Justicar Thawn?

[spartan249]

Alright, so we got a 115 point guy who's going to die, then get back up repeatedly until the end of time. This guy's also scoring. This gets me to thinking about how to use this guy. I'm seeing this guy become almost as distracting as my Dreadknight. Given good luck, I think he can be trusted to either hold a home objective for an eternity, even if the unit is killed, or drop down into enemy territory/objectives and be so frickin annoying that the opponent might actually direct firepower at him every turn or even keep a unit watching his "corpse".

 

Thoughts on the matter?

[Stormshadow]

Every time I read about Thawn I immediately want to ad him to a list. But every time I just end up looking at the point cost in dismay:

 

5x Terminators: Thawn, Psycannon 300p

 

5x Paladins: 2x MC-Psycannon 325p

 

Every time I start to take Thawn I just end up taking Paladins instead :(.

 

But you are right, he is the perfect objectives holder and really god in challenges. Even if he misses all his attacks and the Power Fist gets him, he is still not out of the fight ;)

[Chairman_woo]

Every time I read about Thawn I immediately want to ad him to a list. But every time I just end up looking at the point cost in dismay:

 

^ Absolutely this, love the guy's fluff and rules to bits but good god does he end up costing you! You almost feel sometimes like it was a typo and he might just cost 75pts somehow but alas no :( ..... (75 would be pretty reasonable too imho).

 

 

That said if were assuming you definately want to take him and tbh I am serously considering it myself in the age of "cinematic 40k" . I have a thing for the whole sensei-illuminati-starchild fluff and assuming were treating that as still valid (not really contradicted so much as ignored these days) Justicar Thawn is totally a sensei! Or rather the nature of his "captain scarlet" style immortality and prescience potentially from birth (pre-born ala dune if you will) or at the very least from early childhood screams fragment of the emperors soul to me (sensei). But regardless Captain scarlet is still a pretty cool dude based only of codex GK fluff, so were taking him in our army!

 

As far as his tactical applications, we need to remember that were paying the equivalent of a 5man scout squad ontop of the normal justicar so were going to have to maximise the use were going to get from the things he's better at than "Justicar Bloggs". While what you describe in the OP is perhaps his sweetest ability its not really going to justify the cost alone so suicide attacks are probably never going to end up being worth it (theres 4 other GKT's you paid for too remember!). So what else does he do?

 

Well hes Ws 5 with a halberd this combined with a much lesser fear of being killed makes him pretty handsome in a duel/challenge. He can strike first (I6) against most challenger(e)s likely hit on a 3+ (or failing that block ws5 enemies from doing so in return), great for mincing sgt's with fists or PW, and also not terrible for holding up a big nasty IC from hitting the squad (Thawn can only die once a turn no matter how many times he's hit in the face with a hammer, and theres no overkill wounds in challenges!), hopefully he'll get in a wound or 2 while he's at it and force weapon them to death because......

 

He has mastery level 2 meaning you can always try to have both HH and force weapons activated at once, plays nicely into his role as semi-suicidal challenge eater and the boon to his squad speaks for itself I feel, especially with only runes (wolfs/eldar) to worry about now. And on top of that...

 

He makes the unit he's with fearless now, and fearless is a pretty great thing to have under 6th with no more "no retreat" wounds :)

 

 

With all that in mind I'm thinking 10man terminator blob, 2psycannon, thawn and aggressive depoyment. This unit is badass, can handle itself against virtually anything that doesn't have a large ammount of ap2 striking at initiative or can shoot you a bunch with plasma & ap2 pie plates. Nob bikers in particular are not a big problem, your striking first ignoring armour and inflicting ID pretty reliably. Make Thawns unit part of your spearhead, there are few units in the game that can muscle their way onto, and then subsequently try to keep an objective quite as well as a fully tooled and angry Thawn squad (tho for the cost they bloody well should!).

 

I guess we might think of a Thawn GKT squad as the ultimate (premium) scoring unit, something you can use to try and force the enemy into reacting to you before they can do the same but the rest of your army must be set up to capitalise on this if its every going to be worth it I think as such a strategy will fall appart if the enemy can take the initiative back and start making you react to them (i.e. we risk overextending if were not carefull and loosing the upperhand we traded some flexibility to seize early, leaving us at a disadvantage).

 

With that in mind I think a 5man pally unit perhaps with a psycannon inquisitor would be a worthwhile investment to advance with them and make sure we will have enough substance to the spearhead move for it to have a reasonable chance of suceeding. This should make it harder for the enemy to choose which unit to target, the pallies are more dangerous with 3 psycannons (and divination buff from inquis) but can soak quite a few wounds before loosing effectiveness (wound allocation), wheras the termies are less of an immediate threat (but still a big one) but are scoring and will take a metric craptonne of anything but ap2 fire to shift, even worse if they let you plant them in some decent cover or get controll of a sweet mysterious objective.

 

Most armies are going to struggle to do any significant damage to more than one of those units a turn, if they split fire they risk not oing enough damage to either, if they gimp the pallies your monster scoring unit might well last long enough to claim, if they gimp the termies the pallies can still punish them hard, and the longer this goes on the more likely you are to have found ways to neutralise any serious threats to them, the closer both these units get to being able to hunker in good cover or lock themselves in cc where they cant be shot etc. etc.

 

If we assume were playing 2000pts (or 1999+1) those two units just ate half ouir points so the rest of the army has to be basically working to further their chances which means gimping enemy units with lots of plasma, demolishers, and in some cases MC's (one's that might maul half your unit before you force weapon them like deamonprinces?). To that end I think a dreadknight or two and or some interceptors might do wonders, it will leave us low on model count compared to some other options but they can reliably jump around and put some hurt on units that can seriously threaten the termies & pallies. I'm certain however there are other ways to do this, perhaps 20-30 strike squad dudes & some deep striking? stormravens? Regardless if you can shut down or tie up the handfull of units that can mince Thawn's spearhead units you'll have a very good shot at keeping them on the backfoot for the rest of the game. This is a massive over generalisation but when the enemy is mostly doing things to react to what you have done/doing leaving them largely unable to do it to you you are probably on the road to winning (provided you can keep it that way mind!).

 

Alternatively (and this might actually be a better idea now I come to explain it) you could put most or all of your remaining points into defending your home objective(s), (purifiers & dreads looking good there), and have faith in Justicar Thawn & pals to cause so much disruption and pain in the midfield/enemy frontline that theres often going to be no way the enemy can mount a concerted enough counter attack to overwhelm your positions (they have too many units commited to beating down the spearhead for too many turns). Justicar Thawn goes along way to making this potentially viable as even if you get unlucky and the spearhead gets trashed, "Paul Metcalf" (geek points up for grabs there) has atleast a 50/50 chance of him being stood up and ready to score/contest on the last turns (much much better if you went 2nd as the enemy wont get a chance to drop him but still better than nothing even if you went 1st as you might be able to go to ground in cover, or get locked in cc with something that is less likely to kill him again).

 

^ Did most of that make sense? Or am I just running with a utterly flawed premise? Either way I feel a armylist comming on...... :P

[Zeratul29]

Chairman_woo,

 

I look forward to seeing this list! It sounds promising!

[Chairman_woo]

It's 4am and this is a list designed around Justicar Thawn who as was suggested at the beggining of the thread is probably too expensive for serious competitive play. Pleasse treat it as such :) :

 

OM Inquisitor

Terminator armour, Hammer & Psycannon. Psyker, 3 servo skulls

#119

 

Paladin squad x5

2xpsycannon 2xHalberd, 1x Stave, 1x Sword 1x Hammer

#335

 

Purifier Squad x7

Justicar Halberd, 3x Halberd 1x Hammer 2x Psycannon, Psybolts

#221

Terminator squad x10

Justicar Thawn, 3x Hammer, 2x Sword, 4x Halberd, Psybolts

#545

 

Strike Squad x10

Justicar Halberd, 2x Psycannon, Psybolts

#245

 

Interceptor squad x10

Justicar Halberd, 2x Incinerator, Psybolts

#325

 

Dreadknight

H. Incinerator & Heavy Psycannon + Hammer

#210

 

 

Total

#2000

 

 

The inquisitor brings another psycannon & more importantly Divination. The primaris power rerolling misses makes a 3 psycannon scary as all hell (to me anyway), and if you get something sweet like the one that makes enemys reroll saves all the better!

 

Thawn's squad and the pallies either deploy on the table and move up, or hang back to deepstrike as circumstances and your intuition dictate. If you think they can take turn 1's shooting on the chin I'd start them on the board and run up to get more shooting in, nightfighting and volume/quality of cover (isp. los blocking) going to be big factors here. Conversely if the enemy has horrible ammounts of long/med range shooting you may be more inclined to Deepstrike to try and get the jump on certain units with shooting.

 

Regardless they are intended to operate as I explained before, disrupting/domminating the enemy frontline, and threatening a well chosen objective. Think this through tho its no good domminating one objective if that means the enemy can comfortabley get at a couple of others in the missions where you can have up 5 on the go, or for that matter the scouring where you may not know which objectives are worth what till turn 2 or 3.

 

The Dreadknight has 2 guns and no teleporter because now DS is much much safer (dangerous terrain is not sucha big deal now with 2+sv, and misshaps are more forgiving to boot) and landing within 18" of a target is not too hard whereupon you unleash enough firepower to easily drop 10+ armour saves on MEQ (+ the odd rend), and uttery decimate just about every 4+or worse sv. unit you might want to victimise. He can't assaut the turn he makes his move anyway so while the jump pack is nice it's just too many pts when he can get by without (to me). Hammer is actually good now you keep the +1A and those 10pts to add concussive to his attacks could make all the difference dueling something badass (especially another MC).

 

The Interceptors can get simmilarily terrific results with their shunt move which naturally you want to try and time with the rest of your forces making their move on turn 2 (tho there may be occasions where it's prudent to wait another turn). I'm thinking of combat squadding them to have one twin incinerator assasin/suicide unit to work with the D.Knight, with the other squad either supporting them with shooting from a safer distance (shunt into nearby cover or whatever), or hanging back to bolster the baseline and shunt later for objective shenanegans. Justicar boosting CC slighty in which ever team makes most sense (likely the less suicidal team without the incinerators). Theres always the option of keeping them together if you think you might survive the counter fire next turn, 2x incinerators & enough psybolters on overwatch might make many units think twice about charging too, especially sv4+ or less like gaunts (they can't tarpit you if they are all dead and on fire the little insectoid gits!).

 

The purifiers are virtually unchargeable to anything but very serious CC units unless the enemy can torrent fire the crap out of them first, hopefully most of the enemy units that can do either of those things well are busy dealing with the terminators, failing that atleast they aren't bothering the terminators I suppose but this kind of ballancing act is impossible to predict with pure theory and basically commes down to player skill & experience. Their job is to sit on or near one (or more) of your home objectives, or deploy such as to impeede the progress of enemy units that might attempt to approach it. The psycannons & psybolters give them pretty decent reach with their shooting against virtually anything in your half of the table and can put a hurt on most things given half a chance. Regardless unless you want to cough up for Crowe (not as awfull idea as it seems) they cant score so are essentially acting as babysitters to....

 

The Strike squad, which either combat squads itself on and near the objective we are trying to secure (one team working with the purifiers maybe?). Or it goes into deep strike so one team can help the attack (dropping the other near our objective and walking over to it). This is the armies "token tactical squad", excells at nothing but does the boring jobs for you and can add a little extra push, or those few extra bodies where you feel you need them. Almost every list should have a token tactical squad or two I feel, even if they aren't tactical marines (scouts, guardians, gaunts whatever).

 

 

This army wont work if you play it mindlessly (nor should it!), and I'm sure there are ways to tweak it into being more competitive (draigo + more paladins I guess but screw that warp dust huffing tweaked out jerkoff! :P).

 

Also this list is a bit rubbish vs lots of flyers but I have an exelent solution to excessive flyer spam, you find the biggest freshest uglyest fish you can, then you slap them repeatedly around their massively swolen heads with it untill they see sense!!! B)

[Reclusiarch Darius]

You can include him in your armies (there is nothing wrong with how he functions in the rules, he's Space Jeebus with a halberd and WS5), but the price you pay is immense (FYI, Paladin Apothecaries cost the same to upgrade to and very few people take them, despite their bonus being both effective and squad-wide).

 

I don't know who got it into their head that 115pts for a 1-wound character is worth it (although as we all know, the real cost is 275, as you have to buy his four squadmates with him as well). Probably the same people who wrote the rules for Mordrak and Brotherhood Champions.

 

It is frustrating, because like those other two examples, the rules are pretty good and would work...but they've completely overpriced them. Knights are an elite of an elite type of army, we already suffer from expensive, low model count armies. Burning that many points for an unkillable Justicar who hits slighter harder in combat...its just not justifiable.

[Gentlemanloser]

Well, he costs as much as buying an additional 2 GKT would.

 

So you need to get him killed, and return, 3 times during a game to really make him worth taking.

[the jeske]

well he wasnt that bad in the 5th , having hammer hand as a personal power and having the hammers hand as squad psychic power and with hammer hand stacking up he was giving an option to give+2str to the squad without using an HQ slot for it.

[Gentlemanloser]

You never could use him like that in 5th, and you still can't in 6th.

 

BoP limits thes quad to a single cast. Thawn is a member of the Squad.

[boreas]

But if an IC joins a unit, he's also part of the unit. That why I can target that unit and still hit the IC. Or move that entire unit (including the SC) in a transport. Hence IC giving their fearless to the unit. But whereas the Fearless USR specfies "A unit containing at least one model..." IIRC, nowhere in the BoP rule is there wording that would imply transferred USR. That's why IC (or characters wihtout the BoP rule) can use their own Psychic powers independantly, even if part of the unit.

 

Thus:

 

-A Termi *unit* with a GKGM can use 1 power (the termi unit's, with BoP) and the GKGM can still use his own (he's not bound by BoP)

 

-A termi *unit* w/ Thawn can use 1 power (the termi unit's, with BoP) and Thawn can still use his 2 powers (he's not bound by BoP).

 

The fact that a model is an IC or UC doesn't change anything, as I read it. A model either is, or is not, bound by BoP.

 

Phil

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Yeah...I mean looking at the wording, it's not clear at all how its supposed to work. Because even if you accept the two options of;

 

A: Thawn is part of the unit, therefore bound by the rules of the codex for BoP (remember, codex > rulebook), therefore only one power can be cast

 

or

 

B: Thawn is a character, Mastery 2 means he can use two powers, the squad can do what they like with their one power seperately

 

If you accept A, its pretty clear what happens, they can do 'Hammerhand' or use the Bro Banner to auto-activate force weapons

 

If you accept B, it means that Thawn is treated seperately. So potentially, he can double-cast 'Hammerhand' (its stated to work that way), and the squad can

still use the Bro Banner to activate force weapons (and as he is the member of the unit, his halberd is activated as well).

 

I'm not 100% sure which of them it is. They really need to FAQ it properly, neither the rulebook version of 'Brotherhood' or the codex version clearly state how characters are meant to be treated, outside of 'IC's activate seperately'.

[Gentlemanloser]

Thawn isn't an IC.

 

Edit: Page 39, the rules for IC's is the only place that talks about units/characters confering Special Rules.

 

This is *specifically* for ICs only.

 

Thawn isn't an IC, so is part of, and bound by, his Units Special rules. There is no way for him to lose them, and BoP (Codex version > BRB version) states a GK unit with BoP can only use a single Power per turn.

[boreas]

Where does it say that he's bound by his unit's special rule? Nowhere can I read that USR transfer to all models in a unit. In fact, P. 32 of the BRB says: "It may seem obvious, but unless stated otherwise, a model does not have a special rule. Most special rules are given to a model by the relevant entry in it's codex". (emphasis mine) Since it's not stated in Thawn's entry that he has BoP, he's not bound by that special rule any more that any other model.

 

But even if he were bound by BoP, the unit has a ML1 (even though none of the model have a ML) and can cast 1 psychic power as though it was a psyker. Thawn has ML2 and can cast 2 powers because he has is OWN ML2 (which each individual GKT, GKT justicar or unit character do not - read their entry the words "Psyker (master level 1)" never appear anywhere else). BoP says what a unit can do (namely cast a power). It never, in any way, remove, reduce or stop any model inside the unit from casting more power. See it that way: Thawn is a Psyker inside a Psyker that generates his own separate warp charges. If, say, paladins had "Psyker (master level 1) AND BoP in their entry, it could be argued that the paladin unit could cast a power (it's considered a P - ML1) and each model could also cast a power, individually. That's why they do not have P-ML 1 in their entry and Thawn does...

 

Phil

[Gentlemanloser]

BoP state the unit can only cast 1 Power per turn.

 

This includes Thawn as he's part of the unit, and *not* an IC. Thawn isn't seperate to the unit, and cannot ever be seperate to the unit (when he hasn't died and been reborn).

 

For Thawn to use a second (or even third power) would contradict BoP.

[boreas]

BoP state the unit can only cast 1 Power per turn.

 

This includes Thawn as he's part of the unit, and *not* an IC. Thawn isn't seperate to the unit, and cannot ever be seperate to the unit (when he hasn't died and been reborn).

 

For Thawn to use a second (or even third power) would contradict BoP.

 

That's wrong (the underlined part)... It say "one power" not "only one power"

 

Let me put it anyther way. What BoP does is conferring the ability to the unit to be used as a single psyker. So the Unit, which I'll defines as (T+GKT)=(ML1 psyker). That (ML1 psyker) generates a warp charge that it uses within the parameters of BoP (using the Justicar Ld if alive, etc etc).

 

Now, the rules clearly say (BRB p. 66): A Psyker automatically generates Warp charge points at the start of each turn. Is Thawn a psyker? Yes, he has that USR. What's his mastery level? Two, so he generates two warp charges. Can he expend those? Yes, nothing in BoP (which, I still maintain is not one of his USR anyways) prevents a psyker inside a unit with BoP to use his own powers. The BoP warp charge is in complete addition to Thawn's own warp charges.

 

Let's say Warp charges are actually votes and we're trying to decide if Crowe is a good SC. I decide that GL has two votes and this forum as a whole has a vote. No matter what this forum voted for, you'd still be able to cast your own two votes on top of the forum's vote depsite being part of the forum(and thus ensure that Crowe sucks depsite my opposite belief!).

 

Phil

[Gentlemanloser]

LoL at the Crowe vote. ;)

 

40k is permissive. BoP allows grey knight unit to cast a single pwoer per turn. Not 1+ depending on Warp Charges generated (let's ignore the fact the codex doesn't mention wapr charges at all, and Codex > BRB! :tu:)

 

Just that single power per turn. The codex does not allow the unit to cast any more powers, as it allows them to cast a single power per turn. It they unit was allowed to cast more, it would have said "the unit can cast 1 or more powers per turn". ;)

[boreas]

But the unit cannot cast more that one power: it casts one (as a unit-ML1 psyker) and Thawn casts two (as a ML2 Psyker) .... It's just completely separate things. The unit (with or without Thawn) generates one (and only one) power. Thawn (whether in the unit or not) generates two powers. As you say, WH40k is a permissive ruleset. It permits, quite clearly, a ML2 psyker (in this case Thawn) to generate 2 Warp charges (by standard psyker rules). That is very clearly as explained in my previous post. It also permits the unit to generate a warp charge (by BoP). I just fail to see any restriction since there's no restrictive wording (eg "a unit and it's characters can use one power" or "a unit can only us one power" or "a unit can never use more than one power, etc). In a way, the permissive ruleset (by giving Thawn the Psyker-(ML2)) would allow him to use two powers even if he actually had the BoP USR.

 

Phil

[Gentlemanloser]

Is Thawn part of the unit?

 

If Thawn casts Hammerhand, and a random GKT casts Hammerhand, how many powers has the unit used?

 

How many powers is the unit limited to using?

 

I'd answer those questions;

 

Yes

 

2

 

1

[boreas]

Is Thawn part of the unit?

 

If Thawn casts Hammerhand, and a random GKT casts Hammerhand, how many powers has the unit used?

 

How many powers is the unit limited to using?

 

I'd answer those questions;

 

Yes

 

2

 

1

 

I'd answer:

 

Yes

 

1 (as the unit, as a whole, used one and Thawn, as a Psyker used one.)

 

1

 

I'll ask you those question:

 

If Thawn cast Hammerhand, did the unit cast a power?

 

I'd answer "no".

 

The caracter is part of the unit, but the character is not THE unit. If your justicar has an NFH, the unit doesn't strike at Ini 6, because the unit doens't have a NFH.

 

Phil

[Gentlemanloser]

I'd answer;

 

Thawn *can't* cast Hammerhand

 

 

Edit: Wargear is totaly different from a unit wide army rule.

 

How about storm bolters. We're told a storm bolter can shoot twice (The number listed on it's profile). Do the rules allow a Storm bolter to fire 4 times? No? But it doesn't say they can't fire more than twice...

 

 

Edit: Also, in the example above, how does the unit cast hammerhand? Who casts it? If thawn isn't part of the unit, the unit neither has a Justicar that is alive, nor one that is dead. So no model in the unit is eligable to be the focal point for the cast.

[boreas]

Actually, nothing in the rules states that the Justicar HAS to be in the unit. The unit can cast from one side of the table even is Thawn is alive on the other side (they technically even use his Ld!!!). If Thawn's dead, then another model is the focus!

 

Thawn CAN cast Hammerhand because:

 

-He's a psyker (can't deny this, it's right there in his rules)

-He's ML 2, so generates 2 warp charges (Nothing in the rules, as of now, can deny a psyker from generating those. Maybe some future power/wargear?)

-Warp charges can be expanded by the Psyker (remember, the unit as a whole is a "psyker" because of BoP, but Thawn is also a Psyker as per his rules)

-He has Hammerhand as a power.

 

So to reiterate: Thawn is a Psyker (psyker T), the Unit is a Psyker (psyker U). Psyker T can use 2 warp charges per turn and Psyker U can use only 1. The fact that Psyker T in in the unit or not has no relevance to the individual casting potentials of both Psykers. If psyker T actually had the rule BoP (which he has not and nothing in the wording of BoP can even hint that it extends to all models in the unit even if they don't have BoP), it might be debatable. But now, Thawn (like all other characters in the codex, does NOT have BoP. Thawn, like all other character (but unlike any other unit upgrades in the codex), has the Psyker rule and a mastery level.

 

So, here we have it. Either Thawn can logically use his own two warp charges OR GW really decided to just screw around and NOT give him BoP and DO give him P:ML2 for fun's sake. But by that logic any IC that is in a unit (and is now part of the unit) cannot use his own powers. After all, when a GKL is in a unit, that unit shoot at one enemy unit (the Libby is part of the unit). that unit assaults an enemy unit (the libby is part of the unit), ... Nothing really distanciate the IC from the unit as a psyker anymore than Thawn.

 

Is the Grey Knight Librarian part of the unit?

 

If the GKL casts Hammerhand, and a random GKT casts Hammerhand, how many powers has the unit used?

 

How many powers is the unit limited to using?

 

I'd answer those questions;

 

It's would still be:

 

yes

2

1

 

By your logic

[Gentlemanloser]

LoL.

 

When is a unit, not a unit?

 

If thawn had died, been removed from the unit as a casulaty, and been reborn into a new single mini unit, he's still his origianl units Justicar?

 

The BoP rule not only talks about the 'units' Justicar, but also states the 'unit' counts as a single psyker.

 

So Thawn still can't cast anything, becuase the single psyker that the unit is can only cast a single power per turn.

[Reclusiarch Darius]

I think though dude, you can see the intention (even if technically it doesn't work). Why else would they give Thawn his own entry, and Mastery 2? He's meant to let them get another power cast. Again, I stress, I agree that the rules probably prevent it (due to GW stellar understanding of their own ruleset :D ), but that is the intention. They would just leave him Mastery 1 if he wasn't meant to give the squad that advantage. As you say, he's not an IC, so there is no cogent reason to give him Mastery 2...unless he's meant to make use of it somehow.

 

Seeing as they didn't FAQ it at all in the update, I think it's just safer to play it RAI. The squad casts a power, then Thawn casts another power (2 powers total).

[Gentlemanloser]

It's for when he dies and becomes his own unit.

 

For fluff, no longer the focal point for his entire Squad, allows Thawn to unleash his full psychic potential. Or maybe it's only after a rebirth he's at his full potential.

 

But agreed, GW borked big time on the rules for our two 'single mini unit characters'. I had hoped this was a "they're designed for 6th!!!", but it wasn't. B)

[boreas]

But agreed, GW borked big time on the rules for our two 'single mini unit characters'. I had hoped this was a "they're designed for 6th!!!", but it wasn't. :(

 

You know, the way I see it, 6th makes Thawn make sense. Since he produces (again the way I see it) 2 warpcharges (which he didn't do in 5th ed), he can use his two powers... My reasoning (stated in multiple ways above) is RAW as I see it. But it's also RAI within 6th ed.

 

Phil