4 rune priests, buff/debuff stacking, and the humble bolter

[skeletoro]

Rune priests are pretty awesome - this is common knowledge. As space wolves, we can take up to 4 in games up to 1999 points, and 8 (!) in games 2000 points and over. I think that this fact, combined with the new blessing and malediction powers in the 6th edition rulebook, make for some very interesting, and potentially quite broken possibilities. Here's my thinking.

 

Take the following psychic powers:

Prescience

Misfortune

Enfeeble

 

Use all 3 together, and kinda scary things happen.

 

20 bolter shots will flat out kill 6.6 marines. That's right, 1 unupgraded grey hunter squad can waltz up to a tactical squad and wipe out half of them (with luck, all of them) with one volley of rapid fire. With some free flamers thrown in, and a little luck (let's say 4 hits per flamer), you're looking at an average of 8.2 casualties. (Drop misfortune, and it's 4.9 - still quite good. Drop Enfeeble and it's 6.2).

 

To put this in perspective, a plasma gun causes about .56 space marine wounds per shot fired (and can overheat). After blessings/maledictions, a bolter causes .33 per shot fired, and cannot overheat. A flamer causes .37 wounds per marine under the template (if it touches 3, it's doing the same damage a plasma gun ordinarily would.)

 

"Sure," you might say "you've made short work of some tactical marines. "But you're not going to crack 2+ armour saves using flamers, dude."

 

Actually, this combo deals with terminators even better than it deals with tactical marines. 8 rapid firing bolters and 2 flamers = 4.5 dead terminators (if you can only hit 3 terminators with a flamer, due to larger base size, you're still looking at 4.1). And the best thing about it? Their storm shields are irrelevant, as they're getting to keep their 2+save - but they're being forced to reroll any successes.

 

If they are hammernators, by the way, your overwatch shots kill another 1.8 (gotta love flamers!), and if your counterattack morale check is successful, you kill another 4.6 hammernators before they get to strike back. Thanks to the support of your rune priest council, you just killed 4.1+1.8+4.6 = 10.5, i.e. a whole squad of 10 assault termies, with a simple grey hunter squad. Pretty good, I'd say.

 

Clearly, this combo sacrifices very little versus lightly armoured infantry too.

 

One quite awesome thing about using rune priest buffs rather than unit upgrades is that you can use the buffs where they're most needed. Often, 20 bolter shots will suffice. Why overkill? Instead, buff the unit next door that is staring down that charging deathstar unit worth 3x their own points value.

 

One weakness inherent in this whole endeavour is that you don't get to pick your psychic powers. However, you can guarantee that every rune priest can get prescience if nothing else, which is a start. Other than that, with 4 rune priests, you're drawing 8 powers, so I think you've probably got a fairly decent chance of getting at least 1 of those other 2 mentioned powers (77%). Getting both is a bit trickier, but your chances aren't bad, and do keep in mind that there ARE other good powers (prescience for a start, but also, Foreboding (use full BS for overwatch), Forewarning (4+ invulnerable save on grey hunters can be pretty good) and Endurance (5+ FnP and relentless on a grey hunter unit is also very nice on grey hunters!) In short, there's a possibility that you won't get all 3 of the two powers above, but three quarters of the time you'll get two out of 3, and you'll generally get some other very useful stuff too.

 

And also, there's a silver lining to choosing your powers at just before deployment - you don't HAVE to take the powers I suggested above. If your opponent has nothing better than 5+ armour saves, skip misfortune and pick something else. You couldn't do that if you'd invested heavily in AP2.

 

What kind of list might work well with these 4 rune priests?

 

To start with, big cheap grey hunter units should do quite nicely. However, I think it would be quite hard to bring the shooting attacks of 60 grey hunters to bear, so it's worth considering other units.

 

I actually think swiftclaws make a really good complement to this list. Because of headstrong, you need to invest in a pricey WGPL, but this gives you an opportunity to buy a single model melta bombs without having to outfit the whole squad (the rest have krak grenades anyway, which in combination with the melta bombs, ought to be enough most of the time). But I digress. Other than being decent tank killers, swiftclaws are very durable for their points cost, and also have an extremely high damage potential - quite possibly higher than the grey hunters, in fact! For 158 points, you get 5 models, who each get 2 bolter shots, 1 hammer of wrath attack, and 4 ccw attacks on the charge. All up, that's 10.3 tactical marines or 5.7 terminators (even hammernators) killed on the charge (with those same buffs). Even leaving aside prescience, you're looking at 8.4 or 4.6, respectively.

 

Here's my first attempt at thrashing out a list. I'm hesitant putting this list in the first post, because this thread is more about the actual strategy rather than this specific implementation. But having a list to look at, to see that it's not completely unrealistic, might be useful (and I'd be interested to see how we could improve on this list!)

 

HQ:

4 Rune priests (125 points each, with TDA and 1 of: combi p,m or f, or melta bombs).

Each accompanies 1 grey hunter pack, below.

 

Elites:

1 wolf guard pack of 6 (all pack leaders; details in pack entries below)

 

Troops:

4 grey hunters packs - 198 points each including wolf guard pack leader

10 models

flamer

complementary special weapon: melta or plasma

wolf standard

TDAWGPL with combi melta or plasma and power sword (1 gets a heavy flamer instead)

 

Fast attack:

2 swiftclaw packs - 158 points each including wolf guard pack leader

4 models

 

Heavy support:

1 long fang pack - 140 points, yadda yadda.

 

All up, 1748 points. What do you think?

[Iacton Qruze]

my one suggestion is that rather than keep all 4 priests on foot, put 2 on bikes if you can find the points. Maybe drop the non-cost effective WGPL bikers themselves.

 

This gets you past the headstrong, bumps the unit LD to 10 and leaves you with two fast moving priests to get to harder to reach places.

 

the main weakness I'm seeing will be against flyers. one squad of ML fangs probably won't cut it. consider instead a pair of TL AC razorbacks for almost the same price. Just reserve them and hopefully have them come in after a flyer and pepper it with shots.

 

Life will suck against Eldar, but with this kind of RP saturation, they probably won't get many spells cast either since you'll cover the board with a 4+ null bubble.

 

I like the concept.

[MeatGrinder]

I like this, Its my kind of oh-god-pleae-dont-do-that-two-turns-in-a-row.

 

You'll have weaknesses, and it will never be particularly competetive, but oh lord will it be fun. Dont expect to have too many friends afterwards though.

[skeletoro]

my one suggestion is that rather than keep all 4 priests on foot, put 2 on bikes if you can find the points. Maybe drop the non-cost effective WGPL bikers themselves.

 

This gets you past the headstrong, bumps the unit LD to 10 and leaves you with two fast moving priests to get to harder to reach places.

 

the main weakness I'm seeing will be against flyers. one squad of ML fangs probably won't cut it. consider instead a pair of TL AC razorbacks for almost the same price. Just reserve them and hopefully have them come in after a flyer and pepper it with shots.

 

Life will suck against Eldar, but with this kind of RP saturation, they probably won't get many spells cast either since you'll cover the board with a 4+ null bubble.

 

I like the concept.

 

Yeah, it had just occurred to me that I should put 2 RPs on bikes. The wolf guard really aren't doing anything anyway, and are horribly expensive.

 

I think it might be worth paying 40 points to add a multi-melta to each swiftclaw unit. And then maybe 10 points for a melta gun. Sure, they're only BS3, but prescience takes care of this anyway.

 

How many fliers have ceramite? A "twin-linked" (prescience) melta shot is much better than a TLAC against non-ceramite fliers. Against ceramite fliers it's not worse. And swiftclaws can move 12 and shoot, so that gives the "melta" rule on the attack bike a 24" range too. It WOULD mean you'd need to use prescience on the bikes to use them against fliers, though.

 

Hmm, what about a land speeder squadron? 1 use of prescience would upgrade the whole bunch to twin-linked. They don't have split fire, though, so unless they were trying to take down a flier, it might be a bit overkill.

[skeletoro]

I like this, Its my kind of oh-god-pleae-dont-do-that-two-turns-in-a-row.

 

You'll have weaknesses, and it will never be particularly competetive, but oh lord will it be fun. Dont expect to have too many friends afterwards though.

 

Heh, thanks. But what makes you say it will never be competitive?

[eyeslikethunder]

I have Played with 3 RP regularly and found it competitive. They add LD, CC ability and ranged shootiing to my GH

 

and killswitch/alex on the space wolves grey blog is another example did well them during 5th using them high level tournaments like ETC and GT's

 

 

 

 

In a way their weakness -lists with lots of high psychic defence has reduced as only really eldar held on to their defences and they really on getting off their powers too which tend to be short ranged and likely to be stopped as well.

 

but i do think you need more ranged firepower in your list especially if you are taking the boost powers rather codex ones like LL

[Iacton Qruze]

Actually, the concept has a lot of promise to be competitive.

 

Not that you don't want melta, but when you're having to snap fire, you're looking for volume of fire. That's why the melta on the swiftclaws isn't the best option.

 

Normally I like double melta LS squadrons, but again you're going to be snap firing and having to cast a spell to get them twin-linked; you're better off putting the melta in the bike squadrons

[Jarl Deathwolf]

I've toyed with the idea of having four rune priests in my army, since it is a distinct advantage that Space Wolves get, being able to field so many HQs. I usually manage to max out my Hqs with 2 Rune Priests, a Wolf Priest and a Thunder Lord.

 

With just 2 Rune Priests I tend to get all the psychic powers I need (stress on the 'tend to'). With FOUR... ye Allfather. The sheer amount of insanity is staggering. I love it! with two spells I can turn an entire game round toward my favor. With your 4? Twin-linked, relentless, invulnerablity, full BS Overwatch... Maybe you might want to have one of those Rune Priests leading a pack of TDA WG? Give the lot combi-weapons, maybe put them in a drop pod. The TDA WG could make huge use of the psychic might.

 

I think this list has huge potential for (the enemy's) destruction... However, you might want more LF. 6 doesn't sit right with me at this point level. Or maybe some Land Speeders, as has been said. You either need to get to grips with the enemy, fast, or have more long-ranged units. Swiftclaws are good and all, but they ARE only four models. A half-way decent volley of fire power could blow 'em up before they even make contact with the enemy.

[skeletoro]

Actually, the concept has a lot of promise to be competitive.

 

Not that you don't want melta, but when you're having to snap fire, you're looking for volume of fire. That's why the melta on the swiftclaws isn't the best option.

 

Normally I like double melta LS squadrons, but again you're going to be snap firing and having to cast a spell to get them twin-linked; you're better off putting the melta in the bike squadrons

 

I've been looking closely at land speeder squadrons too, actually, and did some quick calcs.

 

For 240 points, you can get 3 land speeders with 6 multi-meltas. Against a Storm raven, without prescience, you have a 16% chance of destroying the raven outright (though there's also a 32% chance of removing 1 hull point and a 7% chance of removing 2). After 2 rounds of fire, you have a 31% chance of having destroyed the storm raven.

 

For 225 points, you could get 3 razorbacks with TLAC. You have a 12% chance of destroying the raven in 1 round, and a 28% chance of destroying it in 2 rounds.

 

If you add prescience to the melta squadron, you have a 30% chance of destroying the raven in 1 round, and a 56% chance of destroying it in 2. After 3 rounds, your chances are actually looking pretty decent at 75%. But will the raven really let your land speeders go unhindered for that long?

 

It does seem that the multi melta option is significantly better at destroying AV12 fliers, even AV12 fliers with ceramite. But that's not to say it's particularly good. :lol:

 

So this leaves me a bit undecided, to be honest.

 

I'm planning on equipping both bike squadrons with some kind of anti vehicle option (meaning that whatever I come up with to tackle fliers, it doesn't necessarily have to be great against tanks), but I'm not 100% sure which one to take. Given that they're not anti-tank specialists, and generally will be getting in there and rapid firing/assaulting units to death, I would like to make them a serious threat against vehicles without spending too many points and without detracting from their primary focus.

 

I'm actually kinda wondering whether it would be better to leave the attack bike's sidecar weapon as a heavy bolter but giving the entire squadron melta bombs. 5 points per model sounds like a lot, but for a 6 model unit, it's 30 points, which is very close to the cost of a combi-melta, melta gun, and multi-melta - but you're getting twice as much melta, don't lose any potency against infantry, and can easily run a disordered charge when facing large numbers of tanks (e.g. imperial guard). In fact, a disordered charge is a no-brainer when using melta bombs against tanks, as they cannot fire overwatch and you don't gain an extra attack from charging anyway.

 

That said, maybe it's still worth 10 points to upgrade the heavy bolter to a MM. They're never going to make great flier gunners, mind you, but it'll give them some extra options.

[skeletoro]

Oops, that comparison I made assumed that the storm raven had 3 hull points. As it has 4, then melta will look a bit better relative to the assault cannon. But both of my calculations will be an overestimate.

 

Sadly, it really seems that if I really want to pick up a unit with the capacity to take out fliers, I should probably take a flier. Storm eagles actually aren't bad at all. Potentially costly, though actually quite comparable to the price of a land speeder squadron.

[hendrik]

there's always the hyperios battery you can take... ;)

[skeletoro]

there's always the hyperios battery you can take... ;)

 

Yeah I know.. It's stationary, right? I had kind of wanted to not leave an exposed flank with this list. But hmm. It IS cheap. And cheap is good. Yeah, I think you've convinced me. T6, 2W, twin-linked BS3, hard to say no.

 

And it sorta feels less cheesey, for some reason. I was just reading the space marines codex and looking into taking Tigurius (mastery level 3, gets 3 powers, though can't take divination), a token troops choice, and 1 stormtalon gunship ;) But that feels quite wrong, for some reason! :D

[hendrik]

dressing in ultramarine blue always feels wrong, no matter what goodies you get! ;) the plusside of the hyperios battery is that it's cheap, both points and modelwise (just buy an aegis defense line for the mounting block, and a whirlwind for the turret, now you've got an extra rhino that can double as a whirlwind too)

[skeletoro]

Hmm, how does one even go about building a unit of swiftclaw models these days? On the GW website I don't even see a bike squadron box set. Did the discontinue it? That said, none of the dark angels stuff is up, so maybe they're about to update the bike models. I somewhat doubt they'll update vanilla bikers though. On the other hand, maybe the ravenwing bike squadron will be more useful for converting swiftclaws.

 

That said, woah mama! The dark vengeance bikers can be had so cheaply on ebay.

 

I wonder how compatible the thunderwolf cav marine models are with bikes.

[eyeslikethunder]

They would need a lot of purifcation(cleaning) of the tainted symbols

[Erluin]

However, you can guarantee that every rune priest can get prescience if nothing else, which is a start.

 

Rune priests with the same psychic powers still need to obey the "Leaders of the Pack" rule. Since the army list is created first, would fielding 4 identically armed RPs in order to force re-rolls on psychic power charts be RAW, RAI, or downright beardy-licious?

[hendrik]

lol, good question! I'd say send an email to GW and in the meanwhile just ask your opponent what to do

[Anaraion]

However, you can guarantee that every rune priest can get prescience if nothing else, which is a start.

 

Rune priests with the same psychic powers still need to obey the "Leaders of the Pack" rule. Since the army list is created first, would fielding 4 identically armed RPs in order to force re-rolls on psychic power charts be RAW, RAI, or downright beardy-licious?

 

I am going to go with both RAI and RAW... and beardy-licious :P.

[eyeslikethunder]

However, you can guarantee that every rune priest can get prescience if nothing else, which is a start.

 

Rune priests with the same psychic powers still need to obey the "Leaders of the Pack" rule. Since the army list is created first, would fielding 4 identically armed RPs in order to force re-rolls on psychic power charts be RAW, RAI, or downright beardy-licious?

 

I dont think you would get rerolls on the psychic powers chart due to the FAQ

 

Space wolf faq

Leaders of the pack

 

"if you take choose instead to take psychic powers from the disciplines in the warhammer 40k rulebook this restriction does not apply"

[skeletoro]

I wasn't planning forcing rerolls on the chart (assuming that I understand you correctly). And in terms of leaders of the pack, yeah, you definitely do need to arm them differently. Normally I'd accomplish this by giving them different combi-weapon options if nothing else.

 

In terms of the randomly generated BRB powers, leaders of the pack has no effect, that I'm aware of. Randomly generated powers are not chosen during list creation. It's a purely random draw (with replacement - you can get the same power again if you roll the same again).

 

But you can ALWAYS choose to take the primaris in place of the power you rolled. So, a rune priest that rolled divination could take prescience if it was a bad roll. If a good roll, then just go divination (and prescience) for the second power. Thus, you can always ensure you have prescience.

[Anaraion]

However, you can guarantee that every rune priest can get prescience if nothing else, which is a start.

 

Rune priests with the same psychic powers still need to obey the "Leaders of the Pack" rule. Since the army list is created first, would fielding 4 identically armed RPs in order to force re-rolls on psychic power charts be RAW, RAI, or downright beardy-licious?

 

I dont think you would get rerolls on the psychic powers chart due to the FAQ

 

Space wolf faq

Leaders of the pack

 

"if you take choose instead to take psychic powers from the disciplines in the warhammer 40k rulebook this restriction does not apply"

 

Bah... :rolleyes:

 

But thanks for the clarification.

[skeletoro]

HMM! This whole C:SW + C:SM idea might work quite well.

 

For an army that uses bikes, Kor'Sarro Khan and Tigurius look to have some crazy synergy. I don't think I could do it easily without 2k and double FOC though. But it could be pretty nice!

 

It could even be pretty fluffy. Khan could be Erik Morkai, come to rescue his brother, Irnist the Wise. :P I'll share some more details soon.

[skeletoro]

HMM #2! Looking at the Blood Angels codex, it could be quite ridiculous.

 

With blood angels allies you could have 6 div/bio psykers at 100 pts each (actually, 1 costs 175, but it's a dreadnought so I'll forgive it). Put some death company and the furioso libby in a storm raven, and at earliest convenience, cross polinate characters. Some of those universal special rules transfer. E.g. putting a rune priest in a death company unit gives it counter-attack (I'm not actually 100% you'd make much use of it with death company, but hey. At 20 points per model, with a librarian, they're grey hunters with an extra attack on the charge and relentless, feel no pain, furious charge, gah, it's kinda scary.

 

Some of the blood angels characters appear to convey feel no pain and furious charge to space wolves units too. I'm going to have to check the FAQs, but SW+BA seems to have synergy far beyond mere rune priest stacking.

[eyeslikethunder]

The FAQ changed sang priest power to affect BA only

[skeletoro]

The FAQ changed sang priest power to affect BA only

 

Yeah, I had a read and was bitterly disappointed :D

 

Anyway, I think it still might have some great potential. Something like the following:

 

HQ:

3 Rune Priests (1 unupgraded; 2 with bike, runic armour, melta bombs, bolter/bolt pistol) 100 + 2*160 = 420

1 Blood Angels Librarian (unupgraded, with a shooting power and Shield of Sanguinis) 100

 

Elites:

3 wolf guard (TDA, storm bolters, power axes) - leading the Grey hunters packs 99

Blood Angels Furioso Librarian (with a shooting power and Shield of Sanguinis) - 175

 

Troops:

3 Grey hunters packs (10/7/7 models. Flamer and wolf standard. Pack 1 also has a plasma gun) 160 + 2* 115 = 435

1 Death company squad (10 models, 1 power fist) 225

 

Fast Attack:

1 Swift claws pack (5 models + 1 HB attack bike, all have melta bombs) 185

 

Heavy Support:

Storm Raven (typhoon, hurricane bolters) 255

 

All up, that's 1849 points. I was actually trying to make room for a storm talon before realizing that C:BA doesn't have access to them... d'oh! Anyway, the list has 5 level 1 psykers in it. I'd roll div/bio on the rune priests first, and then based on the outcome, decide whether or not to roll for the blood angels librarians (their default powers are very nice but I'd be pretty determined to get misfortune and enfeeble). 2 of the Rune Priests have bikes to add tactical flexibility - either or both could be deployed with the bike unit and sent over to help the death company, storm raven and furioso if needed.