[HH1.0] Sons of Horus Tactica

[chosen40k]

You definitely like your Dreadclaws!

 

Yes I do! Being able to guarantee an assault Turn 2 is pretty nifty.

 

 

No double graviton guns on your contemptors, what heresy! I do imagine though that a heavily deep striking army works rather well with Horus, since he won't be the only deep striking threat. Although considering you don't have anything on the board first turn seems like you'd technically lose if you don't get first turn..

 

Oooo, Gravitons on Contemptors? Any tips for using them? I've tried them once but the low potential for damage didn't impress me. Unless it's for Haywire spam? Granted I've not seen a lot of armored ceramite targets in my area.

 

Also 3 drop pods are guaranteed the drop on turn 1 so no need to worry about that. :) IIRC it's auto lose of you don't have anything by the end of the turn.

[Withershadow]

 

 IIRC it's auto lose of you don't have anything by the end of the turn.

 

That's 40K. In 30K you lose if there is nothing on the table at any time.

[Runefyre]

 

 

 IIRC it's auto lose of you don't have anything by the end of the turn.

 

That's 40K. In 30K you lose if there is nothing on the table at any time.

 

Then how the hell does Orbital assault work? You auto-lose if you go second?

[Jarkaira]

^ Pretty much like that. It is acceptable though as you would auto-win if you go first :)

 

To be honest I would still enforce at the end of game turn interpretation of this.

[Lord Asvaldir]

 

No double graviton guns on your contemptors, what heresy! I do imagine though that a heavily deep striking army works rather well with Horus, since he won't be the only deep striking threat. Although considering you don't have anything on the board first turn seems like you'd technically lose if you don't get first turn..

 

Oooo, Gravitons on Contemptors? Any tips for using them? I've tried them once but the low potential for damage didn't impress me. Unless it's for Haywire spam? Granted I've not seen a lot of armored ceramite targets in my area.

 

Also 3 drop pods are guaranteed the drop on turn 1 so no need to worry about that. IIRC it's auto lose of you don't have anything by the end of the turn.

 

 

In 30k graviton weapons are haywire, so two of them per dreadnought is definetly not a low damage output. You're almost guaranteed to strip two HP off of any target regardless of if it has a flare shield or not. Those two gravtion blasts combined with charging in with fists means your dreads will easily murder any vehicle. 

 

I thought FW changed the auto losing rule back to how it works in 40k? Could be wrong about that though. 

[Withershadow]

They changed it in book v and then reverted it in every publication since.

[Withershadow]

Then how the hell does Orbital assault work? You auto-lose if you go second?

No, if you have no ground elements you auto-lose period, because you have no modes on the table when the game starts on your turn.

 

This is not an interpretation, this is a written rule. The intent could be to prevent null deployment.

 

Get some Javelins and jetbikes you'll be okay. :D

 

I don't necessarily agree with it either, because if you're playing on crappy tables without a lot of terrain, it can be easy for another alpha strike player to take out those few elements with his first wave and end the game on turn 1.

Edited February 23, 2017 by Withershadow

[Jarkaira]

Could have changed again with Inferno being released. Don't have mine yet to check upon.

[The Ironic Warrior]

Also, Horus doesn't make Terminators troops (Unlike Mally) but he does make Justaerin troops :) You've got the Elite slots, just wanted to point out to you :) 

[Withershadow]

Could have changed again with Inferno being released. Don't have mine yet to check upon.

Checked. It's unchanged. Null-deploy == auto-lose.

[chosen40k]

Ahhh I see. At least in my meta people seem to use the end of turn thing. Otherwise I wouldn't mind hiding a command Rhino somewhere!

[Withershadow]

Ahhh I see. At least in my meta people seem to use the end of turn thing. Otherwise I wouldn't mind hiding a command Rhino somewhere!

As Nusquam pointed out in the Thousand Sons thread, this only applies to the core Age of Darkness missions.

 

If you play the Shadow Wars missions from Book VI, you use the 40K rule of at end of Game Turn.

 

If you play any of the alternate game types from Book IV, whether it's Conquest Campaign, Strategic Raids, or City Fights, there is no "auto-lose" rule at all, so even if they clean the table, you can continue playing if there is something in reserve (and if you don't make your reserve rolls, you basically just skip your turn).

 

The Legendary Missions from Book V are also completely devoid of any "no models = you lose" stipulations.

[Sanct]

 

but he only has a power sword!

 

You're right; which is why you put him in a Damocles and hide him out of line of sight

 

 

And waste access to those rites? Hells Bells No!  I throw him in a 9 man combi-weapon/chain axe reaver squad and have the chief take the challenges (as he gunslings the handflamer, plasma pistol combo)

[Lord Asvaldir]

Malgohurst isn't great for accompanying an assault oriented unit as the prevents them from sweeping. He'd be better in a backfield shooting oriented unit. 

[The Ironic Warrior]

 

 

but he only has a power sword!

 

You're right; which is why you put him in a Damocles and hide him out of line of sight

 

 

And waste access to those rites? Hells Bells No!  I throw him in a 9 man combi-weapon/chain axe reaver squad and have the chief take the challenges (as he gunslings the handflamer, plasma pistol combo)

 

 

And the fact that he prevents sweeping advances and running makes him ideal for a Reaver squad why?

 

He's alright in a Heavy Support Squad in the backfield but he should be as far away from combat as humanly possible

[Rangaman]

Well to be fair it sounds like that is a shooty Reaver squad (I would probably use the same squad setup but as Veterans instead), Mals Fearless bubble I find is rarely used, so might as well throw him in the thick of it and get the most use of his banner.

 

Its not like one squad that cant run (when they want to shoot anyway) and cant sweep (when ideally you would want other squads supporting an assault) really makes a huge difference, otherwise just throw him in a Cata Terminator squad with combi weapons and lightning claws or fists. Win-win!

Edited February 26, 2017 by Rangaman

[The Ironic Warrior]

Rang that is true, if it was a shooty squad I could see the use, I just feel as an HQ choice who's basically a support character (And more often than not your Warlord) I wouldn't wanna risk him in a combat-rich environment when he's so squishy :) 

[Withershadow]

That's terrible. You're giving up his scoring ability, endangering your warlord for VP purposes, and crippling a CQB squad from sweeping, all to get use out of the banner? Ludicrous.

 

Stick him with a long-ranged support squad or a rapier battery on an objective, and call it a day.  The perfect really is the enemy of good here, you're trying to squeeze out every little bit out of every ability, and end up shooting yourself in the dick.

[Rangaman]

Yea I 100% agree, Mal is best suited to hiding in a Damocles or sat back with a Support squad, but I can imagine hiding him every game will get boring at some point. Edited February 26, 2017 by Rangaman

[disease]

Am I correct in thinking the Long March can be taken as an allied detachment, but just cannot have allies itself if taken primary>?

[Sanct]

That's terrible. You're giving up his scoring ability, endangering your warlord for VP purposes, and crippling a CQB squad from sweeping, all to get use out of the banner? Ludicrous.

 

That's terrible. You're losing his limited melee/shooting, spending 100 points more on putting your Warlord in a Rhino hull for protection, getting no use of his banner, losing some Rite choices, using an EXTRA HQ slot, missing out on the flexibility of his scoring and running your Warlord solo.  All because you're afraid of losing sweep on a squad?  Ludicrous and ridiculous. 

 

The reason to take Maloghurst is making vets/reavers troops while still using rites.  Taking a damocles, rapier or most long range squads limits that (depending on the rite)

Edited February 26, 2017 by Sanct

[depthcharge12]

Just had an apocalypse game yesterday, all 30k. I will give some feedback on how units performed, but take it with a grain of salt as apoc is a whole nother beast.

 

Ironically, I faced off against a Luna Wolves player with TS allies, and a NL player. My army was well spread out over the 4 tables, and I had 2500 points of dark Angels as well.

 

Maloghurst/Damocles:

- sat back all game, used Lance bombardment to hurt a Typhon and then called in deep strikers, nothing impressive, but still a good choice

 

Rapier battery:

- laser rapiers survived all game in Apoc, sniping away at enemy armor, killing a TS proteus, stripping hull points on a Stormbird, and wing a general nuisance. I'm sure it killed more, but I was focused on the infantry game on the far side

 

- Opponent's quad mortar batteries, I hate these things on principle due to how overly cost efficient they are, but he kind of needed them with Black Reaving because he only had one heavy support choice. It was also apocalypse, so I couldn't begrudge him that. He ran an apothecary in the unit in cover, and despite hammering the unit twice with a reaver Gatling blaster and apocalypse missile launcher, I wound up killing only one of the three batteries within the unit. My sniper vets couldn't outflank close enough to fire on them as the guns were firmly entrenched in the middle and would continue to obliterate knights.

 

Sniper vets:

- Ran two squads on the flank with a DA sniper vet squad. They came in Beer 3 (can't remember turn :P) and absolutely made the traitor side (I was loyalist for some reason, mostly balance) crap their collective power armor. I systematically shot off enemy Reaver squads that were threatening my tacticals advance on the objective, but they took a pounding because we had night fighting during half of the game, and the Reavers had apothecaries.

 

- My 3 sniper squads ate a lightning phophex bombardment :/ which was unfortunate, but they all rallied and continued to hamper progress on the flank

 

Leviathan:

-our Warmaster (a great blood angel guy) took over control of him for a majority of time. He survived most things thrown at him, and managed to avoid hell due to intelligent positioning between buildings and units. Managed to roll up a flank of NL bikers, terror squads, and mounted troops. Tried to assault Sekhmet last turn but failed distance.

 

- My Dark angel one had the Grav/Phos/claw going for it and would manage to delete a unit a turn, but I felt it didn't do too much. It did however put an entire squad of Raptors with Curze in a gravity garbage compactor and then bombed wth space napalm. This pissed of the AL player on my side because he wanted the unit for himself to be assaulted by Alpharius :D he decided not to charge so Al could go merc Curze.

 

Seekers:

I forgot about these guys till Beer 3 lol so I had them come off board edge, which was a god send as the traitors had somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 terminators teleport in on the "infantry board". The Seekers utilized relentless Scorpius bolters to snipe off a 6 man NL terminator squad that wanted a piece of my Fellblade, which had been pooping in their cereal all game lol

 

- I almost forgot about them or ran out of time, but they managed to kill a couple terminators here and there with great efficiency. I'd run them again just because of how fun they were. Couldn't really put a dent in Sekhmet, but nothing in that game really could. Will get to later.

 

Justaerin:

- they survived till around Beer 4, and second Dr Pepper. Best use was to have them land with a Dreadclaw and terrorize any special infantry killers, this case, Reavers. They unfortunately only killed off maybe 10 Reavers in one unit, and 7 in another all told because of an apothecary in the enemy unit, and damned night fighting pretty much the entire game from the NL player :P I'm considering putting them in a Kharybdis next time, and giving them an apothecary and either a praetor that can hit at initiative to whittle down dudes, or a few lighting claw guys. Reavers get so many attacks with S5 now, so you do have to survive stuff like that. Though the Luna Wolf Praetor managed to do the heavy lifting to kill the Justaerin. I wouldn't use the unit to touch Sekhmet with a 13 1/2 foot pole because of force and all the psychic shenanigans they can pull.

 

Reavers:

- My poor Reavers forgot to assault one turn as we ran out of time, so they got ganged up on by NL shooting, and then stabbed to death by two praetors that joined the enemy Reaver squad :( I want to knee jerk and say they sucked, but it was my fault for not charging lol and my apothecary died, so the Reavers weren't able to absorb some Paragon Blade hits.

 

-The enemy Luna Wolves dude ran 2 15 man squads I believe with jump packs, and did quite well with them, though I'd like to attribute their success to night fighting and annoying :cuss apothecaries. Not to mention praetors. I'd highly advise running them in a full unit to anyone with an apothecary and a praetor. Though a vindicator or Scorpius could likely handle them, which was odd, because no one brought ANY to the game :D

 

Dreadclaw/Kharybdis:

- these pods survived past Beer 4 into the endgame as they scooted around, ferrying assault troops, and launching missiles/flame attacks on enemy units. Their best use was running over Sekhmet units as they seemed to bring enough attacks to annoy them and hurt them. I'd definitely bring them again, worth their weight in gold.

 

Lascannon support squad:

- oddly enough, they survived all turn as well, getting positioned on the far left, tank side. I didn't monitor them during the game, but they made friends with a SW Arachnus Deredeo and would snipe land raiders, superheavies, and take pot shots at the stormbird. Relentless lascannons are awesome (Long March). They'll need more micromanaging in smaller games and more cover as well to survive.

 

Knights:

My knights died early on in the game, between beer 1 and beer 2, though they soaked up a lot of firepower. I will say that rapier quad mortars pretty much just nope'd my Acheron though, which was kinda disappointing to see a unit that costs half as much just take its lunch money.

 

 

Enemy unit analysis - TS:

K, so here's what happened with these two special units, though the other TS units didn't seem to perform nearly as much.

 

Sekhmet:

- I see this unit as a squad that teleports into an objective and just says, "nope not getting it." They have the survivability from a 2+/3++ but also 2W, rerolling 1's when they come in, and usually had a TS Libby or Praetor dropping biomancy on them, in this case Endurance and a few others. They then had a 2+/3++ 2W eternal warrior with a 4+ FNP. Yeah. While everything is allowable in apoc, I will find the use of them in regular games to be mmmh unsportsmanlike. However, the only thing that the Sekhmet lack is mobility and shooting. The Asphyx rounds are good, but not that good. The units of Sekhmet pretty much just sat on a major objective the entire game and ate anything that charged them or shot at them. I tried everything from Reaver weapons (no D though) to Seekers, to sniper vets and my team tried as well to no avail. I think the best option is just to ignore them and outmaneuver them. Let them have an objective and just kill the other parts of the army.

 

Khenetai blade squad:

- The glass cannons to end all glass cannons. Absolutely sick at 10 man squads, and I saw it eat eat a Grey Slayers squad with Geiger before the squad could attack back. It rolled warp speed, and it was untouchable. Iron arm would be insane as well. However, they crumple like a wet bag if you shoot them.

 

I think the best option when facing either of these units is actually massed bolter fire. Just force saves all day and try to make them fail leadership checks.

 

Edit:

 

"Look at your flank, now back to me, now back to to your flank, I'm riding a Dreadclaw and surrounding your army with 30 veterans and Justaerin..."

 

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/ac316/treacyjohn2/5D36FC6A-EC3D-4D2B-B388-F9CA48A726B3_zpsuvugzafl.jpg

Edited February 26, 2017 by depthcharge12

[Withershadow]

 

 

That's terrible. You're giving up his scoring ability, endangering your warlord for VP purposes, and crippling a CQB squad from sweeping, all to get use out of the banner? Ludicrous.

That's terrible. You're losing his limited melee/shooting, spending 100 points more on putting your Warlord in a Rhino hull for protection, getting no use of his banner, losing some Rite choices, using an EXTRA HQ slot, missing out on the flexibility of his scoring and running your Warlord solo. All because you're afraid of losing sweep on a squad? Ludicrous and ridiculous.

 

The reason to take Maloghurst is making vets/reavers troops while still using rites. Taking a damocles, rapier or most long range squads limits that (depending on the rite)

I see I hit a nerve. Let's enumerate all the ways you're objectively wrong.

 

1. I never advocated for a Damocles since SoH don't really need the reserve bonus.

2. A Damocles is not a waste of an HQ slot, slots that no one ever is desperate for ever, given all the things it can do.

3. Clearly if you're wanting to run a Rite that disallows Rhinos, you don't being one. Duh.

4. His handful of power axe attacks do not outweigh giving up a victory point when he dies to a sergeant.

5. You're not wasting his banner or scoring putting him in a backfield shooting unit. You're creating a scoring backfield unit that is immune to pinning and casualty break tests, while being more potent than any innately scoring unit you could have put on your home objective.

6. If you don't see the value of relentless rapiers or support squads in Long March, over bringing more Reavers (lol), I don't know what to tell you.

[Marshal Loss]

Small point: power sword, not power axe. That being said, agreed.

 

Yes, Maloghurst is great because he opens up more troop options for us, but taking units other than Veterans and Reavers in no way limits what you're getting out of him. Because he makes them troops, they're already scoring, so having him on the front lines isn't really useful at all. You can't safely detach him from a unit to run to an objective, because he can't run, and is far from durable. The value of fearless is minimal when placed in a ~10 man T4 3+ unit, particularly one armed with combi-weapons that is going to be a priority target. Stopping Reavers from sweeping is actually a big deal because kitted out for shooting or not, they're not called an evolution of a despoiler squad for nothing - they should be aiming to get themselves into melee, not to mention the fact that he stops you from running as well. Being able to sweep is huge, particularly if you're managing to get Crusader from The Long March. Even if not...why remove the chance of sweeping a unit when you beat it in combat? Units break in 30k, so take advantage of it.

 

If anything, it's better to take something like a Damocles, rapier or 'long range squad' when you take Maloghurst than without, because you're going to be spending less points on the obligatory tactical tax, therefore having more points spare to put into other units. I'm a big fan of just putting Maloghurst in a small unit of Cataphractii and letting them be a fearless anvil unit close to my deployment zone, while my cc/close-ranged units close the gap rapidly and do the actual killing.

 

And this is, to be brutally honest, ignoring the fact that Reavers really aren't worth taking over Veterans anymore, unless you're running them specifically as Despoilers. I'm not particularly bothered by this, as I used my Reaver models as Veterans and Reavers as the mood took me, but 10x Veterans with combi-weapons costs the same as 10x Reavers with 5x combi-weapons, and Veterans get AP2 on a 6 while Reavers get AP3 and reduced range. All Reavers get are precision shots/strikes, which while cool aren't very useful. The poor buggers need a re-evaluation from FW.

[Rangaman]

Just had an apocalypse game yesterday, all 30k. I will give some feedback on how units performed, but take it with a grain of salt as apoc is a whole nother beast.

 

Ironically, I faced off against a Luna Wolves player with TS allies, and a NL player. My army was well spread out over the 4 tables, and I had 2500 points of dark Angels as well.

 

Maloghurst/Damocles:

- sat back all game, used Lance bombardment to hurt a Typhon and then called in deep strikers, nothing impressive, but still a good choice

 

Rapier battery:

- laser rapiers survived all game in Apoc, sniping away at enemy armor, killing a TS proteus, stripping hull points on a Stormbird, and wing a general nuisance. I'm sure it killed more, but I was focused on the infantry game on the far side

 

- Opponent's quad mortar batteries, I hate these things on principle due to how overly cost efficient they are, but he kind of needed them with Black Reaving because he only had one heavy support choice. It was also apocalypse, so I couldn't begrudge him that. He ran an apothecary in the unit in cover, and despite hammering the unit twice with a reaver Gatling blaster and apocalypse missile launcher, I wound up killing only one of the three batteries within the unit. My sniper vets couldn't outflank close enough to fire on them as the guns were firmly entrenched in the middle and would continue to obliterate knights.

 

Sniper vets:

- Ran two squads on the flank with a DA sniper vet squad. They came in Beer 3 (can't remember turn :P) and absolutely made the traitor side (I was loyalist for some reason, mostly balance) crap their collective power armor. I systematically shot off enemy Reaver squads that were threatening my tacticals advance on the objective, but they took a pounding because we had night fighting during half of the game, and the Reavers had apothecaries.

 

- My 3 sniper squads ate a lightning phophex bombardment :/ which was unfortunate, but they all rallied and continued to hamper progress on the flank

 

Leviathan:

-our Warmaster (a great blood angel guy) took over control of him for a majority of time. He survived most things thrown at him, and managed to avoid hell due to intelligent positioning between buildings and units. Managed to roll up a flank of NL bikers, terror squads, and mounted troops. Tried to assault Sekhmet last turn but failed distance.

 

- My Dark angel one had the Grav/Phos/claw going for it and would manage to delete a unit a turn, but I felt it didn't do too much. It did however put an entire squad of Raptors with Curze in a gravity garbage compactor and then bombed wth space napalm. This pissed of the AL player on my side because he wanted the unit for himself to be assaulted by Alpharius :D he decided not to charge so Al could go merc Curze.

 

Seekers:

I forgot about these guys till Beer 3 lol so I had them come off board edge, which was a god send as the traitors had somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 terminators teleport in on the "infantry board". The Seekers utilized relentless Scorpius bolters to snipe off a 6 man NL terminator squad that wanted a piece of my Fellblade, which had been pooping in their cereal all game lol

 

- I almost forgot about them or ran out of time, but they managed to kill a couple terminators here and there with great efficiency. I'd run them again just because of how fun they were. Couldn't really put a dent in Sekhmet, but nothing in that game really could. Will get to later.

 

Justaerin:

- they survived till around Beer 4, and second Dr Pepper. Best use was to have them land with a Dreadclaw and terrorize any special infantry killers, this case, Reavers. They unfortunately only killed off maybe 10 Reavers in one unit, and 7 in another all told because of an apothecary in the enemy unit, and damned night fighting pretty much the entire game from the NL player :P I'm considering putting them in a Kharybdis next time, and giving them an apothecary and either a praetor that can hit at initiative to whittle down dudes, or a few lighting claw guys. Reavers get so many attacks with S5 now, so you do have to survive stuff like that. Though the Luna Wolf Praetor managed to do the heavy lifting to kill the Justaerin. I wouldn't use the unit to touch Sekhmet with a 13 1/2 foot pole because of force and all the psychic shenanigans they can pull.

 

Reavers:

- My poor Reavers forgot to assault one turn as we ran out of time, so they got ganged up on by NL shooting, and then stabbed to death by two praetors that joined the enemy Reaver squad :( I want to knee jerk and say they sucked, but it was my fault for not charging lol and my apothecary died, so the Reavers weren't able to absorb some Paragon Blade hits.

 

-The enemy Luna Wolves dude ran 2 15 man squads I believe with jump packs, and did quite well with them, though I'd like to attribute their success to night fighting and annoying :cuss apothecaries. Not to mention praetors. I'd highly advise running them in a full unit to anyone with an apothecary and a praetor. Though a vindicator or Scorpius could likely handle them, which was odd, because no one brought ANY to the game :D

 

Dreadclaw/Kharybdis:

- these pods survived past Beer 4 into the endgame as they scooted around, ferrying assault troops, and launching missiles/flame attacks on enemy units. Their best use was running over Sekhmet units as they seemed to bring enough attacks to annoy them and hurt them. I'd definitely bring them again, worth their weight in gold.

 

Lascannon support squad:

- oddly enough, they survived all turn as well, getting positioned on the far left, tank side. I didn't monitor them during the game, but they made friends with a SW Arachnus Deredeo and would snipe land raiders, superheavies, and take pot shots at the stormbird. Relentless lascannons are awesome (Long March). They'll need more micromanaging in smaller games and more cover as well to survive.

 

Knights:

My knights died early on in the game, between beer 1 and beer 2, though they soaked up a lot of firepower. I will say that rapier quad mortars pretty much just nope'd my Acheron though, which was kinda disappointing to see a unit that costs half as much just take its lunch money.

 

 

Enemy unit analysis - TS:

K, so here's what happened with these two special units, though the other TS units didn't seem to perform nearly as much.

 

Sekhmet:

- I see this unit as a squad that teleports into an objective and just says, "nope not getting it." They have the survivability from a 2+/3++ but also 2W, rerolling 1's when they come in, and usually had a TS Libby or Praetor dropping biomancy on them, in this case Endurance and a few others. They then had a 2+/3++ 2W eternal warrior with a 4+ FNP. Yeah. While everything is allowable in apoc, I will find the use of them in regular games to be mmmh unsportsmanlike. However, the only thing that the Sekhmet lack is mobility and shooting. The Asphyx rounds are good, but not that good. The units of Sekhmet pretty much just sat on a major objective the entire game and ate anything that charged them or shot at them. I tried everything from Reaver weapons (no D though) to Seekers, to sniper vets and my team tried as well to no avail. I think the best option is just to ignore them and outmaneuver them. Let them have an objective and just kill the other parts of the army.

 

Khenetai blade squad:

- The glass cannons to end all glass cannons. Absolutely sick at 10 man squads, and I saw it eat eat a Grey Slayers squad with Geiger before the squad could attack back. It rolled warp speed, and it was untouchable. Iron arm would be insane as well. However, they crumple like a wet bag if you shoot them.

 

I think the best option when facing either of these units is actually massed bolter fire. Just force saves all day and try to make them fail leadership checks.

 

Edit:

 

"Look at your flank, now back to me, now back to to your flank, I'm riding a Dreadclaw and surrounding your army with 30 veterans and Justaerin..."

 

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/ac316/treacyjohn2/5D36FC6A-EC3D-4D2B-B388-F9CA48A726B3_zpsuvugzafl.jpg

Nice beer report Depthcharge, did the Stormbird survive the whole game?