Learn2Eel

Choosing from Pyromancy and Telekinesis is actually really snazzy, randomly generating powers from other disciplines can so often leave you with a selection of useless powers so even having guaranteed rolls on two of the weaker disciplines gives you assured flexibility and lets you plan out some strategies. Levitating your nasty characters around with the deadly Sekhmet lets you get by without unloading your points into transports, though obviously you do sacrifice a bit when it comes to survival. Still, I'd rather have two Levitating Sekhmet units than one unit waiting patiently in a Land Raider/Spartan for the same points. Pyromancy is also fairly useful depending on what you play against; the Nova will decimate light infantry, the Beam handles most everything else. Or you could just stick to Maelstrom to lob Vindicator shells around. Basically, I don't mind being forced to pick powers from Pyromancy and Telekinesis while being limited to just those two disciplines. I think it's a fair trade-off for all the other awesome bonuses the Sekhmet get, and picking powers - as discussed prior - is great with pretty much any psychic discipline. Just as an aside, even if they were forced to roll their powers rather than pick and were still restricted to Pyromancy and Telekinesis, they'd still be a really nice unit; two-wounds each, able to choose between the various armour types, discounted combi-weapons, free Asphyx Shells, Mastery Level 2, Stubborn, Force weapons, etc.

Novas can indeed hit both Zooming Flyers and Swooping Flying Monstrous Creatures, hence why Magnus is...well, you know. Molten Beam is nice against vehicles but it's not amazing, it's more the nice mix of quantity and quality of hits you get from a Strength 8 AP1 beam with an 18" range that makes it a great power.

Hey guys, does anyone have any experience running Perturabo with a full unit of 6 Iron Circle? I'm going to be doing up the full unit soon and was interested to see if anyone's had some practical experience with the most ridiculously expensive death-star in the game. I know it's strengths and weaknesses, I'm just curious about how they've actually performed for you guys when run in such a configuration (or a slightly smaller but still large unit). I've got experience with them normally but it's the allure of the giant unit that has me intrigued. Thanks for any input and have a nice day :)

What is that blade from? It looks great! EDIT: Never mind, it's from the Exalted Sorcerer kit. He looks awesome, I totally want to steal your idea :D

I've been coming to similar conclusions during my discussions with others. There are so many brilliant uses of just the Legion rules Thousand Sons possess without even requiring the use of powerful units such as the Sekhmet and Magnus. Corvidae Tactical Squads that are pushed into position by Ahriman are almost as efficient as Imperial Fist Tacticals for raw bolter damage and can easily set up an early game Fury of the Legion attack. Veterans with Asphyx Rounds, Corvidae and Divination are very efficient (casting on a 3+) psykers with some devastating powers (namely Precognition) and deadly with their Shredding Sniper boltguns. Thousand Sons actually make Rotor Cannon Support Squads worthwhile unlike any other Legion. All of our heavy weapon units tend to be better than the identical generic equivalents of other Legions thanks to the Corvidae cult. We get better invulnerable saves than other Legions on units that normally can't get such buffs like Assault Squads and Breacher Teams, or units that some Legions can specifically pay to upgrade such as Terminators used by Imperial Fists and Salamanders. We get potentially the most powerful (but expensive) Praetors thanks to psychic abilities - Praetors with Biomancy are going to be brutal - and our generic characters can do so much work as psykers (especially Chaplains!) Though the benefits aren't massive in all cases (the big exception being the Veterans) and we do have some big downsides to our Legion (army-wide Pinning can be game-losing) there's so much to love about our rules. We keep finding awesome things to try out!

Aren't the Veterans *cheaper* than the other options presented? I thought that was the point of Nusquam's post? I just did the maths myself, 10 Veterans with Mastery Level 1, Asphyx Shells and 2 Flamers are 225 points, but add in a Rhino and they are 260 points.

Actually guys, I just checked the 40K FAQs. "How does a power that targets ‘the Psyker’ but not his unit work on a unit with Brotherhood of Psykers? If, for example, a Wyrdvane Psyker squad casts Iron Arm, does one model nominated as ‘the caster’ receive the benefits? A: The power applies to all ‘Brotherhood of Psykers’ models in the unit." Does Brotherhood of Psykers confer on any attached Independent Characters? As special rules tend to explicitly state if they do or don't, I'd say the answer is no. In any case, it seems like a safe bet that a Khenetai unit casting Iron Arm would not then confer Iron Arm to an attached Praetor. However, I'm unclear as to whether the Ammitari power would work on attached Independent Characters as it says "psyker unit". Note that powers like Iron Arm say "psyker" not "psyker unit". EDIT: Oops, sorry for the double post, I thought I hit edit on the big one :(

I'm not sure if a power cast by a Brotherhood of Psykers would affect an attached Independent Character, at least a power that says "targets the Psyker" like Iron Arm does. Not a big deal though, I'll let others hash that one out. I'd argue Magnus gets the most out of rolling all but one of his powers on Pyromancy and then fishing either for a good Biomancy power or just grabbing Smite. Pyromancy gives you four separate Witchfire powers, whereas Biomancy only has two. Biomancy also doesn't have a Nova which is the most abusive type of power to combine with Magnus. Of course, the Pyromancy powers lack AP2-AP3 so that is a consideration depending on what you face; however, for getting the most Destroyer attacks possible out of your Psychic phase, Pyromancy + Smite is the way to go. Rolling everything on Biomancy would still work wonders though of course. If you really want Invisibility, have another unit roll for it - like Amon. You've also got Magnus listed as a HQ There's some errors on the warp charge costs of the powers you listed in his entry. Sekhmet can't take Biomancy, they are restricted to Pyromancy and Telekinesis. However, per the strict wording of the rules they get to pick their powers from those two disciplines rather than randomly determine them! A 10-strong Khenetai unit would be Weapon Skill 6, the buff gives them +1 Weapon Skill and +2 Attacks at the full unit size. Something to note with the Rapiers, whether joined by a Psyker or not just make them Corvidae and upgrade the guns to have Shatter Shells; congratulations, your anti-tank game is even crazier than other Legions' for no additional cost! With regards to Rotor Cannon Support Squads, the main thing they have over Veterans is the range advantage; getting Veterans into rapid fire range is really easy with Thousand Sons thanks to Ahriman and Amon but it's still an important consideration. The big thing with the Ammitara and their power potentially affecting attached characters is a Master of Signal's Orbital Bombardment, it's downright brutal! Giving them Corvidae also isn't a terrible idea if you can't get their power off for whatever reason. The Castellax-Achea have 5 attacks each on the charge, not 6; Rage replaces the normal charge bonus rather than stacking with it. The Power Claws are also Power Fists as confirmed by Alan Bligh so they are actually Strength 10 AP2! Your article seems to be implying that the Cult chosen for a unit dictates what powers they must use. Thankfully, this isn't actually the case; having a particular Cult just means that psykers cast the powers of their Cult on a 3+ rather than 4+, so you could take Ahriman as your Warlord for his awesome Warlord Trait and still give - for example - compulsory Terminator Troops the Biomancy powers. I would also say that Thousand Sons do anti-tank no worse than any other particular Legion as they still get access to all the same options. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, Rapier Quad Guns with Shatter Shells and Corvidae are even better anti-tank compared to the other Legions' Rapiers. Sekhmet are also nice anti-tank as they can simply pick Objuration Mechanicum to throw out Haywire hits on nearby vehicles. Also, Magnus with any Nova power will ruin a mechanized list the moment he gets that Nova off and doesn't fluff his rolls! You wrote a nice article! Those are the only issues I could find, there's not too much to fix up

Try and fish for Invisibility? If not, just Psychic Shriek things I guess? I'm not sure. Prescience is good in conjunction with the Khenetai though as it lets them roll on Biomancy instead.

I think you guys made it out pretty well with the Legion rules. I certainly wouldn't say Wolves are top tier but, outside of tournaments, who really cares? Here are some of my thoughts on them if you guy's don't mind an outsider interjecting; 1) Grey Slayers are a great unit, but having them be compulsory Troops unless you take Russ (per what Alan Bligh reportedly said) does mean the (strong) core of your army won't change much. You really need to get the customisation of this unit right as you're going to be using them pretty much all the time. I'm liking the idea of the melee horde with Red-Blade as you're unit leaders should punk other Tactical Sergeants fairly easily (2+ armour and Great Frost Blade), that and the hidden Power Fists is a big plus. Alternatively, keeping them cheap with bolters isn't a bad idea either as you're still pound-for-pound better than most other Legions' marines in combat. 2) Varagyr are a bit more complex, I wouldn't recommend giving them all Reaper Autocannons as they'll just end up being notably weaker and more expensive Siege Tyrants - I say this as an Iron Warriors player! I'd say stick to what they are good at which is melee, Frost Weapons that can be exchanged for free/discounted fists are no joke and the mix of Weapon Skill 5 and Fear gives them a big leg-up on most other Terminators. Also, don't underestimate the Strength 5 Hammer of Wrath, in 30K games you want every advantage you can get and there's worse rules to have than free Strength 5 automatic hits. 3) Deathsworn absolutely belong in some type of Drop Pod if you can get it, but beware the lack of Fearless outside of combat and Leadership 8. I'm thinking a Speaker of the Dead might be mandatory for them for this reason, but a Land Raider/Spartan is a good alternative to consider. I'm thinking either Power Fists or Meltabombs are a necessity on this unit so that they don't get the embarrassing fate of being bogged down by a Contemptor. Keep in mind also that per their The Dreams of the Death Wolf special rule you don't have to worry about model placement in assault, if I'm ready it correctly all of them are assumed to be in range to attack. These are going to be brutal against armies that lack ranged AP2. 4) Both Rites of War are aimed at melee hordes, which definitely feels like it will be the default way to play the army. This might be a turn-off for some but I think it's fluffy, just keep in mind that a lot of generic Rites of War aren't available to the Wolves. On that note, I think the 1 HQ per 1000 points (whether full or partial) isn't too bad of a limitation as most Heresy lists I see tend to run at least two even in smaller games, however the problem seems to be that the army is capped at 3000 points! Surely this is a mistake? In any case, the safe bet seems to be taking a cheap Centurion to fill your Compulsory then using the other two slots to taste. 5) I want to give a bit of credit to Geigor here. He has Warrior's Mettle so he can join Grey Slayers without penalizing them, he's cheap and he's actually not a bad character killer all things considered. What amounts to a 5++ re-rollable in challenges might not fully stand up to a Praetor but Geigor is also much cheaper than your average Praetor and should mulch through anything less. If you want a cheap HQ to fill a slot, he's not a bad choice. Try to tag-team him with a kitted out Huscarl and he should do just fine. 6) Red-Blade is awesome, no question; he looks like the Kyr Vhalen of the Wolves to me (a super valuable choice that's kitted out pretty much as you would hope). -1 LD for +1 W is a trade anyone would make. He has a 4+ invulnerable save but can still Sweep, he takes names in combat too - he's odds on to lose against a kitted out Praetor but he'll whallop pretty much anything else, including Walkers which is a BIG deal. Blowing up a Contemptor before it can carve through your Varagyr could be crucial. Works best with big units of Grey Slayers and Terminators (of any type), whether in transports or on foot. 7) You need to be very careful with your Priests, they aren't going to really help out your Jump pack and Bike/Jetbike units but for everything else they're too good to ignore. Preferred Enemy (Infantry) and Feel No Pain 5+ for a unit are awesome for just over a hundred points, it's hard to get a good invulnerable save for him though so keep that in mind. I think the Speaker of the Dead is the obvious winner here, the Caster of Runes seems like a bit of an afterthought but that might just be me. 8) The trick with Leman Russ is to keep him away from large units that can feasibly hit him hard, i.e. a big blob of Cataphractii Terminators with Power Fists, kitted-out Firedrakes, etc. Only models in base contact suffer the to-hit malus so a smart player can simply lock Russ in a challenge with a tank-character (not that they would last long) and then spill over wounds with the rest of the unit. Against anything else though, bid them good luck as Russ will carve through almost anything pretty damn easily. He's above average for a Primarch against vehicles but still needs to be careful against something like a Leviathan, though of course that's what bodyguards are for! He's also surprisingly resistant to shooting thanks to his conditional 3+ invulnerable save so keep that in mind if you want to send him out solo. When splitting attacks, I'd prioritize them this way; against Toughness 4 models that aren't Eternal Warriors and have multiple wounds, possibly Gargantuan Creatures and definitely Vehicles, use the Axe. Against Eternal Warriors or Toughness 5+ characters, Toughness 7 and lower Monstrous Creatures as well as single-wound models, use the Sword. Other than his one-use-only Howl, Leadership buff and the "take these units as compulsory Troops" ability (which opens up your list-building opportunities) be aware that he does not buff your army *at all*. He needs to be killing stuff, he needs to be killing them dead (yes). He's a Primarch killer but even so you still don't want Primarchs in general to be duelling each other as it's usually a waste of valuable turns. He might be able to kill gene-fathers quicker than most of the others (from what I can tell only maxed out Angron does it faster) but it still might not be worth going for that. However, being safe in the knowledge that Russ should auto-win any duel (or at least tying the opponent up permanently) can be a nice mental advantage to have. Overall, very nice and thematic rules. I hope this helps you budding Space Wolf players out somewhat :)