8th Edition and A Fist Full of Zeal

[Marshal_Roujakis]

Just bring an Apothecary, he can bring back wounds and infantry...

or a Techmarine if you're worried about your vehicles

[Gendo]

Trouble I've had is not blowing all my Elites on Helbrecht's one squad. Apothecaries, Ancients, Veterans, Centurions and the like. Assuming FOC is largely unchanged from 7th, I'll have to make a hard choice if I wanna take those Ironclads along too.

Vanguard Detachment is your friend here. 1-2 HQ and 3-6 Elites. Troops are 0-3 and everything else is 0-2. Great detachment for that really bloated Elites slot.

I haven't seen any detachment rules, but I was under the impression that they were an obsolete idea in the brave new world of 8th edition. Of course without DT LRC that presents its own serious limitation for my typical big tank-cannon tank-cannon tank trio.

As long as you pay with 1 HQ you cant take pretty much anything, there's even a single slot det but that it's -1 CP

[AndrewChristlieb]

Seems like I read that matched play (which is pretty much all I'll be doing) has a limit on the number of... detachments? formations? whatever...

[Gendo]

Seems like I read that matched play (which is pretty much all I'll be doing) has a limit on the number of... detachments? formations? whatever...

It's for tournaments, 2 Detachments up to 2k points, 3 from 2001 points.

[Acebaur]

 

Seems like I read that matched play (which is pretty much all I'll be doing) has a limit on the number of... detachments? formations? whatever...

It's for tournaments, 2 Detachments up to 2k points, 3 from 2001 points.

 

 

And it's only a suggestion at that.

[BitsHammer]

With the change in scope as we've established the Tide not being an option for now, I went ahead and adjusted the thread title to reflect more general tactics discussion in regards to the new edition rather than start a new thread crusade for something that is related to the original topic.

 

So with my EC arriving today along with with my first boxes of Crusader Squad upgrades I've finally started my crusade properly and decided to pick up some valuable support options via the Command Squad box to gain an Apothecary and Ancient to field in my army.

 

Now the Apothecary only gains a bike option which I'll inevitably build to support a Choppy Bike Command Squad, but for now I am sticking to keeping him as a foot model. The question of equipment comes with the Company Ancient, especially when you consider him as a model to keep near Grimaldus and Helbrecht. Standard he comes with a Bolt Pistol but he can trade that for a different Pistol, Combi Weapon or one of the Melee weapons (which have everything from power weapons, to lighting claws and power fists, to thunder hammers).

 

With the buffs our HQs give, which seems like the best options for our army which wants to get close up and stuck in?

 

Also, considering Helbrecht's Crusade of Wrath rule, which power weapons are looking good for cheap loadouts? i'm looking at giving him a choppy bodyguard unit that can take wounds for him and slice and/or dice heretics.

[T-Rock]

Played my first game of 8th brothers! It was a 150 point power level battle, which is equivalent to roughly 2,000 points. The bad news is, I got tabled in two turns. The good news is, I think we have potential to be nasty. That probably sounds pretty contradictory, so I'll elaborate below. 

 

My List

• Two LRCs with 20 men crusader squads
• Grimaldus, EC, Helbrecht
• Two vindicators
• Two drop pods with 10 man crusader squads
• Two devastator squads with las/grav/rocket
   

Tyranid List

• 80 genestealers
• Swarmlord
• Some other medium sized bugs

 

As he pulled out all his bugs, I felt pretty confident I'd be able to rip through them with shooting, then charge in with my crusaders for clean up. Considering I was done deploying well before he was (as I counted on) I placed my units assuming I'd have first turn. That is where things went south.

 

He freaking seized. 

 

I'll save you all the math, but he was able to move, advance (rolled 6s), move again (Swarm Lord Command Ability), then charge. All in all it totaled about 30" of movement turn one. He killed my small dev squads and consolidated in to my LRCs. I was basically doomed at that point. Turn one 30" charge with 80 genestealers will do that. I'll save you the details, but safe to say there wasn't much I could do after that. My crusader squads fought valiantly and killed a bunch of bugs, but there weight of dice and losing all the firepower from my LRCs and a vindicator (the other one rolled 1s) made it virtually impossible to recover. 

 

But there is good news!

1. Emperors Champion eats heros alive. D3 damage from 5 potential attacks rerolling hits and wounds? Yes please!
2. The synergy between Grimaldus and Helbrecht is absolutely insane. The sheer weight of dice is huge.
3. Using command points to get attacks in by interrupting your opponent is going to be huge in games with multiple combats
4. Granted they weren't up against much AT, but the LRCs were incredibly durable. The sheer number of wounds they tank/shots they put out is nasty. Also, frag launchers stripped 3 mortal wounds from the Swarmlord in overwatch. I was pleased.
5. As a whole, the army felt like a Black Templar army should and I missed that. Granted, my gameplan was completely squashed right out the gate, but the feeling of my frag cannon launchers blasting bugs while the EC killed a character and my crusaders charged in to battle with Helbrecht and Grimaldus was as zealous as it sounds. 

[Acebaur]

The frag launchers don't work in overwatch, they only activate when the LRC successfully charges

 

30" in one turn sounds crazy, did he roll really well?

[BitsHammer]

I'd have to dwelve into that book of heretical xenos again, but from what I've been told only Genestealers can advance and charge. Hat said, Hormagants with the Swarmlord,s ability can turn one charge thanks to a double move allowing them to move 16" a turn.

 

After mucking about with painting a shiny black last night (and finding my highlight color is faaaar too subtle to be seen at a distance of more than two feet) I finally settled on giving my Company Ancient (henceforth to be known as my Crusade Ancient) a Storm Bolter (actually a combi-bolter nicked from the Betrayal at Calth box) as for two points you double to quadruple his firepower and double his effective plinking range, making him much more capable of supporting the army as a whole. Chapter Ancients only have Power Swords as an option and while fluffy as heck, I felt utility trumped blind fluff for this model. Maybe next time when I buy another box so I can make a bike Apothecary for a choppy Sword Brethren unit.

 

I'm going to crunch some numbers in a bit regarding our power weapon options against T3-7 when buffed by Helbrecht. That could influence how we equip our Sword Brethren (aka Company Vets) to protect him after all.

[T-Rock]

Ahh, GW employee informed me wrong then. Didn't make a huge difference in the grand scheme of things, I suppose. Yes, he rolled incredibly well. 

• 8" regular move
• 1" for adrenal gland
• 6" roll for advance
• 8" second movement from Swarm Lord
• 7" charge roll. 
• 12" he had from deployment
• Not anticipating losing first turn/his insane movement I deployed 4-5" 

Interesting note only the hormagaunts benefit from the Swarm Lord's ability. Either he got it wrong, or I'm forgetting he had a unit in his list. To keep this within the theme of the thread, it seems like turn 1 assault is going to be something we'll have to learn how to handle. With our hero buffs, we will be pretty devastating against most builds, but feel like we're going to need a mixed force, as we aren't necessarily an amazing CC army.

 

I believe our strength will come from having the strong shooting of SM, backed up by above average CC units.

[BitsHammer]

I still feel a mixed unit fits both the theme of Crusader squads, and helps give us extra shooting over melee builds while having more melee than the shooting builds. It won't out perform either of the others on its own but it is well balanced and can thin units down over the entire turn to force them to suffer from Battleshock as well.

 

Basically we can out "all rounder" anything a Tactical squad can do in terms of having a problem solver troop choice.

[Metic]

Mixed squads are great, but if you bring grim or helbrecht you will want to max for melee since you'll be hitting str 5 or generating additional hits in cc.

[BitsHammer]

Mixed squads are great, but if you bring grim or helbrecht you will want to max for melee since you'll be hitting str 5 or generating additional hits in cc.

Helbrecht isn't going to be buffing units with that bonus point of strength so he's better buffing the EC, himself, Grimaldus and a unit of Sword Brethren (Company Vets) with power weapons.

 

Grimaldus does give bonus attacks, but only on 6s and those don't give bonus attacks. So he helps, but it's like sending a glass of water to a desert: it's not enough. They buff melee, but don't make it an option we can rely on completely.

 

Also, small note: if you consolidate into multiple units to engage them, they can fight you, but you can only fight the unit you initially charged (Assault Rules for choosing targets), so use that power wisely.

[BitsHammer]

Going over the numbers, without the Crusade of Wrath, the Axe is the most balanced option as it has a higher limit before it starts needing 6s to wound while still inflicting a -2 against models. With Crusade of Wrath I want to say the Sword is better as it wounds T4 down on 3s (2s if you know of any T2 stuff), T5 on 4s and anything below T10 on 5s. With a -3 AP that means most things will take a lot more wounds without armour saves. And anyone with a 4+ save or worse doesn't get armour against it.

 

The Axe gains a higher limit wounding everything T5 and down on 3s, and anything below T12 on 5s, but the trade off is the slightly higher chance of saving for anyone with a 4+ or worse.

 

Of course with the new wounding table the Axe really only gains benefits against the toughest things, so it looks like Sword Brethren near Helbrecht are best geared up with Swords from the power weapons, while a unit on bikes would work better with Axes since they wouldn't be gaining the extra point of strength.

[Gendo]

I still feel a mixed unit fits both the theme of Crusader squads, and helps give us extra shooting over melee builds while having more melee than the shooting builds. It won't out perform either of the others on its own but it is well balanced and can thin units down over the entire turn to force them to suffer from Battleshock as well.

 

Basically we can out "all rounder" anything a Tactical squad can do in terms of having a problem solver troop choice.

 

With pistols now maintaining their profile in CC I'll give a Plasma Pistol to everyone who can take it, for 7 points seems very good and that's the only mixing i'll be doing.

 

Don't see much use in ranged weapons for a unit that will want to charge regardless, take a Flamer, you'll probably never be in range to use it until you make the charge so probably only useful for overwatch when charged at.

 

Since you want to be moving Heavy Weapons become way less effective and they are costly, maybe a Special has a useful range out of a charging blob but you lose 3 attacks when you make it into CC.

 

I rather give more committed shooting to other units, like 2x 5 man squads in a rhino who then split and still have support from 2 cheap Storm Bolters.

[Gendo]

Trying to maximise points vs firepower/bodies here:

 

Instead of 1 LRC with 15 man inside with CC standard weapons at 469pts.

 

Take 2 Rhinos with 2 Storm Bolters each and 10 CC man inside for 386pts

And a Razorback with Twin Assault Cannon and 5 CC Crusaders for 165pts

And insert HQ where you like.

Add 3 plasma pistols for 21pts.

 

You now have 25 CC Crusaders with about the same support as the LRC and 3 boxes to bring down instead of one.

[BitsHammer]

Only vehicle with room to carry an extra body is the Razorback, so it's less "where you like" and more "in the shooty box instead of the regular box".

 

That aside, you make a fair point for target saturation (especially since we no longer need assault vehicles to assault) and I agree: more is better when it comes to targets. Especially if you play against Tau or Guard regularly.

[Gendo]

 

Played my first game of 8th brothers! It was a 150 point power level battle, which is equivalent to roughly 2,000 points. The bad news is, I got tabled in two turns. The good news is, I think we have potential to be nasty. That probably sounds pretty contradictory, so I'll elaborate below. 

 

My List

• Two LRCs with 20 men crusader squads
• Grimaldus, EC, Helbrecht
• Two vindicators
• Two drop pods with 10 man crusader squads
• Two devastator squads with las/grav/rocket

   

Tyranid List

• 80 genestealers
• Swarmlord
• Some other medium sized bugs

 

As he pulled out all his bugs, I felt pretty confident I'd be able to rip through them with shooting, then charge in with my crusaders for clean up. Considering I was done deploying well before he was (as I counted on) I placed my units assuming I'd have first turn. That is where things went south.

 

He freaking seized. 

 

I'll save you all the math, but he was able to move, advance (rolled 6s), move again (Swarm Lord Command Ability), then charge. All in all it totaled about 30" of movement turn one. He killed my small dev squads and consolidated in to my LRCs. I was basically doomed at that point. Turn one 30" charge with 80 genestealers will do that. I'll save you the details, but safe to say there wasn't much I could do after that. My crusader squads fought valiantly and killed a bunch of bugs, but there weight of dice and losing all the firepower from my LRCs and a vindicator (the other one rolled 1s) made it virtually impossible to recover. 

 

But there is good news!

1. Emperors Champion eats heros alive. D3 damage from 5 potential attacks rerolling hits and wounds? Yes please!
2. The synergy between Grimaldus and Helbrecht is absolutely insane. The sheer weight of dice is huge.
3. Using command points to get attacks in by interrupting your opponent is going to be huge in games with multiple combats
4. Granted they weren't up against much AT, but the LRCs were incredibly durable. The sheer number of wounds they tank/shots they put out is nasty. Also, frag launchers stripped 3 mortal wounds from the Swarmlord in overwatch. I was pleased.
5. As a whole, the army felt like a Black Templar army should and I missed that. Granted, my gameplan was completely squashed right out the gate, but the feeling of my frag cannon launchers blasting bugs while the EC killed a character and my crusaders charged in to battle with Helbrecht and Grimaldus was as zealous as it sounds. 

 

 

Thanks for sharing, your use of Dev Squads is disturbing ;)

 

Why not put the Crusaders in the LRC? The point of boxes is to survive a round of shooting imo and for the weapons alone you can spend half as much for the same output, like the example i've made above.

[Castellan Doren]

If GW is dumb enough to give us devastators then lets remind them why it's a bad idea.

 

I played my first game of 8th. Only 24 points. And it was a three way game.

 

EC

Chaplain

10 man crusade sq, lgtng claw & flamer

5 man crusade squad, pw sw & meltagun

 

Vs necrons and blueberries

 

The good, EC is awesomely broken. Destroyed a necron lord, two wraiths, and the entire ultramarine player except for the apothecary. Also, dual lightning claws on sword brothers is great.

 

The bad, necrons must be concentrated on in full unit chunks. The ability to roll we'll be back for everyone across several turns is rough. Unless we were playing wrong. In that case i should have mopped both teams off the board.

 

The ugly, using power points to build lists is crap. It always assumes you will take every option available to a unit.

[BitsHammer]

GW gave us everthing but Psykers. I'm at the opinion that we can make use of generally everything but Tact Squads (Crusaders are better) and Scouts (don't fit the fluff honestly) but just about everything else has some level of utility and can be seen as our Initiates taking other combat roles to support the Crusader Squads as they don't actively have a Neophyte of their own to train at that moment. Of course Sword Brethren fill the various Veteran squad roles as needed for the overall tactics being employed.

 

Templars are a flexible chapter that fill roles as needed because while charging forth into combat is the soul of our army, the support elements to make it happen are still incredibly important to make it happen.

 

EDIT: Before anyone marches out if things fit crusading or not, I want to point out that Duty is the core of our beliefs, not blind Zeal. Much like Sigismund, we will accomplish our mission and thus will employ whatever we need to (you know, minus heresy or sorcery) in order to ensure our objectives are completed.

[Gendo]

GW gave us everthing but Psykers. I'm at the opinion that we can make use of generally everything but Tact Squads (Crusaders are better) and Scouts (don't fit the fluff honestly) but just about everything else has some level of utility and can be seen as our Initiates taking other combat roles to support the Crusader Squads as they don't actively have a Neophyte of their own to train at that moment.

 

Templars are a flexible chapter that fill roles as needed because while charging forth into combat is the soul of our army, the support elements to make it happen are still incredibly important to make it happen.

 

Aren't Neophytes our Devastators?

[BitsHammer]

 

GW gave us everthing but Psykers. I'm at the opinion that we can make use of generally everything but Tact Squads (Crusaders are better) and Scouts (don't fit the fluff honestly) but just about everything else has some level of utility and can be seen as our Initiates taking other combat roles to support the Crusader Squads as they don't actively have a Neophyte of their own to train at that moment.

Templars are a flexible chapter that fill roles as needed because while charging forth into combat is the soul of our army, the support elements to make it happen are still incredibly important to make it happen.

 

 

Aren't Neophytes our Devastators?

Neophytes are the guys in Carapace Armour in the Crusader Squad. In Codex chapters the scouts who become Marines become Devastators before anything else to adjust to their power armour, learn patience and tactics. From their they become Assault Marines and then Tacticals.

 

We train our Neophytes personally in both our manner of war as well as the way of the sword (again, in emlulation of Sigismund THE GREATEST HERESY ERA SWORDSMAN IN THE IMPERIUM).

[Acebaur]

If GW is dumb enough to give us devastators then lets remind them why it's a bad idea.

 

I played my first game of 8th. Only 24 points. And it was a three way game.

 

EC

Chaplain

10 man crusade sq, lgtng claw & flamer

5 man crusade squad, pw sw & meltagun

 

Vs necrons and blueberries

 

The good, EC is awesomely broken. Destroyed a necron lord, two wraiths, and the entire ultramarine player except for the apothecary. Also, dual lightning claws on sword brothers is great.

 

The bad, necrons must be concentrated on in full unit chunks. The ability to roll we'll be back for everyone across several turns is rough. Unless we were playing wrong. In that case i should have mopped both teams off the board.

 

The ugly, using power points to build lists is crap. It always assumes you will take every option available to a unit.

 

 

What's wrong with devastators? They are just a Crusader squad that decided to take multiple big guns to the fight ;)  I mean a 4x LC squad isnt' exactly fluffy but grav, heavy bolters and MM's sound nice and Templary. One of the things I've always felt Templars liked is that if we were going to take guns it was going to be a lot of shots and/or up close and personal kind of weapons. 

 

 

As for power points, actually the rules designers specifically said that they are an average of what the max points the unit costs and it's base cost. 

[T-Rock]

All my CC initiates were in land raiders. They maxed the capacity, in fact. Did you mean in rhinos, as per your post? If so, you might be right, but I'm not totally convinced. The LRC's shooting is a nice addition, but its survivability and 20 man capacity are what make it viable. Vehicle explodes results are brutal, so I'd have to do some more testing on vehicle durability. I'd hate to roll a single one and lose Helbrecht.

 

As for Devs, Acebaur and Fulkes took the words right out of my vox unit. We aren't death guard or wulfen. Any sound crusade is going to have a few heavy weapons scattered in to offer covering fire to their CC brethren. Considering the 40 CC initiates in the list, I don't think Sigismund would've minded 6-7 of their brothers using heavy weapons. ;)

[balordazul]

Going over the numbers, without the Crusade of Wrath, the Axe is the most balanced option as it has a higher limit before it starts needing 6s to wound while still inflicting a -2 against models. With Crusade of Wrath I want to say the Sword is better as it wounds T4 down on 3s (2s if you know of any T2 stuff), T5 on 4s and anything below T10 on 5s. With a -3 AP that means most things will take a lot more wounds without armour saves. And anyone with a 4+ save or worse doesn't get armour against it.

 

The Axe gains a higher limit wounding everything T5 and down on 3s, and anything below T12 on 5s, but the trade off is the slightly higher chance of saving for anyone with a 4+ or worse.

 

Of course with the new wounding table the Axe really only gains benefits against the toughest things, so it looks like Sword Brethren near Helbrecht are best geared up with Swords from the power weapons, while a unit on bikes would work better with Axes since they wouldn't be gaining the extra point of strength.

Ya that is the same thing I came to in other post.