20-size + priests

[Seahawk]

Came across this in a 1750 tournament this weekend:

 

Uriah Jacobus

5 Priests

19 Sisters

 

And he had 3 Flamolator flamer squads, a Multi-mlator flamer squad, 2 Multi-mlator melta dominion squads, and three Exorcists. So, tank horde and sister horde, all in one package.

 

I ended up winning, barely (tri-Raider + espensive units list), and Marneus Calgar spent the last few turns, alone, brutally boxing Sisters in that big mob squad. Or was he? 

 

I killed only 1-2 a turn, generally just one, because five priest + Jacobus is AWESOME. 5+ rerollable inv save in combat, rerolls to wound, plus a couple acts of faith, as well as having 3-4 Smashing priests is just plain awesome. Sisters are the ablative wounds for the priests, who smush terminators, monstrous creatures, and etc. 

 

Just in case none of you had thought of it, I figured I'd pass it along as a pretty sweet combo.

[Chrysaor the Giant]

Very intriguing. I've sort of felt like Guard would still be a much more efficient version of that, didn't think about +1 to Shield of Faith and all that other stuff stacking. Definitely need to try it out! Thanks. :P 

Maybe a single unit like that, flanked by a couple big guard platoon mobs with a priest in each.... Could be very cool.

[AdmLancel]

It sounds pretty creative and potent.  But why not go Conclave then?  I suppose the ablative wounds would be more numerous and you get some shooting capability out of it, but you could, incidentally, run a conclave of DCA and Crusaders for better close combat and also get the re-rolls, especially with the Crusader's 3++.  At least it seems to me anyway.  They aren't much more expensive than Battle Sisters.

[tvih]

AdmLancel, on 29 Oct 2013 - 00:01, said:

It sounds pretty creative and potent. But why not go Conclave then? I suppose the ablative wounds would be more numerous and you get some shooting capability out of it, but you could, incidentally, run a conclave of DCA and Crusaders for better close combat and also get the re-rolls, especially with the Crusader's 3++. At least it seems to me anyway. They aren't much more expensive than Battle Sisters.

10 re-rollable 3++ saves is what I'd like to do as well if I had the models. On a fun note, some people say BT & SoB should be Battle Brothers (I myself could make do with just AoC though). Can you imagine a bunch of hammernators with rerollable 3++? Admittedly there'd be a problem with transporting in that case, though...

In any case, priests certainly seem to be good for when you end up in CC. I just wish Sisters had actual CC units that could do proper damage with their attacks rather than just endure them via the priest. The only units with "proper" melee gear are Crusaders in Battle Conclave (who then only have one attack each), and the Command Squad can take power weapons but become expensive (why is a power weapon as expensive for a S3 model as it is for S4+ such as marines... no fair!) and are still such a small unit. There's of course Repentia, but they don't really benefit as much from a priest since they only have Shield of Faith as a save.

[greggles]

It's funny, originally I would have thought...wow rerollable 3++ is crazy op.

 

But then there is rerollable 2++ daemons right now...so I see no problem with BT and sisters becoming battle brothers and sisters, and throwing priests in with crusaders and bringing hammer time to some xeon scum. Combine that with some crossbows in their face...go back to the warp you pansy weaklings.

[tvih]

Rerollabe 2++ daemons? I thought only some sort of Eldar/Tau combo or something was supposed to be able to do that. Frankly I usually try to avoid the specifics on such things to try and avoid transferring the brain damage from the codex writers that allow such things to myself...

[greggles]

Current tourney armies are pretty much....tau/eldar or eldar/tau (because terrain setup is :cuss in tournaments), and fateweaver/screamer star daemons.

 

Here is how the screamer star works.

 

HQ: Fateweaver

HQ: Herald of Tzeentch, Lvl 3, Disc, Locus of Conjuration
HQ: Herald of Tzeentch, Lvl 3, Disc, Exalted Gift
HQ: Herald of Tzeentch, Lvl 3, Disc, Exalted Gift
HQ: Herald of Tzeentch, Lvl 3, Disc

 

All psykers, 8 rolls on divination to get forewarning and perfect timing.

 

FA: Screamers of Tzeentch X 8

 

Heralds go with Screamers.  Screamers are 2W, A3, T4, Jetbikes, with Str 5, AP2 melee, armourbane attacks.  It can also slash by moving over a unit (like a vector strike).

They also have str 6 shooting, and hammer of wrath.

 

But here is where it gets nuts.

 

The heralds will have a Grimoire of True Names.  You roll a d6 at any time during the movement phase, on a 3+ it improves a units invuln save by 2, for a 3++, or if you roll a 2 or less, it makes it 1 worse (6++).

 

Well guess what else the heralds have...thats right they are psykers.  So they cast perfect timing (screamstar ignores cover), and prescience (twin linked), and then forewarning.  Pumps out 12d6 str 6 ap4 shots a turn.

 

Guess what forewarning does?  It makes their invuln saves 4++.  Guess what the grimoire does?  Improves an invuln save by 2.  Guess what happens if a daemon of tzeentch rolls a 1 on their invuln save?  They get to reroll it.

 

So you have a bunch of jet bikes, with psuedo melta bombs, who can vector strike, ignore cover, twin linked, hammer of wrath, with 2++ rerollable invuln saves.

 

Welcome to the 40k tournament scene.

 

Now shoot that unit with some condemner boltguns...and you can see why people are flipping the #&$%)!& out.  The whole thing collapses instantly.

[tvih]

Ah, yeah, the damn grimoire. One of those is responsible for my Honour Guard taking a beating from a bunch of frickin' daemonettes on Sunday's tournament. That was a CSM+CD list. I did play against a pure CD list, but that was a FMC bomb list. 5 FMCs of which 4 with Iron Arm and Enfeeble... fun times!

 

As for the priests though I just realized something else, in relation to BT if they suddenly became Battle Brothers. What's really nutty in that consideration is that in addition to the rerolls to armor is the Zealot rule. What use would BT Chaplains be when you could get 25-point Zealots into squads by using SoB allies? Still, it's conjecture and not likely they'll ever be Battle Brothers since GW seems so dead set against FAQing the damn ally matrix.

 

Anyways, I'm just heading out for a match with IG+SoB, proxying a techpriest enginseer as a ministorum priest to try it out!

[AdmLancel]

greggles, on 29 Oct 2013 - 09:52, said:

So you have a bunch of jet bikes, with psuedo melta bombs, who can vector strike, ignore cover, twin linked, hammer of wrath, with 2++ rerollable invuln saves.

 

Welcome to the 40k tournament scene.

 

Now shoot that unit with some condemner boltguns...and you can see why people are flipping the #&$%)!& out. The whole thing collapses instantly.

That actually is pretty hilarious now that I've had it explained to me.

 

I take it once you kill a couple models it starts falling apart?

[Seahawk]

I hope one day that IG can become BB to SoB. 

 

Add a ministorum priest to the blob I stuck above. Charge. Reroll to hit, wound, and saves. Plus whtaever acts of faith...

[Fibonacci]

IG and SoB are BB. IG are the only battle brothers the SoB currenly have.  However Acts of Faith can only be used if all the models in the unit have the Acts of Faith rule.  Add in a character from another codex and Acts of Faith stop working.

[Seahawk]

I find that acceptable. Also, awesome.

[Eddie Orlock]

I'm not sure I've ever seen a rules interaction that is so 'rock-paper-scissors'ly.

 

We are the paper to that rock, with a weapon that's meaningless to most of the scissors out there.

[Chrysaor the Giant]

I hope one day that IG can become BB to SoB. 

 

Add a ministorum priest to the blob I stuck above. Charge. Reroll to hit, wound, and saves. Plus whtaever acts of faith...

 

I'm confused; a ministorum priest is just a considerably worse version of an ecclesiarchy priest; he costs 20pts more for half-baked Hatred, no Fearless, and no Battle Hymns. Plus you need allies to take him. What's he do for the Sister blob?

 

Unless you're talking about adding Uriah and 5 Ecclesiarchy Priests to 50 Guardsmen with a Biomancy Psyker and 5 Commissars. In that case, I see what you were going for. Kind of expensive.

[Fibonacci]

It can be confusing since they are called Ministorum Priests in both codices now. 

 

Also ... knowing IG are on the short list for upcoming updates I wonder if they will be the same in the new IG codex.

 

Anyway.  We could probably pull up the "blob" thread from shortly before the new codex was announced and see if anything has changed much.  I can speculate can juggle numbers but what I really need is more game time.  I have not played a single game with the new codex yet.  We are in the last phase of an escalation league and no one wants to play non-league games now.  Any other spare time is spent helping a friend who just bought a house from an older couple and it needs a ton of work.  I have too many things I want to see in live games and no time to play them. :(

[greggles]

I take it once you kill a couple models it starts falling apart?

 

The crossbow bolt causes psykers to take instant perils in a unit hit (just hit, not wounded).  Perils = no saves possible.  Heralds only have 2 wounds.  You'd wipe out all the heralds in the entire screamer unit with just 2 hits.  This is currently being debated, because daemon players are tearing their hair out at their easy win button being taken away.  Imagine if tau lost interceptor....

 

Suddenly unit goes from 2++ rerollable, to 5++, with only rerolls on a 1.  Also wipes out pretty much every psyker in the army in one go (besides fateweaver). .  The unit still has a lot of wounds, and is still nasty, but it becomes a lot easier to deal with.