Search the Community

In my arrogance, I thought I’d start a dedicated tactica for Adeptus Titanicus. I’ve played quite a few games now and I think I broadly know my way around the game. Since this thread was started it's become quite successful I think, with some good insights from this community. Maybe at some point I'll add some sort of index to this post so those can be found. For now it's kind of a stream of consciousness, so good luck. The idea of this thread is to discuss how to go from something like this, where there are two opposing battlegroups: To something like this, where only your engines remain and there is lots of mess where the enemy ones used to be: These are my thoughts on how to do that. Play your mission – and your opponent’s. The missions in AT are quite varied. Some are more difficult to achieve than others. Many have secondary conditions that apply to either player. You win or lose depending on whether you achieve your objectives and whether your opponent does theirs. Think about how many VPs are available and how to get them. Work on a plan to get more of them than your opponent does. If you don’t need your titans alive but you win by succeeding at retrieval, then rush the centre and do everything necessary to protect your runner. If you need to give up on your primary objective to keep your titans alive, so your opponent fails at engage and destroy, then do that. And generally try to avoid “Glory and Honour” – because nobody can kill a warlord titan that they can’t see on turn one (and you can bet your target will be behind a hill with a blind barrage on it). I’ve no idea what FW were thinking with that one. I guess it’s doable if your opponent only has warhounds and there’s no cover. Otherwise, avoid. Over time, I’ve found that reaver titans are really useful for achieving missions. They aren’t as entertaining as warhounds or as brutal as warlords, but they are reasonably fast and durable, which is what’s needed when you have to have a titan survive a journey across the battlefield. Orders in the right order Orders are always a risk. Sometimes you’ll fail an order and be in trouble. On the whole you should try to rely on them as little as possible, and always roll for the ones you really need before going for the “nice to have” ones. In general, it’s very important to succeed on a charge order or repairs. If your melee titan can’t charge, or your hot titan blows up in the damage control phase, you’ll look silly. Full stride can be very important too, if the mission or your position demands it. On the other hand first fire and split fire are nice, but usually it’s not a disaster not to get one of those off. Keep that reactor cool Hot titans are dead titans. They can’t boost their void shields (which may collapse anyway with an orange reactor), they take hits to their bodies and their servitors are too busy trying to cool them down to repair hits. So every draining weapon you stick on your titan makes it slower, less agile and easier to kill. Think: does it really make much difference to get shieldbane with that turbo laser, when you’re more likely to gain heat by doing so than you are to drop an extra shield? Similarly, think about whether you actually need to fire your plasma gun on maximal fire to beat the target’s armour, and if you can afford to roll a couple of 1s and gain heat. Plus of course whenever you push your reactor there's a chance your titan's machine spirit will intervene and do something mad. This actually isn't too bad if you're boosting your shields, because that still happens and the machine spirit might actually do something useful, but it's rubbish if you're trying to move or shoot. Teach your titans to dance You must choreograph your titans’ moves as well as possible. Titans aren’t very fast, can only move within their front 90 degree arc and have big footprints on the board. It’s extremely easy for them to get in each other’s way and block your progress, which will cost you precious time and make your shooting less accurate. So to avoid this, plan ahead. Don’t stand a titan behind another if you want to activate it first. Try not to walk in front of a titan that’s about to fire. Look for obstacles like bottlenecks between two buildings and work out how you’re going to get through them – or avoid them entirely if you can. Sometimes a channel will be formed between two terrain features so that only one titan can travel up it at a time. This is a very dangerous feature because titans at the back of the queue are effectively out of the game, while those at the front are forced to advance as fast as they can. Only go up these if you really have to, and go as fast as you can. Do activations good. It’s usually an advantage to have more activations than your opponent, because it lets you move units after all of theirs have gone. You can arc dodge and focus fire on a single target. Sometimes though you’ll have units that want to activate first, not last. A unit with charge or first fire orders might well want to hit something before it gets a chance to move away, for example. And of course you might want to activate one of your own titans to avoid exactly this. In the damage control phase activations only really matter when something might overheat and explode. Generally speaking, if your titan might go bang you should activate it last if it’s near your own titans, so they get a chance to repair first, or go first if it’s near the enemy, so they don’t get a chance to. If it’s near your own titans that are undamaged then you should activate it first, so the other titans can activate and repair any damage they take. Pick your targets carefully. Annihilate them wantonly. I generally try to prioritise whichever enemy unit is the biggest threat to my mission. This isn’t necessarily the most dangerous titan. It might be the one I think has vital cargo, or the fastest one if I’m trying to hold the line. The idea is to figure out which enemy unit is most likely to prevent you from winning, then remove it. Ideally, your target should then die in a single combat phase. The bigger titans can repair themselves quite well if you give them a chance, so try not to. If you can’t actually bring much fire down on your priority target, for example because it’s hidden by terrain, then you should probably go for something else rather than half-killing two targets. If it’s carrying a rescued crew and about to run off the board then just do what you can. Melee titans and knights are often high priority targets. They are certainly very dangerous. There’s a theory that they force your opponent’s hand by making them focus on the target you want. The downside to this is that going nearer to the enemy inevitably makes you take more damage, as weapons tend to be more accurate up close. So charging a reaver with a fist down the centre will tend to force your opponent’s attention, but also hand them an easy kill. I think that’s only worth it if it’s covering for a retrieval or vital cargo mission – otherwise I’d much prefer to make all my titans hard to kill. So you want to kill a god? Titans die when they take four crits to a single location. To do this you generally need to drop their shields (or walk inside them), hit them a few times very hard to break the structure of a location, and then follow that up with several more hits in the same place to cause the crits. So it’s a three-step process and different weapons are good for different steps. Let’s go through them. Step one To break shields, you need a lot of hits at S4 or better. The stand-out weapons are therefore apocalypse missile launchers, Vulcan mega bolters and gatling guns. These guns force the maximum number of saves. Shieldbane weapons are an option for breaking shields, but often not a good one. After all, the enemy titan can repair a shield almost as easily as yours can cool down the point of heat you get for shieldbane, and you also risk your titan going nuts when you push its reactor. I ran some calculations. If there are no hit modifiers a warlord titan’s apocalypse missile launchers drop an average 1.48 shields against a target with its shields in the 3+ zone that pushes its reactor to reroll 1s. With turbo lasers and shieldbane it drops 1.67, again with no negative mods to hit (within 16”). That’s the best you can get out of shieldbane. In any other scenario you’re better off with a multi-shot gun like a Vulcan or gatling blaster, rather than a laser using shieldbane. Notice that the defender has to push their reactor against each individual attack. This means that it's a bit harder to defend against two missile launchers on two reavers than it is against the same two missile launchers on a warlord. The reverse is true of shieldbane - the warlord can make 6 dice of turbo lasers have shieldbane for one point of heat, while a warhound only gets to do it for two shots. And of course the warlord is far more able to manage that heat than the warhound is. Alternatively, just walk inside the enemy’s shields. That’s easier said than done of course, but it can still be a viable option. You might decide that you’ll leave one enemy titan alone, focusing on other targets, until your warhounds get nice and close. Then have them run in drop it without shields becoming an issue. Step two This one’s pretty simple. Hit the target very hard with something. A bellicosa volcano cannon, sunfury plasma annihilator (on maximal, preferably), plasma blastgun, melta cannon or volcano cannon are the best options here. Melee weapons work well too. It probably doesn’t matter where you hit, so don’t do targeted shots at this stage. Sometimes you’ll annoyingly hit a weapon, but the chances of doing that are lower than the chance of missing altogether when using targeted shots. You can target wherever you like with melee weapons of course, and on the whole I’d recommend the body in that case. You’re likely to cause a reactor leak and/or drop the target’s shields, which will make it a lot easier for other titan’s to finish the job. If there’s significant structural damage already, say because the enemy titan’s reactor overheated, proceed to step three straight away. Step Three Now that there are no shields and there’s a big hole in it somewhere, you need to hit that location some more to cause crits. A weakness of blast weapons is that they can’t do this. On the other hand, multi-shot weapons get a lot of attempts to hit and often have a chance to gain +1 to hit for range, which will seriously increase the number of hits you land. This means that things like Vulcan mega bolters are surprisingly good at killing titans, while volcano cannons aren’t. If there’s +3 to the damage roll from structural damage and all you need is a direct hit to cause a crit, spraying bolts into the wound can work very well. But a second hole appearing in another location won’t make the enemy titan any more dead. You could get lucky and roll the right thing with your location dice of course. Mid-strength weapons Lasers and flamers are in an odd place. They don’t have the number of shots to be great in stage one, the strength to be great in stage two or the accuracy to be great in stage three. The “Glass half empty” way to look at them would be to say they are bad guns that don’t work in any situation. Or you could be more positive and say that they’ll always be able to do something useful in any of the three stages. The macro-gatling cannon is different because it has enough shots and accuracy to be great in stages one or three, and useable in stage two against lighter targets. Killing knights Essentially, knights are always in stage two. They don’t have void shields to remove but neither do you ever get positive modifiers on your armour rolls against them for structural damage or hitting them in the back. The combination of their ion shields and armour makes low-strength dakka guns very ineffective against knights. On the other hand, high-strength blast weapons can take off whole banners in one go, ignoring ion shields and killing whole knights with single crits. Of course, if you go up against a knight army you may as well just shoot at them with everything, in spite of the fact that your dakka guns aren’t particularly useful. But they are a balancing factor that prevents you from just using Vulcan mega bolters on all your hardpoints. Choosing your battlegroup. The good news is that you can take kind of anything you want in AT and have decent games. AT isn’t won and lost at list creation. There are still some things to consider though. Some legios tend to be better for some classes of titans than others. For example Defensor want guns with a long range that will be in range to fire twice on turn one, and a reactor strong enough to survive doing so – which probably means they want reavers and warlords more than they want warhounds. But the mortis stratagem to take a free move before the game starts is awesome for warhounds. Vulpa has rules to make melee reavers seriously scary, and Astorum warlords are very tough. That doesn’t mean you should only field those titans for those legios of course, but it’s good to play to your strengths. You’ll also want a good balance of guns across your list, and probably on each individual titan. Personally, I never like to field a titan with the same gun on both arms. I’d much prefer to have a gun for stage one and three, paired with one for stage two. So I find melta and gatling a good reaver set up, plasma and Vulcan great on warhounds and on warlords I like plasma and gatling. Those are by no means the only good set ups of course, but they are great all-rounders. Melee weapons should probably be paired with something that can do targeted shots at wherever the fist has landed. Gatling weapons, lasers and other melee weapons are good here. A melta on a reaver is probably good enough to take with a melee weapon, just because it’s so powerful relative to anything else. Some titans are also more “high maintenance” than others. For example, a melee titan is going to want full stride or charge orders most of the time, but a shooty reaver can generally get by without orders at all. If too many of your titans need orders too much of the time then you’ll inevitably fail sometimes and your titans won’t do what you need them to. The same applies to activations. A warhound might really want to move last and fire first, so it can avoid enemy fire arcs and then hit hard before retribution comes for it. But not all your units can do that, so it’s advisable to have a few things that are happy to move earlier and fire later. That's more than enough from me Any comments, disagreements or lessons that you can add to this would be very welcome.

I figured I start this thread since no one else has, granted these are mostly my observations since my 30k experience is limited. So please, if you have suggestions post it. I'm still fully building my SOH army is I am by no means the authority on SOH Tactics. First Discussion: Troops Choice Reavers vs Tactical Marines It seems better to take Maloghurst than ROW Black Reaving to have Reavers as troops but are Reavers as Troops better than the 20 man blob of Tacticals with apothecary ? 20 tactical marines w. Vox and sergeant w. PW (maximize merciless fighter) and artificer armor for 280 The best tactical load out can be discussed in length but I am just looking for a baseline to compare Reavers Vs 15 Reavers w Banestrike Bolters Cheiften w. PW and artificer armor runs 380 So for 100 more points you get five less marines, lose the ability to re-roll failed morale but gain outflank and AP 3 Bolters with precision shot. It seems as if instead of replacing Tacticals for Reavers as the troops backbone they do a better job complementing each other on the battlefield. As the Tacticals slogg upfield towards an objective the Reavers come in on what seems to be Turn 2 with the ability to re roll 1 on reserves, to claim a midfield or backfield obj and support your army by getting in their shorter range ap 3 precision shots. What do you guys think? Have you ran purely footslogging Reavers or have you paired Tacticals and Reavers or do you find it better to give them rhinos or assault packs? (This post is in pieces because my iPad likes to time out before I post)

Shock assault Search and destroy Pursuit operations Punitive and excoriation campaigns "brutally swift" "a shock-assault force as well as tireless pursuers and a peerless hunter-killer force" "its campaigns unsubtle, but brutally swift" "Conditioned to hold a near-suicidal disregard for danger" "a force that has honed in battle against [..] their own wayward brothers" Aside from what is to come by official ruling, let's talk about the fluffside of tactics. To me the tactics that suit the Space Wolves' style of warfare best are as follows: Seeker-squads Sounds like they are made for the Space Wolves. I wouldn't be surprised if we got our own special unit substitution for seekers. They are the most "search and destroy" units the Crusade Legions army list has to offer. Drop-pods/airborne transportation "Suicidal" dropping into the heat and punishing precisely what has to be gone. Like a Wolf. Caestus, Storm Eagles, Spartans delivering pain exactly where it has to be applied. Fast units Continueing the above .. either by means of transports or wargear like bikes or jump packs our units should be fast straight where their force is to be applied. Anti-MEq This is another thing Space Wolves are about. Following dissidents. So let's bring squads designed to counter marines. By this I mean AP<3 .. Unit size Holding the line or win by attrition ..this is not the way of an execution force. So small veteran squads maybe fit more than large tactical blobs. Or don't they? No artillery As above. Artillery is cumbersome, cannot be deployed swiftly and has its place in attrition based warfare. Also: Furious charge over Stubborn. Those are the basic principles I design my army around. Feel free to object or chime in. What is your vision of heresy-era Space Wolves and their tactics right now?

For the Indomitus Crusade! Please enjoy my revamped Ultramarine blog/thread. Guilliman has awoken to a lot of change, and most of it isn't good.... We take on this challenge with the invention of the Primaris units, and the awakening of the Primarch. Chaos pushes us back, but yet we will prevail. This revamped blog turns the page into a new era, of painting, Primaris, battle reports and general Ultra coverage. Thank you for checking it out.... NEW Ultramarine Battle Reports for 8th Edition Codex (typically in order of newest to oldest): Prot's 3rd Ultramarine army is SOLD in 2019... .. and Reclaimed in 2020! (see new links below for 9th edition work:) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Ultramarines Miniatures / WIP / Finished work: 9th Edition work: From newest to oldest + Eradicators (Indomitus boxed set). As I anticipate the arrival of my Ultra army, I decide to prep some units from a boxset me and a friend split. +LINK+ + Intercessors. You can never have enough, right? Well these are just some dudes I wanted to finish since I had spare parts laying around! +LINK+ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 8th Edition is below this point: Painting and Wip's of Ultramarines for 8th Edition (the list below is in order of newest-to-oldest): + New Ltd Edition Primaris Captain with Plasma Pistol and Fist: I finally finished this fig and it's one of my favourite Primaris sculpts.+LINK+ + Primaris Phase 1 Completed! Entered in GW Konor Painting Competition: At the end of the Konor Campaign I entered the painting competition so this post has a few finished shots of the units featured individually below. There is one or two shots of the Primaris project as I finished it for the competition: +LINK+ + Primaris: The Project is nearing completion: The enemy thinks they have us on our back foot... but Guilliman pushes us outwards and onwards, to greater heights For Konor, for the Primarch, for the 500!!!. Posts for specific units: 1. Aggressors (Yes I know this is a repeat, I just want to put all the better pics in one spot) +LINK+ 2. Ancient: I like how the banner turned out! +LINK+ 3. Redemptors: I love these guys. Fun to paint. +LINK+ 4. Repulsor: A BEAST of a model. check it out: +LINK+ + Primaris Aggressors: Completed: LINK + Some Primaris in game, and Guilliman: LINK Contents: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Ultra-Fiction: + Macragge's Honour: By Dan Abnett and Neil Roberts. I do a quick run down and 'show off' my limited print! LINK + Strategem: A short audio story by Nick Kyme. Released during the Black Library Christmas Calendar Event. My review: LINK Strategic / Tactics / Unit Discussion: + The Kauyon Campaign Book released in Fall 2015 features Tau (bleh), Ravenguard and White Scars. Here's a tactical discussion, and testing thread on how we can apply these to our Ultramarines. Are they worth including in your army? LINK +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ARCHIVED Painting for 7th Edition: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + The bottom of this first post includes my first new finished piece; the Stormtalon. + WIP Tactical squad #1: LINK + Tactical Squad #1 COMPLETE!: LINK + A generic Captain, and Librarian (for the Conclave!) are completed: LINK + The 7th Edition Ultramarines Assault Squad is complete: LINK + My take on the Armour of Faith character - Chaplain Sentina: LINK + I refinish a favorite model - Captain Proteus: LINK + WIP shots from a game of my Gladius Battle Company Transport vehicles. About 75% done!: LINK + FINISHED the above WIP project! Transports + Anti Air Defense Force for my Battle Co!: LINK + Finished a pile of Tacticals and an attack bike, plus an Ironclad for my Battle Co: LINK + A long time coming... The Landraider Inexōrābilis Ultramar is finally completed! LINK + My homage to the Horus Heresy Character: Aeonid Theil in a 40K setting, with more pictures of the Landraider Inexorabilis Ultramar. LINK + Finally I paint up the 10th Company Auxiliary Formation. LINK + A second Stormtalon is now completed for my Stormwing Formation (or Raptorwing!). LINK + Two Vanguard Veteran Squads are complete! LINK + Stormraven completed!!! Plus pictures of the completed Stormwing formation. LINK + Multiple characters now finished including Tigurius, Sicarius, and Telion. LINK + A new Imperial Knight which is magnetized to be a Paladin or Errant. Please meet: Divinus Veridian a noble house from the early days of Horus' treachery. LINK + The 2015 Boxing Day 24 Hour Challenge: I put up an unassembled Venerable Dreadnought and put myself to the test: LINK + I just managed to finish 13 new Tacticals (32mm bases) and magnetize some part for them to go with the Dreadnought above: LINK + 30th Anniversary Space Marine shwag! I got my ID Imperial Marine, did you? Also bought stuff for Sky Hammer too: LINK +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Thanks for looking.

Hello wolfy brothers, I've been playing some more games and I'm kind of struggling to find a balance between capturing/holding objectives and dealing damage. Have you used cyberwolves or Fenrisian Wolves for this task? Do they work well? I don't have those models yet, especially since the official ones look so derpy (was thinking about getting some wolves from Mierce Miniatures though...)

It's been a while since I played or posted here. In previous editions with my metal army I ran something like: Celestine + Seraphim to create enemy backfield havoc Canoness warlord hidden in an Immolator with BSS to spend the entire game trying to dodge giving up a Slay the Warlord point to my opponent Dominion spam as my main combat force to overpower MEQ and TEQ saves Retributers with HB to lay down fields of fire to protect my lines and camp backfield objectives Occasionally a single giant blob BSS to tarpit and bolter spam the center pretty much all MSU in an extremely typical midfield run and gun style. I'm coming back to maybe playing again and I've got Morvenn Vahl and the Paragon warsuits and the models are so cool there is no way I cannot use them. How are people fielding them? How do they work on the table? What do they replace in a typical list and what usually supports them best? I know that's pretty broad, but I did a search and did not see a topic specifically about how people are using these two units.

++ Battalion Detachment 0CP (Imperium - Adeptus Astartes - Space Wolves) [80 PL, 11CP, 1,498pts] ++ + Configuration + **Chapter Selector**: Space Wolves Battle Size [12CP]: 3. Strike Force (101-200 Total PL / 1001-2000 Points) Detachment Command Cost + Stratagems + Relics of the Chapter [-1CP]: Number of Extra Relics + HQ + Bjorn the Fell-handed [10 PL, 175pts]: Assault cannon Librarian [6 PL, 120pts]: 2) Might of Heroes, 3) Null Zone (Aura), Force axe, Jump Pack, Plasma pistol, The Armour of Russ, The Imperium's Sword, Warlord Ragnar Blackmane [7 PL, 130pts] + Troops + Assault Intercessor Squad [5 PL, 105pts] . 4x Assault Intercessor: 4x Astartes Chainsword, 4x Frag & Krak grenades, 4x Heavy Bolt Pistol . Assault Intercessor Sgt: Heavy Bolt Pistol, Power fist Blood Claws [8 PL, 123pts] . 4x Blood Claw: 4x Astartes Chainsword, 4x Bolt pistol, 4x Frag & Krak grenades . Blood Claw Pack Leader: Power axe . Wolf Guard Pack Leader: Bolt pistol, Power fist Blood Claws [6 PL, 100pts] . 4x Blood Claw: 4x Astartes Chainsword, 4x Bolt pistol, 4x Frag & Krak grenades . Blood Claw Pack Leader: Power fist + Fast Attack + Thunderwolf Cavalry [14 PL, 240pts] . Thunderwolf Cavalry: Storm shield, Thunder hammer . Thunderwolf Cavalry: Lightning Claw, Storm shield . Thunderwolf Cavalry: Power axe, Storm shield . Thunderwolf Cavalry Pack Leader: Storm shield, Thunder hammer + Heavy Support + Long Fangs [7 PL, 185pts]: Armorium Cherub . Long Fang: Multi-melta . Long Fang: Multi-melta . Long Fang: Multi-melta . Long Fang: Multi-melta . Long Fang Pack Leader: Astartes Chainsword, Meltagun + Dedicated Transport + Drop Pod [4 PL, 70pts]: Storm bolter Impulsor [7 PL, 125pts]: 2x Storm Bolters, Shield Dome Razorback [6 PL, 125pts]: Twin assault cannon ++ Total: [80 PL, 11CP, 1,498pts] ++ I was wondering what y'all would think about this list? Long Fangs and one unit of Blood Claws go in the drop pod. The rune priest will try to assasinate a key HQ unit, or counter some enemy deep strikers.

Hey guys, So like everyone else, I love playing with Roboute Guilliman on the table. Anyone have any ideas on tactics for how to best use him best with Deathwatch? Keep in mind I'm just looking to use Guilliman as a Lord of War attachment to a solo Deathwatch army list, so no <chapter> Ultramarine units being added to boost his effects. Thanks guys! For the Watch!

So I've been struggling to keep Cawl in the list without killing the rest of the list. Most recently I've been using a Crusader Knight but Cawl really doesn't maximize that sort of unit very well. I've been trying to keep the command points up and that means 6 squads of troops. The elite/heavy portion of the list feels pretty flexible. But as far as troops I'm wondering what others are doing for the core? I've tried variants of Vanguard and Rangers. Sniper style, plasma etc. The Kataphrons are interesting, but I can't seem to get them firing on all cylinders. Perhaps CC Kastelans would make it safer to do so? But then the double shoot / Cawl Wall loses a lot of effectiveness... however if I'm honest, I rarely play that way, and typically only use 2 Kastelans. I'm curious what others are doing for a Cawl based Brigade core? Any thoughts?

Hello, and welcome to the compendium page for my Adeptas Sororitas Tactica series, Tactics for Units. This series is covering the Adeptas Sororitas units that can be found in Index Imperium 2! Here is where you'll be able to quickly and easily find the earlier entries in this series, and future entries will be added here as they are written! Cheers for reading. HQ Canoness St Celestine Elites Celestians Repentia and Mistress of Repentance Imagifers, Dialogus', and Hospitilars Troops Battle Sisters Fast Attack Dominions Seraphim Heavy Support Retributors Exorcists Dedicated Transports Sororitas Rhino Immolator For reference, I will not be covering Forge World units, just units in Index Imperium 2.

So after some difficult games this edition with Astra Militarum, and now something comes out that may test using Primaris even more so.... Eldar. We see the across the board that the army is hard to hit, Alaitoc takes it to a new level. Cheap troops lead to easy Brigade builds. Auto hitting weapons are a must. This makes me think of Whirlwinds (strategem) Flamers, Sternguard DP Heavy Flamers? etc. But overall... are we now looking at something that forces: Assault and Drop Pods? What do you guys think?

Tactics for Units: the Command Crew A bit of a different article this time. Instead of discussing one unit, we’ll be reviewing three; The Imagifer, the Dialogus, and the Hospitilar. These ladies are all quite closely related in use and design, and all lack much in the way of options, so I figured I’d rather do one article on all three than doing three very short ones. These three ladies are all Elite units, and each provide a pretty fantastic buff to units within 3” for the Hospitilar, and 6” for the other two. Their relatively low cost and occupancy of a relatively uncontested Force Organisation Slot slot means they’re each quite inviting options, especially with the larger FoCs. The Imagifer is a banner or relic bearer, whose presence on the battlefield drives her Battle Sister comrades to further acts of heroism. The Dialogus is a sister of the Orders Dialogus, specialists in the field of interrogation, cryptography, and public speaking, on loan to a Militant Sister Order to assist. Her loud hailer allows her inspiring speeches to be heard over the din of the battle. The Hospitilar, like the Dialogus, is a member of a non-militant order on loan to assist. She is an experienced member of the Orders Hospitilar, medics and chirurgeons without peer, and her surgical skills are in obvious need on the battlefield. Statistics These three Sisters share the roughly same statline, that of the experienced Sister of Battle, so BS3+, Strength and Toughness 3, Leadership 8, a 3+ save, and a fantastic 4 wounds! The only differences in statistics are between the Imagifer and the others, and is in the form of a Weapon Skill of 3+ and 3 attacks for the former and WS4+ and a “mere” 2 attacks for the latter, as befits their non-militant status. All Sisters are Riflewomen certainly, but only Battle Sisters have that Veteran style experience. These stats give the Sisters a solid survivability, meaning they ought to live long enough to deliver their buffs, but they won’t provide much beyond that. Special Rules All three have Acts of Faith and Shield of Faith. Shield of Faith means they will always get at least a 6+ invulnerable save, so they’re less likely to die to an errant meltagun shot than a random space marine, but it’s not going to come up too often. Also remember the Deny the Witch on 1d6. There’s a few psychic powers that cast on a 4 or a 5, and it might happen. Overall, SoF is nice, but not overwhelming. Acts of Faith is fantastic, especially for the Imagifer, due to her other special rules. But due to equipment, the only Acts that are likely to be used are Hand of the Emperor, for an extra move to get into range for buffs before the movement phase, and Spirit of the Martyr, for d3 wounds worth of healing, to keep your buff givers sticking around. Besides those two, each of these three have their own unique special rules. The Imagifer has the honestly fantastic Simulacrum Imperialis rule, which grants an additional Act of Faith to an Order unit within 6” on the role of a 4+. This AoF works exactly like the army wide one, except restricted to the 6” bubble, activating on the aforementioned 4+, and only working on units with the same <Order> keyword as the Imagifer. A little restrictive, but fantastic. The Dialogus has the Loud Hailer rule, which is the most simple of the three, granting a straight reroll for failed morale to Adepta Sororitas units within 6”. Nothing huge, and with leadership 7/8 on most of your units, it won’t be super important. But if you’re running larger units of Battle Sisters, this could potentially save your whole squad. It also helps that the Dialogus is half the Power of the other two. The Hospitilar’s special rule is Healer, allowing you to heal d3 wounds or return a slain model to a Unit within 3” on a roll of a 4+. This only works on Adepta Sororitas Infantry units, and you can only apply it to a unit once per turn, so no stacking 4 Hospitilars by a unit you want to keep alive. Also, this only applies in the Movement Phase, so you can’t use Hand of the Emperor to do it twice a turn. Broadly useful. Essentially just Spirit of the Martyr in a single unit, activating on the same roll as the Imagifer, but it isn’t restricted to <Order> keywords, and can be applied to a unit that’s already done an act of faith. It’s worth noting here that the Dialogus and Hospitilar lack the <Order> keyword, so they can’t enjoy the effects of any abilities that key off of that, but it doesn’t prevent them riding in Adepta Sororitas vehicles. Additionally, they all have the Character keyword, which helps their survivability. Equipment Equipment for these ladies comes in two rather restrictive stripes. Firstly is that of the Hospitilar and the Dialogus. These ladies each have one weapon, which is an improvised use of their Order’s equipment. The Hospitilar fights with her chirurgeon’s tools, which grant her attacks AP-1, presumably because they’re very sharp. The Dialogus uses her Dialogus Staff, which is the staff with the Loud Hailer, which allows her to fight at +1 strength, but she must subtract 1 from her to hit rolls, meaning her Strength 4 attacks will be hitting on 5s. Appropriate for a non Militant Order member, but painful. These ladies, you will note, lack ranged weapons entirely. No grenades, no bolt pistols. So their BS3+ is going entirely to waste. Oh well. The Imagifer is in a different place entirely. She can’t change any of her weapons, but she comes carrying the standard Battle Sister loadout of a Bolter, Bolt Pistol, and both Frag and Krak grenades. So she can actually shoot things! Remember the Bolt Pistol can be fired in combat, and as she is her own unit, she can always throw a grenade if you’re within 6”. Equipment for these ladies is a bit of a disappointment, but you’re not taking them for their shiny equipment options, so it’s a disappointment we can easily gloss over. Tactics Stash the lass beside a unit you want to benefit from her buff, and go hard. It’s fairly simple, really. More specifically, the Dialogus gives Leadership protection to large squads, letting them survive morale tests as well as your average Space Marine, which is nice. Not much beyond that, though. The Hospitilar is a cheaper (If you’re playing points, but not under power), option to the Imagifer for keeping a squad alive, and works on squads that have already used an AoF, so it can be worth pairing them up together to keep a squad alive and firing. Because you revive one model with its original wargear, this can be good for Retributor or Dominion squads to keep them firing at full capacity. Imagifers, due to how Acts of Faith work, excel with larger squads, but are also still super useful for smaller squads. Having them hang out with Retributors in your back line to keep them providing fire support, or have her ride with a squad of Battle Sisters to give extra AoF to your mid-field. Overall just remember three things. These ladies aren’t any good at fighting or shooting. They here for their buffs, and nothing else They’re infantry and need to stick around with infantry to be of most use. They can’t keep pace with Seraphim, for example They’re still T3 with a 3+ save. Keep them close to other units to their Character keyword can help keep them alive.

So I just had a horrid game. Probably my worst beating in 8th edition. But what I'm trying to figure out is if the Landraider or the Corvus is the 'go to' in the codex.... but I do believe it has to be one of those options because otherwise we have a very, very vanilla looking army. (just thinking of the constraint issues GW have given us with transport options for "Kill Teams".) I'm not going to do a full run down of the game and bore you to tears with it. Basically I had two very beefy Kill teams and they were both deployed in Corvus Blackstars. One had the Watchmaster, and a Termie + Vanguard vet + Black shield a few dudes with Frag Cannons. This loaded it up. The second Blackstar was deployed on the very opposite corner of the table. It had the second most kitted out Kill team. Similar to above, but a little less expensive and it was lead by Artemis and his super bomb. I had a third kill team which was fairly average, but flexible in a Razorback with twin- Assault Cannons. Then I had 5 bikes with a few good hth weapons for flexibility. The plan was to use the biker's TP homer to pull back the KT's with Termies if I needed it for objectives (This was a Maelsrtom game). So I had turn 1 and just to give some perspective how it went I deployed my first Corvus in the corner like so: That's a homing device, the Razorback is full, but it was hard getting full cover so it is definitely not 'center' of table.... The bikes are hidden in the middle... and the other Corvus is at the very far left, but you get the idea. I had such a small army that I of course am going first.... BUT Chaos steals the initiative, and this was a sign of things to come. The Chaos player had a well rounded army. Nothing over the top, probably most of his list was just adjusted with some recommendations I actually made including Abaddon and a 5 man Black Legion-esque Combi weapon Termie squad, and a lot of marines/cultists/Decimator dread/Defiler/Predator, Oblits. Well after stealing the initiative I tell him which Corvus has the Watchmaster/Librarian in it, and he unloads the Predator annihilator at it, needing 4's to hit because of Supersonic... he takes all the wounds off of it... the Corvus goes down, I lose 2 Kill team dudes. I basically end up with this. The Kill team is engaged by the defiler, 10 marines, shot up by a ton of stuff, the bikers hold their own and the other Corvus does surprisingly little in the air. This forces me to get the contents of it out, and assault the Decimator dread which heavy flames a good portion of the squad out of close combat and Artemis does 1 Mortal wound to the Decimator with his bomb, I re-roll it with a CP and it turns into a 2. Deep in my zone my large kill team did make an assault on a Rhino, but ... and this is a really, really goofy mechanism of 8th, the Watchmaster and Librarian FAIL their independent charge rolls. This leaves them alone, as the rest of the kill team has advanced beyond them. Of course Abe comes in with 5 Termies on my back row and the Combi weapons annihilate the Watchmaster (Slay the Warlord) and the Librarian is the recipient of everything else. The only thing I can hope to do to retaliate is the Razorback mini-Kill team pours out, the Bikers join in and shoot everything at the Termies. with only one Frag cannon, and higher AP SIA rounds, I manage to kill a whooping 2 termies (4 unsaved wounds). I won't have a chance in close combat so in T2 I call the game. perhaps the worst game I've had in 8th. I've already played a lot of armies, against a lot of very different opponents and this was one game that was very difficult to figure out what the appropriate changes would be. This is why I started thinking of the Corvus. It was so dehabilitating to lose one Corvus in the top of T1. Sure it was a bit of luck, but it's quite plausible to happen against a few opponents. But the result was so bad I knew I could not come back using a super slow army, with super small numbers. The opponent could circle me at will and throw rocks at my head until it was safe to come in for the kill. That weird mechanic of the HQs not making the charge has happened to me in other games and I find it one of the more awkward things in 8th where this results in squads 'abandoning' their HQ's, but it's super dangerous, and it can be incredibly self destructive because the HQ's become very exposed, and in some cases you're losing the 'aura/buff' which you heavily rely on. This made me think about the Landraider. I have a love/hate with it. I've used it in several games and it's finally become something that kind of plays like it is written. It can take a good beating, and it does perhaps have the best delivery system out of the codex in terms of reliability. BUT it is so incredibly expensive it takes a small army, and makes it smaller. One complaint about the Corvus I have is the Cluster Launcher bombs are kind of crappy... compared to the 2 Ork Bomber ones, and the Tau one (I've seen these so I don't know about other flyers.) But at 250-260 points each, the Corvus bombs give up to 10 D6 attempts at hitting units with Mortal wounds on a roll of a "6". Orks (!) and Tau seem to have better bombs, resulting in mortal wounds on a 4+. The Flyer is expensive, but still much cheaper than a landraider. So I'm starting to think of just using one flyer, even though the load out and speed is pretty impressive on paper.

So this model has always been one of my favorite flyers. It just looks handsome... and deadly to me. I was so disappointed with it in 7th. I ran it every way conceivable but could never get it to work. In 8th edition we're looking at a whole new animal...perhaps the sleek, black, beast of the sky that we always wanted. We have good choices for armament: 1. The Twin Assault seems a winner with 12 shots, and now a 360 fire arch. Alternatively the twin Lascannon is no slouch and this might be a great alternative to taking a Dreadnought for such firepower (and save those Assault Cannons for Razorbacks). 2. The Hurricane bolters are a good buy now and have a better use measuring from the model rather than the mount. 3. Stormstrike missiles might be the best way for us to leverage ranged shooting at high T value targets, but the Black Star Rocket Launcher is decent anti-air (if only it were S7), but has decent chaff clearing alternate fire (especially on units cowering in cover). Finally we have survivability or offensive accessories: 1. Infernum Halo-Launcher: The good news is it becomes a bit harder for a flyer to -shoot- down the Corvus. The bad news is this only applies while remaining in Supersonic mode. Also since this is a shooting only modifier, something like a Heldrake may still chew away at one of the wings unimpeded. 2. Auspex Array: The offensive choice. Re-roll all 1's when targeting anything that can't fly. Bombing"Ability": This is actually worded strangely, and is not 'equipment' but rather an "ability". Blackstar Cluster Launchers may help against high model count, spammy squads. Cluster Launchers essentially replace the "bomb" function from 7th edition. By flying over a unit in the movement phase and 'bombing' up to 10 stinky Xenos in the unit. On a D6 roll of 6, the unit suffers a Mortal Wound. Transport Ability: Right now the Corvus is truly our only avenue to get a very 'mixed' Kill team across the board. Holding up to 12 models, this includes Jump Pack, Termies (2 models each), and Deathwatch Biker models (3 models) respectively. So how will you arm your Corvus?

I played up my second game of 8th last night, taking a pure Harlequins list because their rules are sooooo much better than before and I was just so excited. Here's what I took: Battalion Troupe Master - fusion pistol, H Kiss Shadowseer Shadowseer Death Jester Death Jester Solitaire 12 Players - 12 H embrace 12 Players - 5 H caress, 7 H kiss 5 Players - 5 neurodisruptors > Starweaver 6 Skyweavers - 6 haywire cannons, 6 zephyr glaives Voidweaver Voidweaver vs Battalion Shrike Cataphractii Captain - lightning claws 10 Vanguard - pistol, claw 5 Assault Terminators - 3 claws, 2 thunder hammers 5 Scouts - bolters, combi-melta 5 Scouts - bolters, combi-melta 5 Scouts - bolters, combi-melta 5 Tacticals - combi-melta 5 Tacticals - combi-melta Rhino 3 Inceptors Land Raider Storm Talon - assault cannons, skyhammer missiles We played Tactical Escalation with Search and Destroy deployment. I deployed mostly offensively clustered around the middle, while he started further back, though he infiltrated two units of Scouts near a Voidweaver to try and get first blood. The Vanguard, Inceptors, and characters all started in reserves. Since he finished first he went first. Turn 1 his card was Supremacy, requiring three objective markers. To that end he pushed his rhino up (that held both tactical squads) to hold one of the three, and it definitely got in threat range. The scouts moved up on the Voidweaver, and the other stuff shuffled. His shooting killed a Skyweaver and took 4 wounds off the Voidweaver; a combination of bad saves on bolters and good saves on meltas kept the darn thing alive, kinda. He then charged it and took another wound off. 1 point to him. My turn 1 saw one Troupe hurtle across the table toward his rhino, a massive 23" (12" first advance, 11" second advance via Shadowseer), while I pulled back everything to basically attempt to mop up my table half. Egads I wish I could cast more than once per turn in Matched Play. Shooting knocked off a couple Scouts, but more importantly destroyed the Rhino for First Blood. I then charged the contents with the unit of 12 H embraces, half on each squad. Wiped them out quite handily. The scouts managed to hang on (my rolls were terrible throughout the game), which was a bother, but not really that bad. 1 point to me. Turn 2 his reinforcements showed up, all on the right half of the table. His entire army fired at the other Troupe of 12 players (with the more expensive weapons, naturally), and wiped them out. I like that it took the better part of 1000 points to do so; in days past, a single unit could gun them down. It still sucked terribly that I just lost half my foot sloggers, but oh well... On my turn, the Solitaire left the Scouts to start heading back into the thick of it. The H embrace troupe launched themselves another 22" toward the right. I misplaced my characters so the Troupe unfortunately wouldn't benefit; that's one of the perils of the psychic powers I'll talk about later. Still, while the scouts were wiped out on my left, the Troupe charged the terminator squad and wiped them out too. Turn 3 was kind of a rinse and repeat. His whole army attacked the Troupe and killed it, and also a Shadowseer that I poorly placed. To follow along on the rest of the game, the Solitaire Blitzed for 23" and wiped out a unit of 5 Vanguard, then died to bolters because eff my saves. There was some give and take, but by the end of the 5th turn (when the game thankfully ended) I was down to a Skyweaver, Death Jester, and Troupe Master, while he had an almost dead Storm Talon, Inceptors, characters, 4 Vanguard, 5 Scouts, and the Land Raider. Still, it was close, and only because of a wacky new TacO card (defend objective), he won by 2 points, 11-13. My take-aways from this game: - Bikes and speeders enjoy a native -1 to-Hit. This is awesome! Even better when you combine it with psychic silliness to make it even harder to hit them. - Shadowseers are key units, simply for the movement power if nothing else, but there is else indeed! Where before Heavy Bolters wounded most models on a 2+, now it's a 4+ with her around. Fewer hits and wounds means fewer saves, and there... - 4+ is exactly what they needed to be "dodgy but squishy". I love the new invulnerable save! Interestingly, cover is entirely pointless for every unit but Skyweavers and Starweavers. I didn't realize at first that these units enjoy a 4+ save too, meaning they could get a 3+ while in cover. - Skyweavers are very durable. 4 wounds each, -1 to hit, 4+ inv save. Plus, they have an assured 22" move and can then assault and cause a lot of damage. I think the haywire cannons are especially a must-take now, as they'll nail the vehicles hard, and infantry still suffer a little more than when using shuriken cannons. - Troupes with large numbers of models are aces. This maximizes any benefits, especially from psychic powers. First turn charges should be expected, and you'll crush what you fight. - While I didn't get to try the other weapons, I was very impressed with the humble embrace. It's basically 4 attacks with a MEq power sword, per model. That's nuts! The Kiss is very expensive at 14 points, and I don't think the D3 damage makes up for the weak S and AP. Despite it being the iconic weapon of the Harlequins, I don't think I'll take it on much anymore, which is quite depressing. Maybe at like 9-10 points I'd consider it. I'm more interested in the Caress and Embrace right now. - The Neurodisruptor is pretty nifty, though the huge hit on the to-wound roll really bites. Going from 2+ to 5+ on most targets is really quite sad...might upgrade to fusion pistols for added anti-tank, and vastly better effectiveness in killing infantry, and it's a point cheaper what the deuce! Having a range of 6" isn't an issue when you can move 16" in a turn.

So......What gives?! I refuse to believe that a launch that has been so well planned, so well play-tested and has had as incredible a set of models designed, has launched with as shoddy rules and limited playability as the Primaris marine line. The lieutenant is, in my opinion, the only primaris unit worth a damn. I just do not understand what the thinking is. Is there a long game? Is there a 5 year plan to phase out all the old marines? Reivers are so clearly scouts. Intercessors, so clearly tactical marines. Inceptors, new concept jump marines, maybe? I dont know. They offer no tactical flexibility - theyre a bunch of guys on foot. Ironically, i think the Intercessors are very well priced for their weapon and statline. But, their options and gear just makes them naff as all hell. Flip side of that coin are the Inceptors - priced into absolute oblivion. Cool guns and rules- but squads of 3 and pricing off the chain? What is GW going to do with these? Because at present, all i want to do is hack them up, stick special weapons on them, and replace all my regular marines with Primaris. For the sake of the thread, I'm not particularly interested in discussing how to make a sub-par unit workable. That doesn't interest me. What interests me is some insight into where GW is taking these guys 5 years down the line. Because its a BIG, bold step. This is not the end game -this is the start of them rebooting the model line.

So a few times I've been asked for close ups and references to my battle reports so I think it's time to just start this up as a thread: Contents: + Finished Thousand Sons and Tzeentch Models are here: +LINK+ The following WIPs and Finished projects are in order of oldest to newest: + WIP shots of various units: Tanks/Forgefiend/Flamers/etc: +LINK+ + Finally...after some delays Magnus the Red is complete! +LINK+ + Alright time for Daemons! We have Pinks, Blues, Brimstones, a Tzaangor Herald AND Flamers all in one post: +LINK+ + Hopefully some better shots of Magnus the Red here: +LINK+ + Finally a WIP Forgefiend turns into the finished product! +LINK+ + Thousand Sons Helbrute for 8th edition! +LINK+ +++ New Shadow Wars Content +++ I'll slip in the Shadow Wars Armageddon content here as most of it will be paint related, but I will link the Shadow Wars batreps in the section below. Whereas this section will mostly host projects related to Shadow Wars: + First up I challenge myself to finish some terrain from the starter box set in 2 Days! Can I do it? +LINK+ + Phase 2: I showed you the Crates/barrels, but I also bought a Galvanic Magnavent and gave myself the same 1 week challenge: +LINK+ + Two Batreps for the price of One! ITC mission 5 (Highlander) 1500 Points: vs Orks and vs Admech: +LINK+ + Another ITC (Highlander) 1500 Points vs Space Wolves: +LINK+ + Two Batreps again for the low price of one: 1850 Points Maelstrom vs Orks and Tyranids: +LINK+ + Another ITC (Highlander) test of my futility at 1500 vs AdMech + Skittles: +LINK+ + The Fall of Cadia Campaign SUPER DUPER Batrep collection (3 games, then a 4th mega battle game featuring 3 Chaos armies vs. 3 Armies of the Imperium using the "Emperor Protects" scenario. All games were played out at my local GW store: (lots of pics) - Fall of Cadia GAME ONE: +LINK+ - Fall of Cadia GAME TWO: +LINK+ - Fall of Cadia GAME THREE: +LINK+ - Fall of Cadia Final Mega Battle: The Emperor Protects: +LINK+ + An important tactics article for me as I'm trying to understand Tzeentch Daemons and Summoning. I never foresaw me going down this path until I saw how tough life is with 18 models on the table.... Are you trying to figure it out as well? Do you have something to add? Please check out the conversation here: Using Daemons with Thousand Sons +LINK+ + + More to come shortly!

So I haven't had a chance to play against a pure Custodes army... in truth I only see one local player trying them that way, and the rest seem to be content making them allies with other armies. That's no surprise, but it's worth mentioning that it appears out of the gate Custodes are probably not seeing single faction competitive/semi-competitive play. I started thinking about making GK lists that would tackle Custodes best. For the sake of argument let's say we are talking mono-Gk vs. mono-Custodes. On the surface GK provide the 'magic bullet' against the mono-Custodes army... that being mortal wounds, and psychic powers. But I think it goes beyond that: - So we have psychic might. Unless the Custodes are exceptionally lucky using the odd trick in the codex, pretty much anything is going through. This helps with mobility against an army that has very little board coverage so something like Gate becomes more valuable here. - Mobility. GK have a lot of inherent deep strike. Usually we're struggling to keep something on the ground to make lists legit. On the ground we have a few choices with inherent speed where the Custodes seem to be heavily relying on bikes. Their bikes are amazing, and super cost effective, but that's the core of mobility plus their own flavour of termies. - Durability. I think to be fair the Custodes have it here... hands down. The numbers aren't going to be numerous for either force, and less so for the Custodes but at T5, plus the legion trait of basically a 4++ is nice. However in a lot of cases I will argue it can be negated, or not a factor. But it definitely helps, and I'd have to say there's probably not a lot of debate on this point. - Shooting. I think overall, and looking at unit options, the GK actually have more flexibility here. I think the stock shooting on the Strike is adequate, and you have some flexibility in the dreads, and definitely the Flyers. (I think a lot of GK players get a little caught up in elite units and Stormtalons / Stormravens are still decent choices). This essentially means GK -should- have the advantage in 'softening' up the opponent from range. Especially combined with deep strike positioning. So that leaves the Custodes specialization: - Close Combat. 8th is really weird for CC in my opinion. The more I engage in it, the more finicky it becomes... characters can be left in the cold, and interrupting can make a multi combat absolute hell for the player initiating it. With point 1 we could argue Thousand Sons could really excel there as well, but there is the problem of Close combat. I would suggest that GK force weapons are murderous on multi-wound, specialized units. I find the force weapons really come into their own here, whereas facing cultists, orks, etc, then they can feel frustrating. Of course Custodes hit like a gold brick, but in 8th it's really about the charge and I'd argue a lot of GK units can and do severely threaten the livelihood of any Custodes that get charged. Character wise Gk are no slouch here either. I mean I personally love Voldus for fluff reasons as well as game play, but Draigo is a beast, and we know how strong the Brother-Captain Dreadnights are. Let's be fair, almost 100% of soup lists that cherry pick GK take THIS unit. Do you think that wold change with Custodes? Perhaps a character on a bike, surrounded with Custodes bikes (detachment) will be the norm but for the sake of this argument, I don't know enough about all the choices Custodes have, but I still think GK have some of the most fierce, infantry based, characters in the game. I started to realize out of all the armies I play perhaps GK would present the biggest threat to Custodes.... What do you guys think?

Hello! I'm curious to hear what people think about kill team setups and army lists. I've found that my results when playing have been extremely varied. I have only played a handful games atm, a couple of 2v2s and some 1-1.5k games. I'll share some of what I've been doing and perhaps people can fill in with what I might be doing right/wrong. Some of the different kill teams I've fooled around have been: boltgun + power sword shotgun + power sword frag cannon (chapter approved arrives) combi-plasma + stormshield combi-melta + stormshield combi-plasma + power axe boltgun + storm shield I found I've mostly leaned towards dropping the frag cannons because they are so expensive, and because I don't find them particularly useful with the limited range (esp. if charged from +8"). If I get charged by something like 30 Tzaangors combined with getting smite'd, I lose too many casualties to really make vanguard + fall back + shoot frag to really matter. I'm having a lot of trouble dealing enough damage with my kill teams before they just get wiped out. Mortal wounds is really a big problem, so I've ordered the DW Termie librarian so use as an HQ. Previously I've been using Watch Master + Artemis as HQs most of the time. My next plan is to try to use two 10-size kill teams where every model has a storm bolter + chainsword. Jumping out of a Corvus with 10 dudes and shooting 40 attacks, followed by a charge for up to 32 attacks seems like a good idea to me. Alternatively I might do 6 boltgun+storm shield and 6 storm bolter+chainsword, for 2 squads in 2 corvuses. The Corvus seems like a must-have, I tried to leave it out and used a land-raider crusader instead, but I found the land raider to be almost useless because it cannot fall back and shoot. I'm getting a second corvus now. Thoughts?

Hi All, In a similar vein to my last post about Breachers, Tell me why you run Vets, and how you load them out. Looking at the points, a 10 man squad is only 25 points more than a similarly equipped tactical squad at base loadout, but the options you have are wide and varied. So what do people do? I've always been of the opinion you should run a couple of tactical squads, as they're core troops. But looking at it closer, and with the Pride RoW, am I missing a trick? Thanks

Hi all First happy new year to everyone. Secondly I want to share my recently finished version of the new Mephiston model: http://www.runekappel.com//Filer/figurer/BA/Mephiston.jpg Thirdly a couple of experiences I have made so far, in a very competitive environment, concerning the new Blood Angels. Lists and general strategy: If you wish to create the most horribly, nasty lists with BA, my experience so far (not a big surprise), is that you have to go all in on trying to open you opponents screen, and then hitting him hard with big squads of Death Company that kills something important, and then wrap and traps something. Rinse and repeat if necessary. This means that you need a lot of CP, a lot of Death Company, and hefty character support. My current list evolves around two battalions and a vanguard detachment, 2x15 DC, Lemartes/Astorath/Mephiston/Smash Captain. 2 of my troop choices are 6 man Intercessor squads with thunder hammers that each sits in a impulsor with shield domes. Deployment and plan: I typical deepstrike the DC, Lemartes, and some of the characters. If I can hide a DC in terrain and my opponent has no indirect fire, I will put 1 squad on the table, to open up for forlorn fury. On turn one I try to open a flank with my impulsors, characters, and intercessors that is on the table. I also try to position my impulsors so that they can eat overwatch, if necessary. I also try to put characters in a position, where they can clean up the stuff that the DC charges next turn. This will free them to have potentially even more direct pile in and consolidate moves, towards the thing, that I need to wrap. On turn two, I do everything I can to get canticle of hate off, and move Astorath to a place, where he can buff the deep striking DC and Lemartes. Then I try to destroy key units, and wrap something to protect my DC. Blood Angels can move insane distances in the fight/charge phase now. I also take care to protect my characters at this stage against snipers and hard hitting melee characters. They are often at this point very close to the enemy lines, but with the DC wrapping something ahead of them, protected from shooting. And in the next turn, they can really wreak havoc. Next turn the second DC comes in, and with the characters, usually takes out so much of my opponents army, that the game is tilting very favorable in my favour from this turn on. I have only played a handfull of games so far, but against very hard lists (Marines, Tau, Eldar), piloted by very skilled players. No losses so far. The combination of the DC + litanies + impulsors now, is making the Blood Angels really frightening I think. It is a very binary way to play unfortunately. But I think it is probably the way to go, if you wanna win games. Cheers - Rune

Based on the leaked and previewed rules doing the rounds, it looks like an Aquilan Shield captain can make a pretty impressive tank for an imperium character. Not necessarily saying you'd do this every time as it's very resource intensive, but at its peak you could stack the Revered companion WL trait, the Praesidius shield relic, +2 wounds Captain commander trait and stick it in range of a vexilla magnifica for a captain with: -1 to hit, -1 to wound, 2+/3++ halving all damage. **Note** transhuman physiology won't also stack as that only works on unmodified wounds of 4+. But against anything that would normally wound on 2s, you can get some mileage out of it. When using the Aquilian Shield unique stratagem, you can have this golden boy tank for a friendly imperium character within 3" against one enemy unit for that phase. Against enemies hoping to do a lot of chip damage from many different units the tactic might not work, but against something big (Castellan, shadowsword etc, or double shooting slaanesh havocs etc), this guy can put a serious dent in the enemy's firepower. The question is..... who do you take to protect (because this is the kind of combo I think you need to build a list around). The main one that's been suggested online so far is an Imperial Knight/Castellan character. But is there a hidden gem who might benefit - a glass cannon just crying out for protection? To my mind, it's got to be a character with 10+ wounds (as the only thing hitting smaller characters are snipers and a few other corner cases, and the main threat there is mortal wounds which this guy won't do much against). A Tank Commander and the Triumph of St Katherine are the two Imperium 10+ wound characters that leap out to me, but are there others? The more I look at it the more it seems to be too big an investment for too little gain (outside protecting a castellan, which I'm sure will get nerfed). But maybe I'm missing something...