[HH1.0] Sons of Horus Tactica

[PastelAvenger]

They really did screw the pooch with the Sons of Horus rules. I don't understand why they made so that only infantry get Merciless Fighter and aren't we disadvantaged enough? But hey we've all been over this time and time again.

 

The new Rite of War sounds interesting especially with a Drop pod army, having every weapon twin-linked in turn 1 is going to cause some major damage and would probably make me buy that Contemptor Dreadnought with Kheres I've been longing for.

[SkimaskMohawk]

the only things not getting merciless fighter are Biker units and dreadnoughts. Really not a whole big deal

[PastelAvenger]

Considering Jetbikes would count as 3 models and how mobile they are I think it is a bit and everyone else with a similar role gets to count them.

[Hesh Kadesh]

They get The strike, they just don't qualify for themselves as tgey are not infantry.

 

Ie, a squad of 10 Marines assisted by 3 Jetbikes only counts as 10 men, not 19, but if they are facing 9 men or less, they get the bonus attack all the same.

[PastelAvenger]

I didn't think they got anything at all I will have to re read the rule thanks Hesh

 

P.s I still think they should qualify personally but dems the rules

[Sheesh Mode]

Sons of Horus simply appear to be a hard hitting, assault oriented, precision strike force. Where the Raven Guard are clinical executors, the Sons of Horus are brutal killers. To my understanding the Black Reaving is simply a competitive means of fielding a generic character, deploy a Damocles, and still enjoy the major benefits of Orbital Assault while using Reavers. Sons of Horus love to deepstrike and outflank. That is the nature of the legion. They can 'perform' in other avenues, but not nearly as well as other more conventional legions. Stick with planes and pods and suicide terminator squads.

[Leoric]

Greetings Fellow Brothers!

 

I would like to ask for some help. I will order the Battle at Calth box next month, and using its contents it I would like to start a "traitor" army. I have a massive infantry based Iron Hands army already, and I'm looking for an opposing force, that plays differently. From all the Legions that sided with Horus I like his Sons the most. Luckily FW made some gorgeous looking models too (like the Reavers and the Warmaster himself), what influenced my decision too.

 

What would you recommend for 2000 point?

How would you kit out the force from the BaC box, or what should a new SoH player consider to buy?

 

As I'm only making the first ideas and plans for next year's project I would glad to accept any help.

[norngahl]

Sons of Horus have the option to take dreadclaws on their veterans, nators and reavers and are pretty good at getting their reserves in. SoH can makr orbital assault with flyer backup work, but I recommend veterans in dreadclaws as troops. Another fluffy thing would be 20 legionaires in stormeagles, but I prefer dreadclaws way more, it's also quite often mentioned in the BL books.

 

They also seem to give their heavy shooting over to the mechanicum/titans, if allies are a thing for you.

 

While every legion has a lot of toys for dealing with everything, SoH fluff mainly deald with quick lists. So a gunline is rather unusual. I'd say focus on a praetor with pride of the legion rite of war, veterans (and praetor) in dreadclaws as your troops and flyers/sicarans as your fast and heavy stuff.

 

While superheavies like typhons were a thing for a long time, the (at least mine) meta shifts to smaller and more widespread units. Don't think a typhon is a mandatory choice in below 2,5 anymore. It was the answer to 20 men with apothecary. This option fades from game to game. Against small units or units out of cover a regular pie plate does the same job for a lot less. Especially things like the whirlwind scorpion jump to my mind.

 

When you want to field horus, remember he gives you outflank for your whole army. Having sicarans/fire raptors/javelins/Lightnings shooting the enemys flank and rear armour is a huge bonus and makes regular anti tank (quad mortars, for example) no longer as necessary as before. Fire raptors with reapers take usual av13 out with ease when fireing at their back.

 

Horus is, nontheless, rather a thing for 2,5k+ IMO.

[SkimaskMohawk]

don't think vets can take dread claws as dedicated, its something they changed from Betrayal to LAICL

[norngahl]

Actually you are right, my bad! Nontheless, it won't change too much. Take two dreadclaws as FA choices for your veterans if you want to field them over terminators ;) FA is not as crowded as the HS slot, so this luxury is quite possible :D

[Leoric]

Sons of Horus have the option to take dreadclaws on their veterans, nators and reavers and are pretty good at getting their reserves in. SoH can makr orbital assault with flyer backup work, but I recommend veterans in dreadclaws as troops. Another fluffy thing would be 20 legionaires in stormeagles, but I prefer dreadclaws way more, it's also quite often mentioned in the BL books.

 

They also seem to give their heavy shooting over to the mechanicum/titans, if allies are a thing for you.

 

While every legion has a lot of toys for dealing with everything, SoH fluff mainly deald with quick lists. So a gunline is rather unusual. I'd say focus on a praetor with pride of the legion rite of war, veterans (and praetor) in dreadclaws as your troops and flyers/sicarans as your fast and heavy stuff.

 

While superheavies like typhons were a thing for a long time, the (at least mine) meta shifts to smaller and more widespread units. Don't think a typhon is a mandatory choice in below 2,5 anymore. It was the answer to 20 men with apothecary. This option fades from game to game. Against small units or units out of cover a regular pie plate does the same job for a lot less. Especially things like the whirlwind scorpion jump to my mind.

 

When you want to field horus, remember he gives you outflank for your whole army. Having sicarans/fire raptors/javelins/Lightnings shooting the enemys flank and rear armour is a huge bonus and makes regular anti tank (quad mortars, for example) no longer as necessary as before. Fire raptors with reapers take usual av13 out with ease when fireing at their back.

 

Horus is, nontheless, rather a thing for 2,5k+ IMO.

 

You are right, I would run the Warmaster only in a 2500 points or bigger game.

Allies: I'm still torn between the sheer number of awesome minis and stories of the Heresy, so perhaps a small Mechanicum or Emperor's Children contingent could pop up on my workbench...

 

Some questions again:

- Veterans: Honestly, I thought on regular Tacticals as troops, but as you point out, Veterans could be a superior choice over them. Two squads of 10 could be enought? As I said previously, my IH force has a great mass of bolter Marines, but of course they are not the hardest hitting thing in my army...

- Reavers: could a maxed out unit - without jump packs - in a Storm Eagle a viable option?

 

As subject on the Heavy Slot I'm always thorn between the options. If i would run the Sons with their unique RoW I would choose a Fire Raptor, but I think a Sicaran BT would be a safer choice. With the Dreadclaws my only concern is, that they are eating up the FA slots, if I'm not taking them with their dedicated passengers.

[norngahl]

When you decide to field a RoW or Maloghurst reavers become troops. Reavers can take Dreadclaws as dedicates transports.

 

Question about FA slots is- what for if not primaris lightnings and dreadclaws?!

 

You can field fire raptors of course aa they are fluffy, but for my taste, I'd rather take 3x10 guys in claws than 2x15 in stormeagles. Stormeagles are to expensive for my taste, especially because they are only transports with a small gun.

 

Fire raptors, on the other hand, are pure death to transports, flyers and rear armour, as to marines and 4+ and less. Way better than the sicaran imo.

[dansupvi]

what kinds of power weapons in a 10 man and 15 man reaver squad? like is there a good ratio/system for working out how many swords/axes/fists to throw into the unit?

[Slips]

A few of us prefer 1in3 or 1in5. Go for Power Fists/Axes imo for more punch. The Extra attack from merciless fighter not coming into play on those models isn't such a big deal.

[Sheesh Mode]

what kinds of power weapons in a 10 man and 15 man reaver squad? like is there a good ratio/system for working out how many swords/axes/fists to throw into the unit?

How is the unit being deployed and what do you intend to do with the unit?

[dansupvi]

i have 2 units of 10 in dreadclaws and 1 unit of 12 with jump packs at the moment, looking at adding another unit in the new year and grabbing a few more to make the 12 man a 15 man unit :)

[Iron Dude]

Hi there,

 

this is the adjusted version of a list I played against an eldar player. The original list was 200 points smaller. What do u guys think?

 

1850 points total

HQ:

 

Mal the Twister

Orbital Assault

 

Troops:

 

5 man Flamersupport + Drop Pod

 

5 man Flamersupport + Drop Pod

 

5 man Meltersupport + Drop Pod

 

5 man Plasmasupport + Drop Pod

 

10 man sniper Veteransquad + Drop Pod + Melterbombs

 

10 man sniper Veteransquad + Drop Pod + Melterbombs

 

Elite

 

Quadbolter + Drop Pod

 

Quadbolter + Drop Pod

 

Quadbolter + Drop Pod

 

Quadbolter + Drop Pod

 

Heavy Support

 

5 man Autocannonsquad + Drop Pod

 

In the original 1650 point game I tied with an eldar tournament list (15:15). In this new list I replaced a reaversquad and took another veteransquad with sniper and bombs. I added some quadbolters and the autocannons.

In my meta Im currently the only 30k player so I dont have to worry about augury scanners.

I would love to get some feedback on how to make this list better, because I really wanna make the Sons of Horus work.

Edited December 24, 2015 by Iron Dude

[norngahl]

But you won't make them work with a list like this :D

 

Quadbolters are trash. Kick them. If you really want to, take quad mortars at least. Flamersquads and melta is rather trash in 30k as anything important has armored ceramite ;) Flamersquads against anything not 4+ are not bad, but too expensive as a whole for my taste. Better spend the points elsewhere.

 

If you go oribtal assault, buy expensive stuff that can deal with multiple targets to lower the transport costs. Leviathans jump into my mind. They beat the :cuss out of any unit on the field, tanks, monsterous creatures and infantry alike. If you want to put some real pressure on the table, take 3 of them in dreadnought drop pods and 2x veterans with attachend Maloghurst plus fire raptors and kraken penetrator missile primaris lightnings.

 

But with this list you will hardly win anything in a halfway serious enviroment.

[disease]

is that list even legal? aren't veterans only compulsory troops when running pride?

[Sheesh Mode]

is that list even legal? aren't veterans only compulsory troops when running pride?

Re-read Maloghurst's rules. 

 

@Iron Dude: think of the Sons of Horus as a hard hitting shock troop army that focuses on deepstrike and you'll be on the right track.

[Iron Dude]

But you won't make them work with a list like this

 

Quadbolters are trash. Kick them. If you really want to, take quad mortars at least. Flamersquads and melta is rather trash in 30k as anything important has armored ceramite Flamersquads against anything not 4+ are not bad, but too expensive as a whole for my taste. Better spend the points elsewhere.

 

If you go oribtal assault, buy expensive stuff that can deal with multiple targets to lower the transport costs. Leviathans jump into my mind. They beat the out of any unit on the field, tanks, monsterous creatures and infantry alike. If you want to put some real pressure on the table, take 3 of them in dreadnought drop pods and 2x veterans with attachend Maloghurst plus fire raptors and kraken penetrator missile primaris lightnings.

 

But with this list you will hardly win anything in a halfway serious enviroment.

 

 

 

is that list even legal? aren't veterans only compulsory troops when running pride?

Re-read Maloghurst's rules. 

 

@Iron Dude: think of the Sons of Horus as a hard hitting shock troop army that focuses on deepstrike and you'll be on the right track.

 

 

Hi guys,

 

thanks a lot for the supporting comments sharing ur knowldge and experience. They will be helpfull in to me once I'll find a pure 30k meta.

I think that my post was not clear enough about the people Im playing and about what Im encountering at my local and national tournaments.

I am facing wraithknight jetbike d-cannon combos, space marine gravlists (drop pod, bikes etc), decurycrons (sometimtes they re banned) and all kinds of taucheese.

Or in other words my nme consist of point snatching bikes, cheese creatures and op weaponry. Therefore every unti choice  made is designed to handle a spicific task.

No squad, besides the veterans are considered to be multipurpose choices. I will go more in depth about why i chose some units and will take in the feedback u gave to me into consideration.

 

Why orbital assault:

Being able to use Legion Drop Pods, especially in 7th gen, is awesome and absolutely awesome when playing sons.

No rule is stating that I have to leave the Drop pod. This plus open-topped makes them pretty effective scoring dakkaplatforms.

And the more u have the harder it get for your nme to deal with them all. My oponent must choose if he wants to deal with the pods making him vulnerable for the untis that arrive with the pods, or he can focus taking out the units that leave the pods, while Im gettin mealstorm points from the droppods. Taking expensive units would limit the amount pods Im gettin in, making it easier for my opponent to decide what he should do to me. Last but not least its kind of handy that your success is not depending on having the first turn.

 

Why flamers:

To be honest I wasnt a fan of them in the beginning as well. But when I played them first time in a pod i started to see their value. They are cheap and thx to the pod, they are in the position I want them to be. Actually the pod is what makes them good to begin with. Open-topped + not leaving the pod makes the initial flame attack crazy.  U dont have to worry about positioning. U can fantastic amoutn of hits. The reason why im taking these one is that they cryptonite to pathfinders, artillary crews and hordes in general. I mean 5 flamers are 5 flamers.

 

Why melters:

These ones are mostlikely always working in conjuction with the veterans. They spit out 5 highpower shots without vaping themselfes in the process so that the can provide some lookout sirs for mal before he joins in with the veterans. Its not enough to kill the most monsterrous creatures but it will softening them up for the veterans so the can bolter in the first round and melterbomb them in the second.

 

The quadbolters:

The quadbolters arent as bad as they seem. Im using them to threten and kill bikers. If u are comparing the amount of wounds that a quadmortar is going to cause to biker with a quadbolter, u will start to smile. They are both causing 2.5 wounds against marinebikers . Against eldarbikers, the the quadbolter is outright outperforming the quadmortar. So only thing the quad mortar can provide as an extra is the indirect fire. But is this worth the extra 20 points considering that I can land everywhere I want with the drop pod? And hey more drop pods that way.

 

The possible Leviathan:

I didnt think about that one at the first place. I looked up the rules and I agree on some points. This one is pretty killy, but squishy considering the points to pay as well.

One good d-cannonshot and 270+ pionts are down for good. I dont know about this one.

[Slips]

Consider too that a Quad Mortar has S8 Sunder with Shatter Shells, not just Frag Shells.

[Hesh Kadesh]

@Slipstreams - debateable. Book 1 didn't have them. Book 2 had them uniquely for the Achilles-Alpha, as included in the rules. Achilles-Alpha fluff states that it's purely the Achilles-Alpha that has unique access to those shells. This fluff is copied over into Red Book. Red Book then copy pastes the most recent rules, which has rules for both Shatter and Frag, without clarification. Red Books notoriously unfinished and poorly written, even by FW standards with missing rules, and FAQ's not actually addressing issues. Later books copy paste the same pages without fact checking them (they still provide a -1 to Pinning tests that they can't even legally cause, for example on the frag shells).

 

While I get that you guys play with the Shatter Shells being an option, similarly, our guys don't - and it's one of the first rules brought in.

 

@Iron Dude; To be frank, it seems like you're playing a different game than 30K. The 30K games works very differently to how 7th edition plays. It helps to clarify. 

 

I don't play 7th Ed vs 30K, that way lies madness, tbh.

 

The Quad Bolters don't fire properly until Turn 2, Snapshotting on the way they came in, and that's assuming that out of the 6 possibly units you can bring in first turn, you're placing the Quad Mortars in first - which of course then do nothing, and are free to be shot at, and killed. Sure, they have an AV12 3HP shield - sweet. But when Wave Serpents, Chimera's, and Drop Pods are already a thing to deal in 7th edition, isn't it asking a lot for them to be useable, and not get wrecked? They're already immobile, open topped, and with only a Combi-bolter and no Armoured Ceramite, pretty easily nixed that way too. Unlike 30K, Melta is still prevalent, and with nothing actually better to shoot, well, why not?

 

Autocannons? Eh. AV12, you'll probably get more out of Missiles, or Heavy Flamers. You have no AA either. 

 

Sniper Vets are pretty sweet for anti-MC, good use for Meltabombs too.

 

I'd be interested to see how this would cope against a GhostKeel Wing based list. A White Scars list with a Ghost Keel Wing would do rather well with the amount of Grav and melta it can put out.

[Iron Dude]

@hesh

 

The thing about the mortar is clearly debateable. In my country we are saying "in benefit for the doubt". I actually calculated the bike wounds with the S8 shots. If they dont have the shatter shells I dont see a reason to bring them in with a drop pod list.

 

About the thing that Im not playing 30k. Yeah kinda. I mean Im using the regualr Age of Darkness FOC, Im not having objective secured and so on. The missionsystem and the oppenents Im playing differs from 30k. I cant compare how it feels to play real 30k missions, since I rarely get to play them. What I can do is comparing it to 40k. It feels like playing 40k chaos space marine without total suckage the u experiencing playing csm vs eldar for exaple. Madness? Maybe. But its still less mad than putting a big chunk of money into plastic figures. XD

 

The autocannons are actually the weak attempt to get the 11th drop pod while providing at rudimental anti-air fire through volume. I do see that it isnt much. Honestly its a desperate attempt. I need a better choice for that. Cant deepstrike aa cannons or mortis dreads, can I? :( I was thinking of missles as well. But again I still have 2 squads of melterbombs and 5 melters. I hope u get how unsatisfied I am with the autocannon squad.

[depthcharge12]

Ok, so I made a 2100 point list to face off against Athrawes and his Thousand Sons. I'm not expecting anything worse than Land Raider at this point, and in the future, if I do, most people don't take armored ceramite I've noticed.

 

Drop Assault RoW

 

HQ

Maloghurst

 

Justaerin (5)

+ MM, 2 combi meltas, 4 axes, 1 chainfist

 

 

Elites

Apothecary

 

Mortis Contemptor

+ twin Kheres assault cannons

+ dread drop pod

 

 

Troops

18 tactical marines

+ swap bolters for ccws, Sgt w/AA/PS

 

10 Reavers

+ 9 chainaxes, Sgt w/AA/PF, 2 Melta guns

+ Dreadclaw DT

 

5 support marines

+ 5 Melta guns

+ legion drop pod DT

 

 

Fast Attack

5 Seeker marines

+ 5 combi plas

+ legion drop pod DT

 

 

Heavy Support

Kharybdis Drop Pod

 

 

So this list isn't super optimized, it's more for the feel of the legion. It's supposed to represent "Maloghurst's Own" company (though he likely didn't have one, but hey).

 

The 18 despoilers hop in the Kharybdis with Mal and the Apothecary for big blob of doom tactics. They'll have fearless, a 5+ FNP, plus the likely Merciless Fighters rule, not to mention whatever Warlord trait Mal picks up on top of his ability to score.

 

The list is meant to use and abuse the tip of the spear point rule for everyone to be on the table turn 2 from the rerolls. All of you will notice a lack of solid AT weapons, but as I've said, I won't see anything worse than a land raider. However, there are Melta Guns everywhere to deal with that issue.

 

Thoughts?