Arhriman in 6th edition

[Architect]

WHFB Empire Flaggelents.. Or whatever. They look suitably insane, and there's lots of goodies in the box for Tsons players like scrolls and a good book I think. Cultists!

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

I must admit I'm thinking of getting some High elf archers and giving them lasguns and calling it a day :P

[*Furyou Miko]

High Elves with lasguns are a good bet, although the helmets will look odd no matter what you do - either the high elf helmets will look too eldary/fantasy, or the cadian helmets from the guard kits you bought for the lasguns will look too large.

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

Could try greenstuff hoods possibly..

[Xenith]

Clip the points off the top and make bucket helms?

Fantasy beastmen are always safe, assuming you want the ac+ccw version. You could always get some cheap bolt/las guns from somewhere to upgun them.

Or leave the high elves with bows and arrows. They are about as effective as autoguns anyways

Having the backup ML3 sorcerer for Telekinesis is a good call, although I'm tempted to take an unmarked TDA Power axe sorceror with 3x biomancy for close encounters.

[rhodry]

For 40k beastmen victoria miniatures may have what you are after with her broolian beastman squad

[Tenebris]

Ahriman is my favorite 40k character and I have fielded him a few times. While he can be quite devastating if he manages to fire off safely each of his three warpfire powers per turn, he is indeed a very steep tax for every army and requires a specific army list to work properly. All in all he is a heavy shooting character, a machine gun on foot that can reliably kill many things, too bad that he is very quickly targeted and disposed of and I doubt that it is worthy to have him in melee and burn your psychic powers just to get Iron Arm.

 

The list where he worked best was the one where I have put him into a squad of 20 CSM which provided ample bodies to shield him from the worst of the enemy fire. The added bonus of Master of Deception is a great boon and it works really well in concert with the Thousand Sons squads which can be in Rapid Fire range quite quickly due to this warlord trait. 

 

In the end, Ahriman is a really powerful character but his price tag can be prohibitive, especially if you must count a substantial escort to make him work reliably. Considering all this, it is a wiser policy to invest into a Chaos Sorcerer with Mastery 3 and a Spell Familiar to reap similar benefits. He might lack the firepower that Ahriman can bring to the table but it can be taken with almost every list out there and still pull his weight. 

[Architect]

Tenebris is right, of course.

 

Ahriman shines at this:

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2013/9/10/536097_sm-.jpg

 

..but DEFINITELY not this:

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2013/9/10/536101_sm-.jpg

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

Still looks awesome :p Has anyone been able to see the new space marine codex yet, and found out how Ahriman compares to the Ultramarines Chief Mary sue? I know sorcerers are going to be beaten by librarians just because of are mark of fail, but I'm hoping Ahriman isn't.

[Tenebris]

While Tigurius does not have a ++ save he straight out beats Ahriman as a buffing character. With his access to Divination, rerolls on the power tables and the rerolls of the failed psychic tests and the +1 to Reserve rolls he is a much much better supporting character than Ahriman.

 

IMO point by point he is better, cheaper, more effective and more reliable than Ahriman and if a Thousand Sons player will face an army with Tigurius he is in for some rough time with all those resistances against the psychic powers. Also a well placed Tigurius can arrive via Drop Pod and reroll the shooting of a Sternguard squad for example, or Centurions, in short he is the ultimate support caster.

 

I must say that I see for Ahriman a hard time to outperform Tigurius, maybe in offensive potential but as a character our master sorcerer falls very far behind this psychic whelp in Ultramarine colors, which is a sad and unfluffy thing. And the usurper has even Soul Blaze on his melee weapon, a psychic hood, 165 points of tax and a way better chance to be very useful to both the main army and the eventual allies. Also his warlord trait allows for one turn of reroll on shooting for all squads in his 12'' bubble, like a super Divination that can potentially wreak havoc.

 

Imagine all this on a Thousand Sons squad that really needs buffing to be effective.

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

Can someone ask Cruddance and kelly at Games day just what they have against Thousand sons?
I was thinking the other day that Ahriman's price would not be so bad if he had the spell familiar and something else, turns out I was right.
Anyone else really getting fed up of chaos basically being "c***marines"?
One of my mates is an Ultramarine player who has already said he is going to be fielding Tigris, I was thinking if taking my thousand sons back to uni with me but I might not bother, and if I take any 40k eitehr my salamanders or Iyanded, and focus on call to arms star fleet, infinity LOTR instead.

[Xenith]

Play Thousand Sons because you love them.

 

Don't not play them because their rules are shoddy.

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

Anyone know of a company that does Prohibition era Gangsters? I'm thinking that could be a good look for cultists.

[Dammeron]

The Ahirman/Tigurius situation for me is entirely damning towards GW and its attitude towards Chaos in general. Ahriman is ancient; he has been studying occult and arcane lore since before the Heresy, without any of the restrictions placed upon a loyalist Librarian. Yet Tigurius is psychically superior. Flat out, unambiguously, objectively superior. This is ridiculous: Tigurius isn't even halof Ahriman's age; hasn't had access to half of the experiences, revelations, bargains, discoveries etc etc that Ahriman has, yet he is psychically superior. It's absurd.

 

The way it would have gone down in any half way considered or thought out gaming system is:

 

Tigurius would function largely as a support character, with access to Diviniation, Telepathy and Telekinesis; he would excel in this role as befits a loyalist librarian of any stripe.

 

Ahriman would be an offensive psychic power house, able to access a wide variety of occult lores and bolster his psychic powers through use of daemonic pact,s arcane items etc, but his powers are risky: they do not have the same restraint as Tigurius's powers do, so utilising them too willy nilly would come with associated risks.

 

Instead, it's a matter of the former being vastly superior in all areas. I'm pretty much done with GW's products at this point: Fantasy Flight is simply providing better and more well balanced alternatives (by the by, Thousand Sons Sorcerers rock in Black Crusade).

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

Wish I could find some people in my area who played it..

[Xenith]

The way it would have gone down in any half way considered or thought out gaming system is:

 

Tigurius would function largely as a support character, with access to Diviniation, Telepathy and Telekinesis; he would excel in this role as befits a loyalist librarian of any stripe.

 

Ahriman would be an offensive psychic power house, able to access a wide variety of occult lores and bolster his psychic powers through use of daemonic pact,s arcane items etc, but his powers are risky: they do not have the same restraint as Tigurius's powers do, so utilising them too willy nilly would come with associated risks.

 

Instead, it's a matter of the former being vastly superior in all areas. I'm pretty much done with GW's products at this point: Fantasy Flight is simply providing better and more well balanced alternatives (by the by, Thousand Sons Sorcerers rock in Black Crusade).

Erm, thats exactly how it is at the moment? Tiggy is best used for multiple buffs to enhance his army, and has the safety of a psy hood, while Ahriman can blast out multiple witchfire powers.

 

It would have been great to allow Ahriman to reroll his powers, or simply let him pick them before the game.

[FashaTheDog]

The wonderful thing about Tiggys is Tiggys are wonderful things!  Their tops are made out of awesome, the bottoms are made out of win!  They're cheesy, beardy, over-the-top, fun, fun, fun, fun, FUN!  But the most wonderful thing about Tiggys is that Ultramarines get the only one!

[Architect]

You should have been with me last weekend. You could have told my Deathwing opponent that his allied Tigurius is (was) better than Ahriman.

 

Ahriman claimed 15+ Terminators alone, and 2 different characters were buffing the Space Marines with Divination powers. Yes, he suffered  Perils a lot, but you should be trying for Life Leech or Endurance anyway.  Nothing makes Divination users more mad than just throwing Thousand Sons into combat with their affected units.

 

Both characters are good for different things. Ahriman is good at witchfires. Don't give me that "Just take a level 3" stuff, because 60% of the time you end up with 3x Witchfire powers. What's cool about that?

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

How did you avoid him getting splattered by anyone with a power fist?

[Architect]

Ahriman was able to avoid combat against this particular army by careful use of Screamer allies, Heldrake(s) base positioning, Fateweaver, other Thousand Sons, Rhinos, you name it. Not to mention all the shooting that I was able to put out. Baleflamer templates wreck terminators over time, along with bolters.

 

Focus fire on the immediate threat units and it's easy to stay out of combat. I also had a really good spell set between Cosmic Cluck and a level 2 backup sorcerer, not going to lie. Hallucination, Invisibility and Endurance enabled my army to survive it's biggest enemy when fighting Deathwing: Stormbolters and Cyclone frag missiles. : ( The powers were just a bonus, though.. It would have ended the same way without them.