, instead of 1. This sounds potentially quite good - you increase the chance that you roll the Psychic Power that you want and attach the right Seer to the right unit as necessary, Wolf Guard-style, since even if bought as a unit they remain Independent Characters.
This can be extremely useful as a 'battery' for your Farseer - a unit of Spiritseers doesn't become a Brotherhood of Psykers, and instead generate Charges individually. Five Spiritseers gives you 5 Charges, which is a 400% increase over buying them individually in Codex: Eldar. Neat.
In practice though, it doesn't work so well. Reveal/Conceal is still probably your favourite Runes of Battle Power, and Codex Iyanden removes it as your Primaris, which means you HAVE to roll for it. The replacement:

Psychic Power: Voice of Twilight (Runes of Battle, WC: 2)
Wraith-creatures within 12" get Battle Focus and Furious Charge.

...Seems like it might have it's uses, but I do not like that trade-off at all. At 70pts each for a sub-par fighter with sub-par Disciplines, I can imagine why you might take 2 or even 3 alongside your Farseer in a Wraith-dedicated army, but 5? Or 10!? No chance.

So.... No new units. No new special character (even though at least one, a special Farseer named Iyanna Arienal, is talked about extensively in the 80 pages of fluff before you get to the new rules section). Barely even new statlines for existing models. Just - literally - more of the same.

....At least the artwork is pretty?

WARLORD TRAITS
Your Warlord gets d3 rerolls to use on his To Hit, Wound, Penetrate and Saving Throws. This is the one that you want on your Wraithlord/Knight, as if you're doing any of those things with your Farseer or Spiritseer, something is going badly wrong.
Your Warlord and unit having FNP (6+) is better than NOT having FNP (6+). That's about the best thing I can say for it, but you'd be hoping for better on models that're likely costing 32pts each and, in all likeliness, no longer have Conceal because it's not your Primaris anymore.
Warlord and his unit get Hatred against everything. Better than "only useful against one army" and it can be handy on a Farseer or Wraithknight alike, although with a Farseer it works better if he's NOT in a group of Wraithguard. Which makes one wonder why that sort of thing (ie: NOT taking Wraithguard) is recommended by Codex: Iyanden.... :smallconfused:
Spirit Mark is a pretty weak rule already, being cumulative does not redeem it.
Minor Deny the Witch bonus. Maybe kind of useful if you're not taking a Farseer.... But let's be honest, you're not taking a Farseer because he has a Ghosthelm or Runes any more, are you?
Reroll your saves, until you fail one and lose the ability forever. Another one that you'd prefer on your Wraithknight Warlord, but is pretty bad on a Spiritseer and probably entirely useless on your Farseer. I'd be disappointed to get it on any of them.


There's nothing there that I *want* - there's maybe 3 of them that would be okay on a Wraith- Warlord, but most are wasted on any kind of infantry. This is a great shame - surely the whole point of Codex: Iyanden should be to do fun and unusual things with Wraithcreatures, and the Warlord Table just doesn't support that.

The GIFTS OF ASURYAN (Relics)
You can choose for a character to take relics from either Codex Eldar or Codex Iyanden, but not both on the same model. You are free to have one with Eldar and one with Iyanden relics, however. Note that being your Warlord does not also make your Wraithlords and Wraithknights into characters, so they still cannot take ANY relics at all.

The Celestial Lance - A "Singing Spear" that explodes when the bearer kills a Character or Monstrous Creature on the turn in which it charges, causing everyone else (friend and enemy) under a Large Blast template to take a wound on 4+ AP-. Honestly, I'm not sure that I want to risk my Farseer in challenges at all, not if the outcome is to kill the rest of my own unit and CERTAINLY not for 35 points.

Soulshrive - A melee weapon that Starts at AP2 s3 and adds +1 strength (up to 10) for each unsaved wound it causes throughout the game. I don't know why I'd be taking an Autarch as my primary HQ in an Iyanden army instead of a Farseer/Spiritseer/Seer Council, but if I did then he might like the AP2. Expensive - it should at least start at Strength 4.

The Wraithforge Stone - Regenerating one of your Wraithlord/Wraithknights on a 3+ might sound really good, but remember you have to buy a character to hold the item and then have it baby-sit the creature as the Stone only has a 6" range. Your 30pt item actually costs a minimum of 100 points and a HQ slot, and it's shackled to your biggest, juiciest target ... Still sound good?
Maybe, if you could give it to a Wraith-Warlord directly and have it look after itself.... But you can't.

Guardian Helm of Xellethon - Better - MUCH better! Taking Look Out, Sir! rolls on a T6 unit is big and clever, and having an entire unit of Wraithblades that can answer challenges for your weak, squishy little 'Seer is hilarious. At 15 points, it's a steal.

Spear of Teuthlas - s9 AP- Singing Spear with Rending. Strictly speaking it's a lot cheaper than the Shard of Anaris or the Firesabre and it's abilities aren't particularly worse overall.... But you can't give it to an Autarch, the only guy who'd get some real use out of it.

So, one - and only one - relic that is above average, and the rest are either poor, or very expensive and poor. That's really disappointing.

In summary, why are you using Codex: Iyanden and not Codex: Eldar?

It's because you like Spiritseers and want to take 3 or more in your army, and it's because you have a very pretty Wraithknight model in your collection and you want to try and justify all the time and expense you used on buying, assembling and painting it by using it as your Warlord.

The first reason isn't that bad - Wraithguard and Wraithblades are very good units and supporting them with Spiritseers is always a good idea, but having said that they're not a substitute for a Farseer and you're definitely going to want one of those too.

The second reason.... well, good luck to you, I guess, because that is the ONLY thing you're getting from Codex: Iyanden.
You'll still probably want a Farseer as your other HQ Choice, making the option to take multiple Spiritseers redundant, and you can't use any of the new Relics on your Wraith-Warlord. You just paid $20 for one line of useful text in a 100 page ebook.

Overall, very disappointing. Absolutely nothing that you couldn't already do with your existing book, except give a not-very-good Warlord Trait to a Wraithlord/Wraithknight.

[LordDavenport]

Isn't Aun'Shi an Ethereal? Did Farsight get all of his Ethereals killed and that's how he was able to take over in the first place?

Supposidly you can fluff the army as early renigades, so they still had a couple etherials. Which I guess could include the blademaster? Still, it works in codex.



I'm assuming this is to replace the biggest trap in the Tau Empire book (no, not Vespids), the Onager Gauntlet? How does it compare to that?


requires a subpar gun, -2S, +1AP, has armour bane, has blind, and on a 1 to hit the weapon and gun go offline for the rest of the battle. So very poorly.



Are the Commanders even costed appropriately? I imagine that Drones are factored into their points cost, most of which you wouldn't take.

Yes... most are packing two drones and a piece of wargear overr what is normally allowed.




Also, while you can take five Riptides, I think points limits means capping out at four Riptides if you want to have any real Scoring units. Still a **** move though.

is allying in a comander, just to have two riptides and a C&C+nocover+dronecontroller commander also a **** move? On par with the double FOC chart 9 riptides?


edit: Terrifying fire base.
Farsight Riptide
Heavy burst cannon, twinlinked fusion blaster, Earth cast pilot array, Velocity tracker.
2xshielded missile drones.
280 points
O'Vesa Riptide
Ion accelerator, twinlinked fusion blaster, Earth cast pilot array, Early warning override, stimulant injector.
2x Shielded missile drones.
305 points.
Allied Commander 85
Flamer, Drone controler, Stimulant injector, Vecctored retor thruster, Comand and control node, Multispectrum sensor sweet, Irridium battle suit.
2xshield drones
202 points
nine model unit: 787points
Seeing most any unit melt in one round of shooting: Priceless.
Main issue is the lack of target locks... But O'Vessa can just split off in the moment phase if need be. The drones lose that lovely BS5, twinlinked, and ignore cover, which is sad.

Also, does the Erath cast bonus reroll on a miss allow for rerolling scatter on blasts?

[Eldan]

Iyanden

Oh come on!
They didn't even include Iyanna Arienal? I mean, she already had stats in the old codex! Well, very old codex, now.

She was cool. The Angel of Iyanden. One of the two great leaders of the craftworld. The first Spirit Seer. The great believer in the Ynnead prophecy.

And don't even get me started on Prince Nuadhu. Grumble grumble off my lawn grumble grumble.

[Tome]

Isn't Aun'Shi an Ethereal? Did Farsight get all of his Ethereals killed and that's how he was able to take over in the first place?

He is. Nothing stops you from taking Ethereals in an Enclaves list. The sidebar where it points it out is actually titled "Forging a Narrative". Which is... what in the warp were they thinking? Was the writer taking a subtle jab at the corporate overlords there?


I'm assuming this is to replace the biggest trap in the Tau Empire book (no, not Vespids), the Onager Gauntlet? How does it compare to that?

It's worse. Six times the price, worse stats in exchange for Armourbane and shorts out along with your gun on a 1.


Is that the one with 4d6 to Deny rolls to make Witchfires utterly useless?

Yes, yes it is. I don't see many witchfires in my meta so I might be devaluing that. Let me know if I am and I'll change the description.


You can 'opt' to take them? Does this mean Farsight can replace all of his best friends with no-name mooks who actually have good wargear?
EDIT: No. By 'opt' to take them, you mean 'take them or don't'.

Actually it is optional. Or at least can be read that way.

"When choosing a Farsight Enclaves army, you have access to a special unit called
Farsight’s Commander Team. If you choose to take this unit, Commander Farsight does
not allow you to take an XV8 Crisis Bodyguard Team as normal; he has the Commander
Team instead."

It only replaces the bodyguard if you choose to take it, as I read it.


So, you do need to take Farsight to have access to the Commander Team. However, since they're all ICs, you don't need to stick them together, and, you can take up to seven other Commanders. Which is fine, because you're only taking O'Vesa anyway.

Pretty much. I'll re-write the section on the Eight to be a bit more accurate here. They're not something I've actually used in a game.


Basically, running Tau Empire lets you use a Farsight Bomb.
Running the Farsight Enclaves allows you to run 4-man Crisis Teams apparently. Or it's supposed to. Or something.

Do you even want to? If I had Enclaves I'd be at least statting out one unit for every Commander to see if I could get anything out of them.
Are the Commanders even costed appropriately? I imagine that Drones are factored into their points cost, most of which you wouldn't take.

Considering they all cost as much as a commander but have mostly terrible wargear I don't really the point in taking them even for that. You can manage three commanders anyway if you really want to and they'll actually have decent wargear.

They are indeed costed appropriately.


(Again, from a screenshot)
Then what does his swanky 'Enforcer' suit do, if not allow him to shoot three guns?

Absolutely nothing. The Enforcer suits are functionally indistinguishable from standard crisis suits as best I can tell.

[Wraith]

Oh come on!
They didn't even include Iyanna Arienal? I mean, she already had stats in the old codex! Well, very old codex, now.

She was cool. The Angel of Iyanden. One of the two great leaders of the craftworld. The first Spirit Seer. The great believer in the Ynnead prophecy.

And don't even get me started on Prince Nuadhu. Grumble grumble off my lawn grumble grumble.

She is still known as the Angel of Iyanden. She was the first person to.... see? Experience? Witness? Foretell? ....the Ynnead Prophecy. There's a picture of a red-headed Eldar in yellow Farseer robes. And she's not dead. Yet.

This is, to my quick glance, the entirety of the information given about her.

[Eldan]

Wait. She made the Ynnead prophecy now? Huh. Guess they wrote whatsname the Anchorite out, then.

[Cheesegear]

The Main Rules do not specifically state that "Hatred" is the same as "Hatred (Everything)", especially given that there are some character out there who *DO* specifically have "Hatred (Everything)". Errata plz!

Hatred is indeed the same as Hatred (Everything). Otherwise models with Zealot don't work properly.


You can choose for a character to take relics from either Codex Eldar or Codex Iyanden, but not both on the same model.

That's something new (or rather, something very old that the newer Supplements have phased out). Unfortunately, I've read the rest, and I know that the Relics are pretty bad.


Guardian Helm of Xellethon - Better - MUCH better! Taking Look Out, Sir! rolls on a T6 unit is big and clever, and having an entire unit of Wraithblades that can answer challenges for your weak, squishy little 'Seer is hilarious. At 15 points, it's a steal.

I'll point out that if the majority of your unit is T6, your Spiritseer becomes T6 by space magic of the Universe (pg 14 and 25, BBB). Just like Lysander becomes T5 in a unit of Centurions. Or a Commander becomes T6 when he joins a Riptide. Even if you use Precision Shots against the model who specifically is not the higher Toughness, they still have higher Toughness. Note, that this rule even applies in Challenges.

Does that change how you view the item?


It's because you have a very pretty Wraithknight model in your collection and you want to try and justify all the time and expense you used on buying, assembling and painting it by using it as your Warlord.

Both of the people I know who use Iyanden at all use it only for this reason. I know that they get angry that they have to cart around their iPad just so they can show people 'Wraithknights can be Warlords'. One game-usable sentence in an entire book. Yay! Doing this is helpful in (badly run) tournaments where TOs decide that making your Warlord do things is fun, and 'Forge A Narrative' means "Play HeroHammer! 2nd Ed. was fun, amirite!?" And being able to say "This T8 model is my Warlord. He does whatever he wants." is a very quick and easy way to rack up bonus tournament points.


but having said that [Spiritseers] aren't a substitute for a Farseer and you're definitely going to want one of those too.

I see Farseer and a Spirit Council.
It chews up points, sure. But it's cheaper than running the full Jet Council, and the Jet Council doesn't really work with Wraith armies anyway. IMO the Spirit Council is for when you want a Farseer (you always do), but still want to have multiple Spiritseers.


Absolutely nothing that you couldn't already do with your existing book, except give a Warlord Trait to a Wraithlord.

You mean Wraithknight? :smalltongue:
But otherwise, I don't have the book, but I have Codex: Eldar, and that book right there lets me already take Wraithguard-as-Troops if I want them. I feel like if they hadn't included that, and put it in as part of Iyanden, then Iyanden would actually be worth something. Especially since they wrote Codex: Eldar, already knowing they would be planning for Iyanden. This is called cannibalising your own profits, when your product you own is competing with another product that you also own. But, if it wasn't in the main Codex, White Dwarf and Blackshirts couldn't say "OMG U GAIS. WRAITHGUARD ARE TROOPS NAO. BUY NAO PLZKTHX."

While hyperbole. Wraithguard as Troops was actually a selling point for the Codex.

Anyway, added.


It's worse. Six times the price, worse stats in exchange for Armourbane and shorts out along with your gun on a 1.

Six times the price? ...Way worse.


Yes, yes it is. I don't see many witchfires in my meta so I might be devaluing that.

Not really. Witchfires are generally useless because you can Deny (and have to roll To Hit, To Wound, etc.). Making it even easier to Deny makes the main problem of Witchfires that much worse.

I have an Infernus Pistol. I shoot you.
I have Life Leech from Biomancy. I shoo- NOPE!


It only replaces the bodyguard if you choose to take it, as I read it.

I seem to have left out the first sentence of the rule. 'Kay.

Also, added.

[Wraith]

Hatred is indeed the same as Hatred (Everything. Otherwise models with Zealot don't work properly.

Good to know, but I maintain my request for a proper definition in an FAQ!


Does that change how you view the item?

Honestly, not really. My favourite part of the item is letting ANY Wraithguard/blade in the unit accept a challenge on the bearer's belf. Even at T6, Farseers are terrible in challenges so you still better off tarpitting your opponent for <10 phases or until youcan bring in a heavy hitter to finish the job.

It's not enough to make me want to use Iyanden relics over the Eldar ones, but it never did to begin with so no loss there.


One game-usable sentence in an entire book. Yay!

Pretty much.


You mean Wraithknight? :smalltongue:

You can choose either; I was being deliberately facetious by using a Wraithlord as an example because, as you pointed out, it has very limited, niche value even at the best of times.


But otherwise, I don't have the book, but I have Codex: Eldar, and that book right there lets me already take Wraithguard-as-Troops if I want them. I feel like if they hadn't included that, and put it in as part of Iyanden, then Iyanden would actually be worth something.

This is, in a nutshell, Codex Iyanden. Unless you really, REALLY like the fluff and are truly desperate to play some "historical" 40k scenarios (just incase you couldn't tell that The Battle of Iyanden featured a bunch of Tyranids and Yriel....) it doesn't give you anything. Not even "anything worth using", just.... anything at all.

I'm genuinely glad that I had a friends' copy to read; I'd have been irate to have spent my own money on it.

[LordDavenport]

Bit of flavor fail:
Description for homing beacons suggest that they are a firewarrior/cadrefireblade/most tau unit upgrade.
Only given to Etherials, recon drones, and stealth teams.
Often carried by fire cast warriors my ass.

Speaking of which, is it at all viable to field a pathfinder team to move forward and rain crysis suits with perscision?

[Cheesegear]

Speaking of which, is it at all viable to field a pathfinder team to move forward and rain crysis suits with perscision?

Yes. That's kind of the point.

However, since most people panic the second they see Pathfinders on the table, they'll die on the first two turns. However, since the Fast section of the Tau 'dex is devoid of all life and Pathfinders are the only option, you can take them if you want.

[Eldan]

Ah well. Iyanden isn't really my favourite Craftworld anyway. And their colour scheme is ugly.

Now do Alaitoc or Saim Hann, GW!

[hamishspence]

She is still known as the Angel of Iyanden. She was the first person to.... see? Experience? Witness? Foretell? ....the Ynnead Prophecy. There's a picture of a red-headed Eldar in yellow Farseer robes. And she's not dead. Yet.

This is, to my quick glance, the entirety of the information given about her.

They kept the Anchorite in - but she's the foremost promoter of it on the Craftworld.

It gives a bit of her backstory (all her family were killed when a Chaos ship attacked the Craftworld).

It's the same Chaos attack Yriel was criticized for not stopping (he'd taken too much of the defences away).

She can be taken in historical scenarios (Spiritseer, Mastery 3 instead of Mastery 2) - but there's no rules for including her in a "normal" battle.

I'd houserule "pay 25 pts to upgrade Spiritseer to Mastery 3 to represent her" since that's the usual price to go from ML2 to ML3.

[Cheesegear]

And their colour scheme is ugly.

You saying yellow is ugly? Them's fighting words. :smallamused:


Now do Alaitoc or Saim Hann, GW!

Unfortunately, due to Iyanden being a terrible seller (for a lot of reasons), it's hard to know if GW will revisit Eldar.

[Wraith]

I hope that they won't, for the same reason that they shouldn't have done Iyanden: what'd be the point?

Saim Hann want a list full of Jetbikes, and Alaitoc wants a list full of Pathfinders. You can already do both perfectly well with the vanilla Codex, including having the latter led by an appropriately themed Special Character.
Do you really, really want to spend $20 on an ebook that just gives you half a dozen crap artifacts and a Warlord Trait list that you will hate?

If they were to do a book for one of the lesser known Craftworlds, like Altansar, Ctho or Lugganath, and introduce some new units or truly exotic formations, that'd be much more worthwhile.

[Cheesegear]

I hope that they won't, for the same reason that they shouldn't have done Iyanden: what'd be the point?

Mostly because the casual player base is screaming out for choice. It's actually irrelevant whether or not those choices are any good. Players just want to be able to put what they want, on the table. This is why Apocalypse has gotten huge in 6th Edition. People want to do what they want, and Apocalypse - in 6th - lets them do that. The **** thing is if you want to use those Apocalypse Formations (Yes, I would like all of my Saim-Hann Jetbikes to have Scout and Shred), you have to buy the other 3 and a half thousand points to go with it before you even step up to the table.

The really insulting part is that Space Marines have Chapter Tactics built right into their Codex (since 4th Ed.). But, Eldar can't have Craftworlds? Orks can't have Klans? Imperial Guard can't have Doctrines and Chaos Legion rules are getting watered down every edition (hooray for metas that allow 30K armies, right?). These are things that the fanbase has asked time and time again for (and why 30K sells like bananas (http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2014/04/the-last-reasonable-games-designer-says.html). People want bananas.). But, GW doesn't know how to write for their own game (and are on the record as not caring about that fact), and so when they actually do give us what they want, we hate it. Then, GW says in their infinite wisdom that they gave us what we want, and it's our fault that it didn't sell, because if we really wanted it, we would have bought it when they gave it to us.

The other problem is that Iyanden was the 'first'. We were pissed when we found out that it only had two game-usable pages. However, now that we know that Supplementary Codecies are actually glorified novellas for one or two main characters, we can temper our expectations. We know what to expect, now. So, even though Crimson Slaughter is only Warlord Traits and Relics, nobody even cares because we already knew it was going to be 'only' two pages, but, even better, those two pages are actually useful.

Why Iyanden sucks (IMO):
It was the 'first' book. Reviews came out and people didn't want to pay full price for two pages. Now, they will.
The core Codex already allowed what most people considered the fundamental part of Iyanden. Why buy Iyanden when I can already do what I want? I read/heard reviews on the Codex and it doesn't change anything, so why bother?
iBook only. Seriously. Big mistake. I'm willing to say that at least 50% of GW's target demo are massive nerds who can see Apple for what they are and stay right the Hell away from anything to do with them. However, it could be a 'first' mistake, since they backtracked in like, a week, when they said Farsight Enclaves would be iBook only. But, I guess Farsight was a supplement the fans actually wanted and so were much more vocal than they were about Iyanden.

[Tome]

But, I guess Farsight was a supplement the fans actually wanted and so were much more vocal than they were about Iyanden.

You'd better believe it. Crisis suits as troops should have been an option in the main codex.

I just hate that they made me wait so long to buy a hard copy (no, I will not buy overpriced iTrash just so I can buy your overpriced digital codex).

[Cheesegear]

You'd better believe it. Crisis suits as troops should have been an option in the main codex.

That's more or less one of my points about Iyanden though. If 'Crisis Suits are Troops' was in the core Codex ("If Farsight is chosen as your Warlord, Crisis Suits may be taken as Troops."), would you have been more or less likely to buy the Enclaves book? Assuming everything else about the book stayed the same.

[LeSwordfish]

Even assuming the bonding knife downside was in a codex farsight list? There wouldn't be a single reason to take an enclaves list.

Crisis suits as scoring now, that's more interesting.

[LordDavenport]

I mean, riptide IC... cause I like riptides so I put riptides in my riptides. Also, earth caste pilot erray. stacking twinlinked? yes please. Goes on top of high BS if target is marklit? sounds good.

[Tome]

That's more or less one of my points about Iyanden though. If 'Crisis Suits are Troops' was in the core Codex ("If Farsight is chosen as your Warlord, Crisis Suits may be taken as Troops."), would you have been more or less likely to buy the Enclaves book? Assuming everything else about the book stayed the same.

Probably not, I would have spent that money on more crisis suits instead.

Then again, if they actually made the supplements worth buying that wouldn't be a problem.

[Eldan]

Yeah, Iyanden and Alaitoc are in the core codex, really. I mean, back when Codex: Craftworlds was still a thing, Alaitoc just got Pathfinders (which you have to buy with a special character now, but at least they still exist) and Iyanden got Spirit Seers and Wraithguard as troops.

So, we're just missing Ulthwé (seer councils and black guardians, and black guardians are sort of included since all guardians have proper BS now), Saim Hann (better jetbikes) and Biel-Tan (aspect warriors as troops and no guardians). The only one of those I'd really care about would be Saim Hann. And only if they brought Prince Nuadhu back. Prince Nuadhu was my first model conversion and I still have him.

I'd really like more of that kind of thing in the core codices. I mean, it's vanishing from Fantasy too. No chaos-god specific lists, no Skaven clans, no proper vampire bloodlines.

[hamishspence]

I'd really like more of that kind of thing in the core codices. I mean, it's vanishing from Fantasy too. No chaos-god specific lists, no Skaven clans, no proper vampire bloodlines.

That's been a trend for a while - possibly even longer than for 40K.

I think Southlands Lizardmen were one of the last "back of the book" lists - and the last two Lizardmen books didn't have them.

[Cheesegear]

Legion of the Damned
Saviours from Beyond

Legion of the Damned may be taken as a Primary Detachment or a Legion of the Damned Attachment. No, they can not be taken as an Allied Detachment, with that said, they don't take your Allied Detachment slot either (unless your meta says that they do, which isn't uncommon). In a Primary Detachment, all Legion of the Damned units are Scoring. No matter what you're doing, the Legion has their own FOC; 1-4 Elites choices.

Allies:
Battle Brothers with all Imperial Codecies, including themselves, and the Inquisition.
AoC with Eldar and that's it. Not allowed with Chaos armies, Necrons, Orks or Tyranids.
All other armies are Desperate Allies.

Because they are Allies with themselves, you can take one Primary Detachment of LotD, and an LotD Detachment. That's kind of dumb because you're better off putting everything into your Primary so that they Score.

Warlord Traits
If your Primary Detachment is LotD, then pick a Sergeant. He's your Warlord now. This is catastrophically stupid as your Warlord now only has one Wound. But, we'll talk more about that soon.
1. Unit's weapons have Soul Blaze. Blergh.
2. Enemies take -1 to Fear checks. Also bad.
3. Unit's Boltguns have Armourbane. That's kind of good. Makes #1 an awful joke.
4. Unit has FNP. That's cool.
5. Unit can choose what turn to arrive on, Apocalypse style.
6. Preferred Enemy.

Four good ones, two bad ones. Every single Warlord Trait on the list is a Force Multiplier for his unit. For this reason, whatever unit your Warlord is in, should probably be at maximum size, to maximise any Warlord Trait that you should roll, as well as having more bulletshields to put in front of your 1-Wound Warlord. A Warlord with one Wound is pretty dumb. But, that's the price you pay for running this Codex.

Elites
Legion of the Damned: They are identical to the ones found in Codex: Space Marines. They cause Fear, which is dumb, because the Legion are some of the shootiest units that you'll ever see. The Legion are Slow & Purposeful - which confers Relentless - and then every single one of their attacks Ignores Cover. If you're already thinking about Melta and Plasma weapons, then you are correct. Flamers and Heavy Flamers have no place in a Legion unit. Especially because with Relentless anyway, the downside of Deep Striking with Heavy weapons is ignored. Defensively, they have Fearless and 3++. In a Primary Detachment, where Legion are Scoring, this is a huge boost. It is well worth picking up at least 20 Legion models so you can at least max out your 4 slot FOC with minimum 5-man units. Although you may want to bump it up to 25, to make one unit of ten, to carry your Warlord. The Legion have one Relic...

The Animus Malorum: Your unit has FNP. Note, that you do not have to take this on your Warlord, so you can roll the Warlord Trait and get two units with FNP. However, enemy models that fail Leadership checks (not Psychic checks) within an aura of the Relic immediately lose one model with no saves. For every model removed this way, add +1 to FNP to a minimum of 2+.

So. 25 Points per model. Fearless. 3++ on every model. Everything Scores. Sounds good, right? Cheaper than Purifiers, anyway. But...

Every unit in a Legion Detachment must Deep Strike. Remember how Deep Strikes don't happen until Turn 2? Remember how that means that you automatically lose at the end of Turn 1? Therefore, you can not take a Legion Detachment by itself. So, you must take Allies. If you're not taking Legion of the Damned as your Primary (and therefore Scoring), you are using this 'Codex' completely wrong. However, the problem lies in the fact that in Allied Detachments, your available Troops slots are severely limited. Meaning that you need to get a lot of 'bang' for your Allied Detachments. Also note, that while you may be Battle Brothers, ICs can not join Legion units, so forget any of those ideas. However, you can still cast Blessings on them, if you have those. Unfortunately, the benefits of any Blessing on a Legion unit is very minor, so whatever.

With all that said, your main criteria for Allies is what can survive the opening turns until your Legion arrive?
Space Marines: Pedro Kantor gives you an extra Scoring slot, which is not reliant on him being the Warlord. Bikes give you T5 units that are harder to destroy, and Combat Squads means you can spread your units out in the opening turns so that you don't auto-lose. A Thunderfire Cannon will also boost your Cover Saves.
Dark Angels: Librarians with Bike and Power Field is the old standby for stuff that doesn't die. Although if you're looking at Allies, Space Marines are the better option.
Blood Angels: Fun gimmick using the - one - Legion Relic, and then using Fear the Darkness, at some point you'll end up with a unit with 3++/FNP(2+) and it will be great. Aside from that, Space Marines are cheaper and better. The 'best' Blood Angel tactics involve Deep Striking and Stormravens, which is more Reserving, which is something you can't afford to do.
Grey Knights: Solid as a rock. 2+ Saves as Troops so they wont die, and with a Grand Master, you can use the extra Scoring slots just because you can.
Imperial Guard: Lots of cheap Scoring. If you can hide them behind a Wall of Russ, even better.

Eldar: You can have Wraithguard as Scoring, but, they're expensive. And your main units are 25 points per model. Pretty lame for Allies that can't even cast their Blessings on you.

Apocalypse Formation
The Legion Ascendant: Identical to the Formation in War Zone: Armageddon. Which you already have, because WZ:A is in the main Apocalypse rulebook, and, you aren't playing Apocalypse without the main book.

So, that's it. It's a gimmick list. An entire Detachment with 3++ and Fearless. It would be unique if Deathwing weren't already doing something really similar (albeit more expensive). Generally speaking, it's a Fluff list, and it isn't even that good. Except there is no fluff, because the Legion are literally a Deus ex Machina. They show up, they save the day, they never talk to anyone (and so there are no characters in the Legion to Forge a Narrative with), and then they leave. Where's the Fluff in that!? While Sentinels of Terra told a story about the wrong character, at least it told a story about a character. The only reason to have this book is if you want more than one Legion of the Damned unit in your Space Marine army, and you don't - not really. And the Apocalypse Formation in which they're really good, is found in the main rulebook anyway. For a book for people who want to field Legion of the Damned and only Legion of the Damned...Well, you can't. That dream is dead. Use the models as Pedro and Sternguard or something. That's pretty cool.


This post has been copied into the rest of Space Marine Supplements.

[Cheesegear]

I'd really like more of that kind of thing in the core codices.

3.5th Edition had Guard Doctrines, Chaos Legions, Chapter Approved, Eldar Craftworlds and Ork Klans. I don't think Tyranids had any deviation until 4th (by which time most of the aforementioned had been phased out).

Only the Guard Doctrines and Chaos Legions were found in the core Codecies. By happenstance, most of the Legions and Doctrines were terrible, while the good ones broke the game. I'm not talking about the power difference between Tactical Marines and Scouts where both have their uses, and one is better but the other is cheaper. I'm talking about the difference between a Slugga Boy and Mephiston. Sure, they do the same thing in theory - Assault - but Mephiston can and will steamroll through anything that doesn't have a 2+ Save. Sturgeon's Law is running rampant.

Legions and Doctrines were there. But, like the Slugga Boy, even with the option available to you, you still couldn't effectively do what you're designed to do.
Meanwhile, on the next page, 50 Khorne Berzerkers are Charging out of 5 Rhinos on the first turn. You want to know why you can't Charge out of vehicles? Khorne Berzerkers are why.


Marines got Chapter Traits in 4th. You took the two best Traits, and the one 'Flaw' that didn't do anything at all, and you were good to go. I only wish I could remember what they were. But I think at the time I was playing Iron Warriors with Basilisks, because that was fair, too.

[hamishspence]

I don't think Tyranids had any deviation until 4th (by which time most of the aforementioned had been phased out).
Actually 3e had the "build your own units" rules in the Tyranid codex - as well as "Mutants" which could lead Tyranid squads.

4E Tyranids removed "Mutants" and cut back on how much units could be customized - building it all into the Biomorph system.


Meanwhile, on the next page, 50 Khorne Berzerkers are Charging out of 5 Rhinos on the first turn. You want to know why you can't Charge out of vehicles? Khorne Berzerkers are why.

I thought it was Blood Angels charging out of Fast(ish) Rhinos that was the best known "power" list in 3rd ed?

Assault in general was more powerful back then - if you destroyed a unit in close combat - you could Sweeping Advance forward into another unit, fight another combat, and so on.

[Cheesegear]

Actually 3e had the "build your own units" rules in the Tyranid codex - as well as "Mutants" which could lead Tyranid squads.

That's what I was talking about. It was 3rd Ed. then. Was that the one where you could make Hormagaunts with Synapse?


I thought it was Blood Angels charging out of Fast(ish) Rhinos that was the best known "power" list in 3rd ed?

It was. Until the Chaos 'dex was redone as '3.5'. Or 3rd Ed, 2nd Edition. And Khorne Berzerkers did the same thing, better.
Then there was the rule where Dark Angels and Space Wolves would fight. Really? People miss that!? But that was needlessly complicated!


I'm not against Supplements. I understand what they're for. I understand what GW is doing.
What I am against, is non-existent quality control.

[hamishspence]

That's what I was talking about. It was 3rd Ed. then. Was that the one where you could make Hormagaunts with Synapse?

I think so.

I remember Tyranid Warrior heads on Hormagaunt bodies being a common Mutant conversion - with a Duel of one of those vs a Marine being in the Golden Demon showcase.

[Voidhawk]

What I am against, is non-existent quality control.
I think everyone is against that. Except GW, of course.

[LordDavenport]

Is it just me, or are hellguns terrifying?

[Renegade Paladin]

Is it just me, or are hellguns terrifying?
If by hellguns you mean hot-shot lasguns (which used to be called hellguns before the 5e Guard codex), not especially. I mean, they ignore power armor, but they're still S3.

[lord_khaine]

If by hellguns you mean hot-shot lasguns (which used to be called hellguns before the 5e Guard codex), not especially. I mean, they ignore power armor, but they're still S3.

Well.. considering that they apperently can start to ignore cover rather swiftly then i do find them rather scary, especially when all my troops are either T3, or T6 and stupidly expensive..

[Renegade Paladin]

Well yeah, they get scary if a senior officer is dedicating his orders to them, but so do a lot of other things, some of them even scarier. :smalltongue:

[Cheesegear]

So I was trying to think what the next War Zone could be. Then I realised that the only races left who haven't been featured are Dark/Eldar and Tyranids.

...Iyanden...
.../headdesk...

However, I don't know how you can fit Space Marines/Imperial Guard into the narrative, so, here's hoping that War Zone: Iyanden wont happen.

[Requizen]

Finally picked up my new Militarium Tempestus codex. Feels very small considering I paid as much for it as a regular codex -.- But hey, limited edition, plenty of decent art and fluff, so I'll justify it to myself.

The discrepancy with the Tempestor Prime's Initiative still exists, but considering it's listed at I4 in three places and I3 in two places, as well as the fact that it can be your warlord, I'll err on the side of I4 for the time being.

[Requizen]

There's actually another error in the codex (lol this is just getting silly). The Hot-Shot Volley gun is listed differently in the Weapons Profile than it is in the back of the book. In the profile, it has Type Salvo 2/4, Gets Hot. But in the list in the back, it's just Salvo 2/4.

In the Astra Militarum Codex, the same weapon has entries in both the Weapons Profile and the back listing, both saying Salvo 2/4. I guess Gets Hot was a copy paste error, nice job GW :smallbiggrin:

[hamishspence]

However, I don't know how you can fit Space Marines/Imperial Guard into the narrative, so, here's hoping that War Zone: Iyanden wont happen.

There was a fanfic about 20 years ago that had a small contingent of Marines (from multiple chapters) at Iyanden for some reason, aiding the Tyranids Eldar.

[Voidhawk]

There was a fanfic about 20 years ago that had a small contingent of Marines (from multiple chapters) at Iyanden for some reason, aiding the Tyranids.
...Wait, what? Space Marines aiding Tyranids on Iyanden is about the dumbest thing in 40k I have ever heard. -Breathes in for rant- :smallyuk:
EDIT:

fanfic
-breathes out- Ohhhhh... for a moment there I thought you meant a GW author. :smallredface: Wouldn't have surprised me though.

[Cheesegear]

There was a fanfic about 20 years ago that had a small contingent of Marines (from multiple chapters) at Iyanden for some reason, aiding the Tyranids.

That's canon. (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Sunspear#.U1jqQ1WSySE) Not a fanfic. Iyanden decides to backburn a few Imperial worlds to deny biomass for the oncoming Tyranids. The Imperium doesn't like this at all, and Iyanden gets stuck between Tyranids and some pissed off Space Marines.
Dante also unites a whole bunch of worlds - potentially including Iyanden - during the 13th Crusade when Ka'Banda decides to piggy back off of the carnage of Leviathan (Codex: Blood Angels, page 17), and is about to ream the Segmentum a new one.

[hamishspence]

That's canon. (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Sunspear#.U1jqQ1WSySE) Not a fanfic. Iyanden decides to backburn a few Imperial worlds to deny biomass for the oncoming Tyranids.
Sorry, mistyped that - should have been Eldar.

I'm talking about Marines who were on Iyanden at the time of the Tyranid attack.

It was called The Siege of Iyanden, was in several parts, and was hosted on Portent.net - which hasn't been functional for years.

The Chapters were Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Space Wolves etc.

Apparently it's been reposted to fanfiction.net:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2695762/1/The-Tyranid-Wars-Saga-Siege-of-Iyanden

[Drasius]

So, it's still a week before I get back to Oz and can peruse a new IG codex, and am still on the fence between uncountable waves of guardsman and conscripts (150+), armoured battle group russ spam with mechanised troops or a solid infantry core with some artillery support. Not an ogryn fan, can't see them having a place in my army.

Suggestions as to any big traps (other than the poor old hydra and probably bullgryn) to be avoided would be appreciated. Points level is 1500.

Is the general guide to guard still about right? Are they generally still built the same way? Is the 36 point sniper SWS the best thing ever? Are conscripts the new hotness? Is melee actually viable when you've got 150 or more fearless guys slogging relentlessly towards the enemy deployment zone? Are power axes now a waste compared to simply adding more guys since 15 points gets 5 conscripts?

Am I not hearing much about Russes (other than how awesome Pask is) 'cause they are too expensive to run in decent numbers in 1500 or less games even with the price cut? Does Pask in a punisher seem horrendously good but too short ranged to contribute before he gets shot to hell? Is Pask to pricy for 1500? Is the 50 point price drop on the Executioner really a drop since you should be taking a 50 point divbot to ensure he doesn't kill himself through gets hot? Does prescience on a squadron of tanks affect all of them or just 1? Are Sentinels a valid alternative to Russes? Do Punishers serve as your anti air or do you add Vendettas if going for Russ spam? How do I troops when going for Russ Spam? Are multi-melta sponsoons now too cheap not to take on Vanquishers?

Is the new gryphon as good as everyone says? Is the new gryphon as bad as some are claiming? Gryphon vs Eradicator (or whatever the cover ignoring Russ is)? Is a naked CCS worth taking over a lord commissar for orders in an allied detachment? Do vendettas still make valkyries obsolete? Do we foresee the hydra coming out as a squadron of 1-3 all with skyfire & interceptor and a points hike in a dataslate in the near future? Are stormtroopers still worth taking in the guard codex as elites, or are they best taken using allies so they score or not at all? Is there a real place for the lord commissar consider orders are just that good?

Should I just stop asking silly questions and wait for the guide to come out in a couple of days?

[Eldan]

Wait, the new IG codex is out? Why is no one talking about it? Didn't even see it in the store, yet.

[Drasius]

Wait, the new IG codex is out? Why is no one talking about it? Didn't even see it in the store, yet.

:smallconfused: Unsure if that's a not so subtle dig at me refusing to call them Astra Militarum or if you've been living under a rock?

[Cheesegear]

Suggestions as to any big traps (other than the poor old hydra and probably bullgryn) to be avoided would be appreciated.

Hydras are not a trap. They're not as good as they were before, but they still have Skyfire and Vendettas have gone up 30%.


Is the general guide to guard still about right?

Company Command Squads are built exactly the same way as they were before, except now better because of certain Orders that they can still give to themselves. The Power Blob got loads better while still remaining at the same price. The only difference is that you use Priests now instead of Commissars. Chimera spam is still legit, though with only two Fire Points, many Veteran squads will need to change their loadouts (typically to two weapons and a Heavy Flamer). Sentinels with the points decrease are actually usable now, although, again, it may just be that the 'nerfing' of the Vendetta by effect makes the other options better.


Are they generally still built the same way?

Yes.


Is the 36 point sniper SWS the best thing ever?

Yes and no. But, again, with the nerfing of Vendettas, you're less likely to do Melta drops now, meaning, yes. Snipers.


Are conscripts the new hotness?

Potentially. If you put Yarrick, Azrael and (two?) Priests all in the unit, too.


Are power axes now a waste compared to simply adding more guys since 15 points gets 5 conscripts?

Not a waste at all. Infantry Squads still matter because you have to take two anyway, and Conscripts can't take Special weapons anymore.

That being said, if you've got the currency for models, 150 Points for 50 Conscipts isn't bad, especially since they can take Orders.


Am I not hearing much about Russes (other than how awesome Pask is) 'cause they are too expensive to run in decent numbers in 1500 or less games even with the price cut?

Pask is awesome. But only if he's your Warlord, and only if he is in a Punisher, since now the AP- weapon has Preferred Enemy and Rending.


Is Pask to pricy for 1500?

Not if you don't plan on fielding more Russes.


Are Sentinels a valid alternative to Russes?

They perform totally different roles. So no.


Do Punishers serve as your anti air

If Pask is in it, yes. Otherwise, no. Since you only have one Pask, probably not.


How do I troops when going for Russ Spam?

How many Russes are you talking? Naked Veteran Squads are 60 points apiece. A minimum Platoon is 130.


Are multi-melta sponsoons now too cheap not to take on Vanquishers?

I don't know what you mean by that. But Multi-Meltas have a 24" range.


Is the new gryphon as good as everyone says? Is the new gryphon as bad as some are claiming?

Wyverns? Depends on your meta. S4-Shred, Ignores Cover is good if you don't face Marines a lot.


Is a naked CCS worth taking over a lord commissar for orders in an allied detachment?

Yes. Lord Commissars are a joke now. Priests do their entire job for 25 Points.


Do vendettas still make valkyries obsolete?

Not exactly. The points increase and the Capacity nerf hurts the Vendetta quite a bit. It's almost rubbish as a Transport. But, it can still Melta drop six models.


Are stormtroopers still worth taking in the guard codex as elites, or are they best taken using allies so they score or not at all?

They are good, yes. But only because Orders are phenomenal, and Orders can be used on anything...So...


Is there a real place for the lord commissar consider orders are just that good?

In <750, sure. :smalltongue:
Seriously though, depends on your army. Units inside vehicles can't receive Orders.

The big problem unit right now is the Taurox /Prime, which is suffering from 'Riptide Syndrome'. Just one is garbage. However, when you have five or six? It's like you have a completely different unit. But people aren't sold on picking up five or six Tauroxes because they already have five or six Chimeras.

[Eldan]

:smallconfused: Unsure if that's a not so subtle dig at me refusing to call them Astra Militarum or if you've been living under a rock?

*checks internet*
Ooooh.
Apparently, I'm living under a rock and/or stupid. I didn't realize that "Astra Militarum" was the new IG. I thought that was just that mini-codex for those new silly looking human soldiers/vehicles. You know, the lion truck.
So, I skipped all the posts that mentioned it, thinking it wouldn't really matter anyway as no one I know buys those mini-codices.

Edit:
Also, couldn't they get someone who speaks at least a little Latin? "The stars of strategy"? Okay, it could mean "the stars of the military", but that's not better.

[Cheesegear]

I didn't realize that "Astra Militarum" was the new IG.

The phrase 'Astra Militarum' is used only a couple of times in the whole book. The phrase 'Imperial Guard' appears like a hundred times in a book about the Astra Militarum.

The mini-Codex is Militarum Tempestus. The military storm, or something. And Storm Troopers are called Tempestus Scions. The sons of the storm...Or something.

[Eldan]

Hehe. Militarum Tempestus. I.e. "The military (adjective) weather".

[Drasius]

Lots of excellent advice.

Thank you very much kind Sir.

Also;


How do I troops when going for Russ Spam?


How many Russes are you talking? Naked Veteran Squads are 60 points apiece. A minimum Platoon is 130.

All of them. All of the Russes. Well, as many as will fit in 1500 anyway.

Pask in a Punisher w/Heavy bolters
Pask's sidekick in another Punisher w/heavy bolters

2x Min Veterans

2x Valkyries
Vendetta

2x Vanquisher w/ Hull Lascannon
Demolisher
Demolisher

Should be around 1500'ish?

Could trade the 'Detta for another sidekick in Pasks Squad, perhaps an Eradicator?

Troops stay in the Valkyries until it's capturin' time and the vendetta flanks whatever is still hiding from the Vanquishers.

Demolishers, Pask & Sidekick roll forwards and give the enemy anti tank a difficult choice about who to shoot.

Edit;

Or, if you wanted ALL RUSSES, ALL THE TIME!

Pask in a Punisher w/Heavy bolters
2x Pask's sidekicks in Punishers w/heavy bolters to fire ALL THE SHOTS!

2x Min Veterans
2x Chimera

2x Vanquishers
Demolisher
2x Vanquishers

If there's any points left, give the vanquishers Hull Lascannons
If over on points, downgrade or delete the demolisher

8 AV14 Front hulls and enough volume of shots that nothing outside a transport is going to be comfortable for long, and with those Vanquishers, not much is going to remain inside a transport. Cry like dirty cheesemonger when you face cron air. Troops stay in reserve and then hide out of LOS as long as possible.

[Cheesegear]

Hehe. Militarum Tempestus. I.e. "The military (adjective) weather".

You know what would be awesome, and totally Fluffy? Having Militarum Solar, Obscurus, Pacificus and Ultima as well (hint, read a 40K map, see if you get the joke). Although it's too late for that genius, and I don't know how you'd make them different.

[Eldan]

Hmm. I imagine Solar would be better organized, with better supplies, but stiff. Those further from the center of the Imperium would be a bit more lax, with more flexible doctrines, but without the newest toys. Then you could have Cadians, hanging around the eye of terror...

That said, they'd mostly have silly translations too. I like the "Military Dark", though. Even if it sounds more like some eldritch horror hive mind thing.

[Somensjev]

i'm still new to this game (read: don't have an army yet) and i was reading the allied rules, so now i'm considering making an Ork and Chaos Space Marine army, as my first (and probably only) army

problem is i don't really know how to make an army, or what units are good/ compliment each other

the only thing i know for sure about the army is that i'm going to have a vehicle filled with burna boyz :smallredface:

any advice about what units might be good?
i'll be facing armies like; tyranids, chaos space marine, space wolves, tau, eldar, and an assortment of others

[hamishspence]

In a flyer-heavy meta, Skyfire & Interceptor is good. Chaos don't really have that, so you need either Defence fortifications (with Icarus Lascannons) or Forgeworld stuff (Ork Flakk Trukks have them).

[Wraith]

Hehe. Militarum Tempestus. I.e. "The military (adjective) weather".

I'm under the impression that in High Gothic (which is basically dog-latin) it should be The Storm ("Weather") Troops ("Military").


any advice about what units might be good?
i'll be facing armies like; tyranids, chaos space marine, space wolves, tau, eldar, and an assortment of others

I have to ask, do you want to play as Orks with a few Chaos Marine allies, or do you want to play Chaos Marines with a few Orks allies?

The important part, really, is playing an army that you enjoy, and the two combinations can play very differently. Still, for a general idea....

* Big Mek with a Kustom Force Field (HQ)
* Ork Nobs on Warbikes (Elite)
* Ork 'Ard Boys (Troops)
* Looted Wagons (Heavy)

* Chaos Lord with a Mark of Nurgle (HQ)
* Chaos Plague Marines (Troops)
* Cultists (Troops)
* The Helldrake (Heavy)

....Are good units to start with. You can find more in-depth reasons in the first post of this Thread, where we have compiled our collective knowledge for just such an occasion. :smallsmile:

[Darthteej]

You know what would be awesome, and totally Fluffy? Having Militarum Solar, Obscurus, Pacificus and Ultima as well (hint, read a 40K map, see if you get the joke). Although it's too late for that genius, and I don't know how you'd make them different.

Considering that the Imperial Navy is divided into segmentum commands, it would stand to reason that the Imperial Guard is as well.

[Cheesegear]

Hmm. I imagine Solar would be better organized, with better supplies, but stiff. Those further from the center of the Imperium would be a bit more lax

At the very least, they would have different colour schemes that aren't garish blue/grey.
"See this super elite Commando unit? Yes, you do see them because they're bright blue!"


That said, they'd mostly have silly translations too. I like the "Military Dark", though.

Considering that the 'Military Dark' one also hangs around the Eye of Terror, totally make sense. They're the ones that deal with magic. Their leader is John Constantine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_League_Dark). The Militarum Solar's most notable contacts would be the Imperial Fists and the Custodes. They'd best be on their best behaviour and totally love the Emperor thiiisss much.


* Chaos Lord with a Mark of Nurgle (HQ)
* Chaos Plague Marines (Troops)

Heresy! That's only allowed for Primary Detachments! That rule is so dumb. But, it is a rule. :smallannoyed:

[Wraith]

Heresy! That's only allowed for Primary Detachments! That rule is so dumb. But, it is a rule. :smallannoyed:

That's why I asked: Orks with Chaos Allies, or Chaos with Ork Allies.

@ chaotic stupid: For a new player, I'd go with the latter. Chaos has the more up-to-date rules and is generally a "better" army. You also (usually) need less models than you would by having mostly Orks, and so it's cheaper to buy and easier to put together and paint, especially while you're still learning. :smallsmile:

[Cheesegear]

problem is i don't really know how to make an army, or what units are good/ compliment each other

Orks, generally speaking, only have a few workable units in their Codex. This is one of the main reasons Orks work really well as Allies, because, currently, you can't really make a full working Ork army. However, what you've gone and done is decided that you want to be Chaos Marines, too. Chaos Marines like being the boss, and, as such, they work really, really well as Primary Detachments. So, on the one hand, you've got an army that only works (currently) as Allies, and an army that only ever really works as a Primary. Sounds like a good match. Well, not as good and Chaos Daemons, but, if you don't want them, then, you're not going to take them.

What makes a good army? For starters, good Scoring units. Which Chaos Marines have. If you're undecided on which God to take, mechanically;
Nurgle > Slaanesh > Tzeentch > Khorne*.
Tzeentch is pretty bad, but, it wins over Khorne simply because Shooting > Assault. With that said, Khorne is asterisked because Kharn the Betrayer is really, really good, and that's okay, because you don't have to put him in a unit of Berzerkers, you can put him in a unit of Cultists.

...And now we've mentioned Cultists. Cultists are cheap, and that makes them good. If you take Typhus, you can also make then more survivable and even Fearless, because Nurgle is the best. Cultists come in the Dark Vengeance kit, and that means they're everywhere on eBay.
Chaos Space Marines (the unit) are not bad, when you keep them cheap. When you start putting upgrades on them, you are almost always better off with Cult Troops using a Chaos Lord that makes whatever you intend on doing making them Scoring. The problem is, Plague Marines are costed exactly right, and do everything that you normally want Chaos Space Marines to do. Because Nurgle is the best.

You may have heard that Chaos Sorcerers are pretty good. They are. The one pitfall they have, is that they shouldn't take Marks (unless you want to take the Mark of Tzeentch, to make Thousand Sons Troops, because you're fluffy like that). Giving a Sorcerer a Mark means that you have to roll at least once on that God's Psychic Table - and note that an ML3 Sorcerer who chooses to make 3 rolls on his God's table automatically knows all 3 Powers - But, if you aren't doing that, making at least one roll on a God's table only means one less roll on the Biomancy table, and that means less chance of Iron Arm and/or Endurance, the other Powers are good too, but those are the best ones.

Now, it may seem that I'm pushing Nurgle. Because I am. Nurgle is mechanically superior simply because both of the Scoring units Chaos has (Cultists and Chaos Marines), Nurgle makes better in the form of Plague Zombies and Marines. Nurgle makes what you're planning on doing anyway, better. However, while it may be mechanically superior, that doesn't mean that it's fun. If the playstyle doesn't suit you, if playing a shambling horde of Zombies doesn't appeal to you, then don't do it. And it doesn't sound like that it does because you also want Orks.

For an army that can move and shoot, you want either Slaanesh or Tzeentch. Thousand Sons have Relentless, and Noise Marines have Salvo weapons. Moving or standing still, both of these units can shoot well. Thousand Sons get better if you have access to Crimson Slaughter and/or Daemon Allies for the Divination. Unfortunately, you have neither of those things, so I'm going to stick with Noise Marines. They can shoot Salvo weapons that Ignore Cover. They can have FNP if they want it, and, because of their I5, if you want to run them into combat, they actually get to go first which means they die less. You do the same amount of damage, that doesn't change. But, your opponent does less damage to you.

We'll ignore Thousand Sons completely, because the things that make them viable, you don't have.

Khorne works well with Orks. Except not really. It's more of the same. If you like cohesive armies, then pushing all of your models forwards every turn might sound like a good idea.

Once you have the HQ and your first two or three Troops units figured out, then you can start planning the rest of your army. It should start with 'H', and end in 'eldrake.'

[hamishspence]

At the very least, they would have different colour schemes that aren't garish blue/grey.
"See this super elite Commando unit? Yes, you do see them because they're bright blue!"

Militarium Tempestus had a whole bunch of different Stormtrooper Regiments - each with a different name and color scheme. At least one was jungle-style camo.

[Drasius]

... - and note that an ML3 Sorcerer who chooses to make 3 rolls on his God's table automatically knows all 3 Powers ...'

Minor nitpick, he may only know a max of 1/2 (rounded up) of his powers from his god. Minimum of 1. So 1/1 for ML1, 1/2 for ML2, 2/3 max or 1/3 min for ML3. Which is one of the major reasons Tzeentch sucks, 'cause the god of space magic kept all the best powers for himself. Nurgle and Slanesh of course get nifty powers that fit their army and playstyle.

Why no, I'm not bitter at all:smallmad:, why do you ask?

[hamishspence]

At the very least, they would have different colour schemes that aren't garish blue/grey.
"See this super elite Commando unit? Yes, you do see them because they're bright blue!"

Since they don't Infiltrate any more - camo is not as necessary, even if it helps.

That said - I'd make it a fairly dark, slate-blue, when representing that particular regiment - dusk-fighting colours - with very dull metal trim (I think they're the 63rd Kappan Lions).

The book has dropped the old "all one regiment, but thousands of companies) idea - having lots of different Militarum Tempestus regiments with names following a set theme.

Which is - Greek letter (as an adjective, as if they came from a planet called that) - animal or mythical beast. Sometimes the name is spelt differently from the norm (Gryphonnes, Tygers, Jakals) sometimes the same (Hydras, Dragons, Lions, Eagles).

The fact that one is called the Alphic Hydras has resulted in a certain amount of speculation about Alpha Legion infiltrators - though the background itself doesn't hint anything.

[Grim Portent]

i'm still new to this game (read: don't have an army yet) and i was reading the allied rules, so now i'm considering making an Ork and Chaos Space Marine army, as my first (and probably only) army

problem is i don't really know how to make an army, or what units are good/ compliment each other

the only thing i know for sure about the army is that i'm going to have a vehicle filled with burna boyz :smallredface:

any advice about what units might be good?
i'll be facing armies like; tyranids, chaos space marine, space wolves, tau, eldar, and an assortment of others

If you're going for Chaos as primary and Orks as allies as Cheesegear suggested earlier and you're going to include a squad of Burna Boyz I'd suggest close quarters rigged chaos marines to support the burnaz. The options for this are Nurgle, Khorne and Slaanesh or unmarked.

Nurgle isn't the best at killing things but it can tank armies worth of firepower, Slaanesh is good at gutting enemy squads in close quarters before they can strike back or blowing them away with lots of shooting attacks, Khorne is good for crushing just about anything under a fistful of dice in assault. (Getting into assault is the hard part :smallfrown:)

Unmarked stuff just doesn't cost many points.

Since I don't know what kind of armies you'd be up against I can't really recommend anything much (though you can't really go wrong with nurgle), but since the most important thing is that you like the way your army plays I'll instead ask you a question:

What kind of battle would you find the most evocative? Is it brutal melees that stir your imagination? Is it hails of artillery fire, barrages of bullets and the thunder of explosions? Is it the implacable march of undying warriors whose presence inspires despair in all who see them?

If the answer is brutal melees - Try Khorne marked chaos units.
If the answer is barrages of bullets - Try Slaanesh Noise Marines with upgraded guns.
If the answer is implacable march - Try Nurgle Plague Marines.

[LeSwordfish]

Noodling about in the AM codex and the Inquisition Codex. Crusaders have 3++ saves, Ministorum Priests allow re-rolling of Invulnerable saves in close combat. Useful combination? A bunch of Crusaders and a priest babysitting your warlord/buff-monkey? Five crusaders and a priest jumping out of a vendetta, for "I'm scoring, fearless, 3++rr and on your objective, basically **** you" shenanigans?

[Cheesegear]

Noodling about in the AM codex and the Inquisition Codex. Crusaders have 3++ saves, Ministorum Priests allow re-rolling of Invulnerable saves in close combat. Useful combination?

There's this one guy. Azrael. You may have heard of him. He likes wearing a dress.

[LeSwordfish]

Sure, but presuming I'm not willing to spend multiple hundred points on this one trick?

[Cheesegear]

Sure, but presuming I'm not willing to spend multiple hundred points on this one trick?

Well, yeah. It works. Priests are so good.

[bluntpencil]

Noodling about in the AM codex and the Inquisition Codex. Crusaders have 3++ saves, Ministorum Priests allow re-rolling of Invulnerable saves in close combat. Useful combination? A bunch of Crusaders and a priest babysitting your warlord/buff-monkey? Five crusaders and a priest jumping out of a vendetta, for "I'm scoring, fearless, 3++rr and on your objective, basically **** you" shenanigans?

Azrael in a huge Guard blob with a priest or two sounds sick too.

Edit: Beat to it!

[bluntpencil]

It really bothers me that the most secretive Space Marine Chapter happen to be the best at playing with others.

I'd prefer to see Salamanders being the AM go to guys.

[lord_khaine]

Azrael in a huge Guard blob with a priest or two sounds sick too.

Edit: Beat to it!

Isnt that just something you would just pound to rubble with heavy firepower..?

[bluntpencil]

Isnt that just something you would just pound to rubble with heavy firepower..?

A huge blob of cheap Guardsmen with 4++? Good luck. You'll need all your guns to take them out... and whilst those guns are wasting ammo doing that, the Russes destroy you.

[LordDavenport]

Massed snipers I would think... but the issue becomes that every model has only a 1/4(Azriel is 4++ right?) chance of getting hit. So heavy fire can be absorbed fairly easily. Enough precise shots though, and all the guards go back to wearing cardboard boxes.

[Grim Portent]

Sounds like the sort of thing you pound with large blasts until nothing's left to me.

[Squark]

Sounds like the sort of thing you pound with large blasts until nothing's left to me.

Unless you're packing 3 Knights with battlecannons, there won't be enough ammunition before this thing gets into close combat and stops being shoot-able until its eaten something and gets ready to charge again.

[Grim Portent]

Unless you're packing 3 Knights with battlecannons, there won't be enough ammunition before this thing gets into close combat and stops being shoot-able until its eaten something and gets ready to charge again.

Close combat you say? Well in that case forget the blast templates and let me go grab Kharn and his backup dancers. :smalltongue:

[LeSwordfish]

How does this look, as a whipped-up 1500 Guard/Inquisition list?

Primary Detachment
HQ
Yarrick - 145

Ministorum Priest 25
Commissar 25

Troops
Veteran Squad- 155
+3x Meltaguns
+Chimera

Veteran Squad- 155
+3x Meltaguns
+Chimera

Veteran Squad- 155
+2x Plasma Guns
+Chimera

Infantry Platoon 316
Platoon Command Squad- Flamer, Vox 35
Infantry Squad- Flamer, Vox 60
2x Infantry Squad - Flamer 110
Heavy Weapons Team - 3x Missile Launchers 75
Special Weapons Team - 3x Sniper Rifles 36

Fast Attack
Vendetta - 170

Heavy Support
Leman Russ - 160
Lascannon

Inquisitorial Detachment
Coteaz - 100

Henchman squad - 75
+5 Crusaders

Henchman squad - 170
+3 Joakero
+5 Warriors with Storm Bolters
+3 Crusaders

[Squark]

How does this look, as a whipped-up 1500 Guard/Inquisition list?

Primary Detachment
HQ
Yarrick - 145

Ministorum Priest 25
Commissar 25

Troops
Veteran Squad- 155
+3x Meltaguns
+Chimera
Don't need the third meltagun. remember, 2 firepoints.
Veteran Squad- 155
+3x Meltaguns
+Chimera

Veteran Squad- 155
+2x Plasma Guns
+Chimera

Infantry Platoon 316
Platoon Command Squad- Flamer, Vox 35
Infantry Squad- Flamer, Vox 60
2x Infantry Squad - Flamer 110
Heavy Weapons Team - 3x Missile Launchers 75
Special Weapons Team - 3x Sniper Rifles 36
Unless they've changed the rules, I believe you can issue orders from inside a Chimera. So, see if you can buy the PCS one.
Fast Attack
Vendetta - 170 Would like another vendetta to keep it company. Also, a SWT with triple meltas or det charges (if those still exist) works well as an extra payload

Heavy Support
Leman Russ - 160
Lascannon
Lone piece of heavy armor looks like melta bait. If your meta is Imperium-heavy, I'd cut it.
Inquisitorial Detachment
Coteaz - 100

Henchman squad - 75
+5 Crusaders
Too likely to get shot to bits before it gets into close combat, since the priest can't ride with them in a transport. Unless I misread things and the priest's re-rolls are online all the time.
Henchman squad - 170
+3 Joakero
+5 Warriors with Storm Bolters
+3 Crusaders

Comments in red.

[Somensjev]

Since I don't know what kind of armies you'd be up against I can't really recommend anything much (though you can't really go wrong with nurgle), but since the most important thing is that you like the way your army plays I'll instead ask you a question:

What kind of battle would you find the most evocative? Is it brutal melees that stir your imagination? Is it hails of artillery fire, barrages of bullets and the thunder of explosions? Is it the implacable march of undying warriors whose presence inspires despair in all who see them?

If the answer is brutal melees - Try Khorne marked chaos units.
If the answer is barrages of bullets - Try Slaanesh Noise Marines with upgraded guns.
If the answer is implacable march - Try Nurgle Plague Marines.

the main problem with me and games like this is that i want an army that reacts, not an army that does a certain thing
i try to make armies that change how they work, depending on what the enemy does, which usually isn't very practical
if i had to choose i'd probably say the answer is the implacable march, since to me it seems like the one with the most leeway for different reactions

and i was thinking of making the army with an ork primary detachment, but i was worried that their older codex might make this a harder choice, so i'll probably make the primary detachment the chaos marines

[Grim Portent]

the main problem with me and games like this is that i want an army that reacts, not an army that does a certain thing
i try to make armies that change how they work, depending on what the enemy does, which usually isn't very practical
if i had to choose i'd probably say the answer is the implacable march, since to me it seems like the one with the most leeway for different reactions

and i was thinking of making the army with an ork primary detachment, but i was worried that their older codex might make this a harder choice, so i'll probably make the primary detachment the chaos marines

If you want a reactionary force you could use Huron Blackheart/Ahriman to always get the chaos warlord trait that lets you infiltrate d3 infantry units. It's nice and flexible if you have a nice spread of units, and there's something about the look on people's faces when a squad of plasma gun marines wipes out a squad on the first turn, or a horde of zombies starts out on an objective in the middle of the board. I think you could also use it to infiltrate Ork units, though I'm not certain, I don't usually use allies so it's never come up for me.

Huron himself is a decent chaos lord, the model isn't bad (face isn't too great in my opinion, but it can be swapped for a helmet easily enough) he can do anti-infantry and anti-tank equally well and he's not expensive in terms of points.

[Saambell]

So I wrote up a list of a 2000 point AM/SW list and since this is a place to ask opinions of lists I thought "why not"
Command Squad 195

Power Fist,Carapace Armour, Vox, Missile Team, Flamer, Chimera(Dozer Blade,Hunter-Killer Missile)

Ratlings 30

Veteran Squad 201

Bolt Pistol, Autocannon, 3x Plasma guns, Carapace Armour, Chimera(Heavy Flamer, Dozer Blade)
Veteran Squad 111

Power Sword, 3x Sniper Rifles, Lascannon, Camo Gear and Snare Mines
Veteran Squad 131

Bolt Pistol, Power Sword, Heavy Bolter, 3x Meltas, Carapace Armour
Platoon Command Squad 68

Bolt Pistol, Power Spear, Melta Bombs, Platoon Standard, Vox, Sniper Rifle
Infantry Squad 66

Bolt Pistol, Melta Bombs, Vox, Flamer
Infantry Squad 66

Bolt Pistol, Melta Bombs, Vox, Flamer
Heavy Weapons Squad 75

2x Heavy Bolter, Autocannon

Valkyrie 125
Scout Sentinel 35

Leman Russ Executioner 175

Heavy Bolter Sponsons
Leman Russ Vanquisher 165

Lascannon

Heavy Bolter Sponsons
Leman Russ Battle Tank 170

Heavy Flamer

Heavy Bolter Sponsons

Wolf Lord 140

Power Sword, Runic Armour, Melta Bombs
Wolf Scouts 97

4x Snipers, Missile Launcher
Grey Hunters 150

Flamer, Plasma Gun

I don't get nearly enough games in at the local game stores so I have no idea of the meta. However I've seen a couple of Tau players,a CSM, and at least 1 GK and SM are a given in any meta(I think).

Anything that is a complete no go? Anything that is an easy fix?
Note: I've only got the two chimeras in my collection and I don't do forgeworld(so vendettas are a no go).

[LeSwordfish]

Your Leman Russes could be set up better. Why does the Vanquisher have anti-infantry side weapons to shoot the same target as its anti-tank main gun?

[Squark]

So I wrote up a list of a 2000 point AM/SW list and since this is a place to ask opinions of lists I thought "why not"
Command Squad 195

Power Fist,Carapace Armour, Vox, Missile Team, Flamer, Chimera(Dozer Blade,Hunter-Killer Missile)

Ratlings 30

Veteran Squad 201

Bolt Pistol, Autocannon, 3x Plasma guns, Carapace Armour, Chimera(Heavy Flamer, Dozer Blade)
Veteran Squad 111

Power Sword, 3x Sniper Rifles, Lascannon, Camo Gear and Snare Mines
Veteran Squad 131

Bolt Pistol, Power Sword, Heavy Bolter, 3x Meltas, Carapace Armour
Platoon Command Squad 68

Bolt Pistol, Power Spear, Melta Bombs, Platoon Standard, Vox, Sniper Rifle
Infantry Squad 66

Bolt Pistol, Melta Bombs, Vox, Flamer
Infantry Squad 66

Bolt Pistol, Melta Bombs, Vox, Flamer
Heavy Weapons Squad 75

2x Heavy Bolter, Autocannon

Valkyrie 125
Scout Sentinel 35

Leman Russ Executioner 175

Heavy Bolter Sponsons
Leman Russ Vanquisher 165

Lascannon

Heavy Bolter Sponsons
Leman Russ Battle Tank 170

Heavy Flamer

Heavy Bolter Sponsons

Wolf Lord 140

Power Sword, Runic Armour, Melta Bombs
Wolf Scouts 97

4x Snipers, Missile Launcher
Grey Hunters 150

Flamer, Plasma Gun

I don't get nearly enough games in at the local game stores so I have no idea of the meta. However I've seen a couple of Tau players,a CSM, and at least 1 GK and SM are a given in any meta(I think).

Anything that is a complete no go? Anything that is an easy fix?
Note: I've only got the two chimeras in my collection and I don't do forgeworld(so vendettas are a no go).

Feels like you're overspending on wargear. Boys before toys is the general rule. I'll have some more detailed comments once I'm at home and can use formatting tools.

[bluntpencil]

Idea: Harath Shen with Hammernators and a Priest. 3++ rerollable with FNP. Salamanders playing well with others! Stick them in a Land Raider?

Alternatively: He'Stan in a drop pod with storm shield command squad, packing apothecary, flamers and meltas. Expensive but tarpitty and killy.

Yarrick as Warlord?

[LeSwordfish]

Take two, Coteaz/Astra MangledLatinum

Primary Detachment
HQ
Yarrick - 145

Ministorum Priest 25
Commissar 25

Troops
Veteran Squad- 145
+2x Meltaguns
+Chimera

Veteran Squad- 145
+2x Meltaguns
+Chimera

Infantry Platoon 316
Platoon Command Squad- Chimera, 2x Plasma Guns, Vox 135
Infantry Squad- Flamer, Vox 60
3x Infantry Squad - Flamer 165
Heavy Weapons Team - 3x Missile Launchers 90
Special Weapons Team - 3x Sniper Rifles 36
Special Weapons Team - 3x Meltaguns 60

Fast Attack
Vendetta - 170

Inquisitorial Detachment
Coteaz - 100

Henchman squad - 170
+3 Joakero
+6 Warriors with Storm Bolters
+3 Crusaders


Yarrick's a good Warlord. Eternal Warrior, "Sometimes Just Doesnt Die", Voice Of Command, Decent-ish Warlord trait, 4+ Invuln. He's the toughest you're getting in the guard, especially with a good bodyguard.

[Cheesegear]

i try to make armies that change how they work, depending on what the enemy does, which usually isn't very practical

It sure isn't. The game doesn't work like that. Units that try to do everything generally fail at doing anything at all. Either you can shoot, or you can Assault. The number of units in the game that can shoot and assault well I can count on one hand, and they're expensive, and you definitely can't build armies out of them (except in one case where you can).

[Darthteej]

It sure isn't. The game doesn't work like that. Units that try to do everything generally fail at doing anything at all. Either you can shoot, or you can Assault. The number of units in the game that can shoot and assault well I can count on one hand, and they're expensive, and you definitely can't build armies out of them (except in one case where you can).

And what army would that be, pray tell? The only one I can think of would be Draigowing, and as you've explained quite well that doesen't really work too well.

[Requizen]

And what army would that be, pray tell? The only one I can think of would be Draigowing, and as you've explained quite well that doesen't really work too well.

Imperial Knights? :smalltongue:

[Cheesegear]

And what army would that be, pray tell? The only one I can think of would be Draigowing

Close. So close. :smalltongue:
Same Codex. But there's a unit in the same Codex, that Scores, is Fearless, shoots four Psycannons a turn and gets Halberds for 2 Points.