Tactics and musings for 8th edition

[momerathe]

I kinda wonder about a group of 10 BSS with a storm bolter, heavy bolter and storm bolter on the Superior.

 

This is the direction I'm going. 

[Noeh]

Slight off topic, but for a decent anti-horde unit, Cawl apparently gets friggin 8d6 attacks in melee if he uses all 4 on his hive....
I'm not sure anything has more hit potential than he does.

I guess we'll just have to settle for a ton of stormbolters instead! Or multiple small seraphim squads with tons of hand flamers.

[taikishi]

Okay, my document's been updated to include how power weapons and the eviscerator hold up against invulnerable saves. I've only done the canoness' data, but based on how the data points for superiors turned out, I don't expect this to change too much.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HnXYfQ5IYq6MZFIe3hD1ISOY1KAaglqM-y9Za0kwldY/edit?usp=sharing

 

The winner here is the power maul against single wound models, the eviscerator against multi-wound models.

 

To perhaps no one's surprise, the power sword is the big loser here. Low str and it's -3 save modifier is meaningless. The eviscerator does well against T3, T5 and T6 but falls behind the power maul (and in some cases the power axe) at other levels against single-wound models because of its lower chance to hit.

 

 

Hope this helps people make up their own minds on which weapon they want to go with and why :D

[Sister Alessia]

Thank you for all your hard work Taikishi!

[Servant of Dante]

I'll be sticking with the Evicerator, because Raedia is one of the few models I've got painted, and I;m really happy with the conversion work I did on her :P

[Atrus]

Its been brought up on dakka the topic of rerolls in 8th. Apparently rerolls happen BEFORE modifiers. So Repentia and whatnot with zealot charging into combat will roll to hit.

repentia attacks and rolls 2 2s and 2 3s. The 2s get to reroll but the 3s dont as theyre classed as hits by the Repentia stats. Modifier is then applied for unweildy eviscerators and those 3s now miss with no chance for reroll.

[ERJAK]

Its been brought up on dakka the topic of rerolls in 8th. Apparently rerolls happen BEFORE modifiers. So Repentia and whatnot with zealot charging into combat will roll to hit.

repentia attacks and rolls 2 2s and 2 3s. The 2s get to reroll but the 3s dont as theyre classed as hits by the Repentia stats. Modifier is then applied for unweildy eviscerators and those 3s now miss with no chance for reroll.

This is the single jahnkest thing in all of 8th. Sigmar does it in the reverse and it works fine, why'd they pick this to change?

[Sister Alessia]

Frannie and her eviserator agree with you Dante :) My Guard friend is now terrified of her lol. She managed to kill all of his officers, command squad, heavy weapons, aswell as armour last match. :D And that was without faith!

[Commander Dawnstar]

 

Its been brought up on dakka the topic of rerolls in 8th. Apparently rerolls happen BEFORE modifiers. So Repentia and whatnot with zealot charging into combat will roll to hit.

repentia attacks and rolls 2 2s and 2 3s. The 2s get to reroll but the 3s dont as theyre classed as hits by the Repentia stats. Modifier is then applied for unweildy eviscerators and those 3s now miss with no chance for reroll.

This is the single jahnkest thing in all of 8th. Sigmar does it in the reverse and it works fine, why'd they pick this to change?

 

Repentia actually sidestep that weirdness. They don't have Zealot and the Mistress' special rule just says that "you can re-roll [...] hit rolls for friendly <Order> Repentia." Unlike Zealot, it doesn't say that the dice you reroll have to be failed hit rolls.

[HoboAnarki]

Slight off topic, but for a decent anti-horde unit, Cawl apparently gets friggin 8d6 attacks in melee if he uses all 4 on his hive....

I'm not sure anything has more hit potential than he does.

 

I guess we'll just have to settle for a ton of stormbolters instead! Or multiple small seraphim squads with tons of hand flamers.

 

Nine Arcos with a priest get 27D3 strength 5 attacks, with rerolls to hit on the first turn of combat, it's something I really want to try out.

[Atrus]

 

 

Its been brought up on dakka the topic of rerolls in 8th. Apparently rerolls happen BEFORE modifiers. So Repentia and whatnot with zealot charging into combat will roll to hit.

repentia attacks and rolls 2 2s and 2 3s. The 2s get to reroll but the 3s dont as theyre classed as hits by the Repentia stats. Modifier is then applied for unweildy eviscerators and those 3s now miss with no chance for reroll.

 

This is the single jahnkest thing in all of 8th. Sigmar does it in the reverse and it works fine, why'd they pick this to change?

 

Repentia actually sidestep that weirdness. They don't have Zealot and the Mistress' special rule just says that "you can re-roll [...] hit rolls for friendly <Order> Repentia." Unlike Zealot, it doesn't say that the dice you reroll have to be failed hit rolls.

Aha you are quite right :)

 

 

Slight off topic, but for a decent anti-horde unit, Cawl apparently gets friggin 8d6 attacks in melee if he uses all 4 on his hive....

I'm not sure anything has more hit potential than he does.

I guess we'll just have to settle for a ton of stormbolters instead! Or multiple small seraphim squads with tons of hand flamers.

 

 

Nine Arcos with a priest get 27D3 strength 5 attacks, with rerolls to hit on the first turn of combat, it's something I really want to try out.

Im looking forward to trying this too. Ive got 2 squads of 6 ready to ruin people day.

[CaptainHelion]

Played a game against Tyranids today at the local GW. A couple of thoughts; A power sword on a Canonness didn't seem to do a great deal in CC, even against hormagants. Don't let yourself get pinned down by assaults you can't withdraw from, as we just aren't good enough at fighting hand to hand to fight our way free, pistols are great, the Acts of Faith is pretty cool and I dig it.

[Noeh]

 

Slight off topic, but for a decent anti-horde unit, Cawl apparently gets friggin 8d6 attacks in melee if he uses all 4 on his hive....

I'm not sure anything has more hit potential than he does.

 

I guess we'll just have to settle for a ton of stormbolters instead! Or multiple small seraphim squads with tons of hand flamers.

 

Nine Arcos with a priest get 27D3 strength 5 attacks, with rerolls to hit on the first turn of combat, it's something I really want to try out.

 

 

Nifty. I was just talking about a single model though. Cawl as a single entity with no help can do 8d6 attacks in melee. Plus his abilities in general are rather strong. I haven't checked his point cost though.

[Servant of Dante]

Frannie and her eviserator agree with you Dante :) My Guard friend is now terrified of her lol. She managed to kill all of his officers, command squad, heavy weapons, aswell as armour last match. :D And that was without faith!

That must have been fun :P when I played my game, all she did was kill 1 terminator before dying.

[sedibear]

The rerolls before modifiers thing actually works the same way in AoS.

 

Yea it's weird but it's in the rulebook so we'll play it that way :D

 

I havent seen any big case in the Sisters stuff where it will matter though.

[taikishi]

As discussed/discovered on Dakka Dakka, if Celestine passes her Miraculous Intervention save, dies a second time, and you still have Geminae alive, you can use an AoF or Hospitaller to bring her back at 1 Wound. This can actually create a situation of:

 

Start of turn

2+ or Imagifier AoF: Bring Celestine back with 1W

Use her AoF on another unit within 6"

 

End of Movement Phase

Heal Celestine for d3 wounds using a Hospitaller within 3" of her unit

[taikishi]

The rerolls before modifiers thing actually works the same way in AoS.

 

Yea it's weird but it's in the rulebook so we'll play it that way

 

I havent seen any big case in the Sisters stuff where it will matter though.

 

Canoness with Eviscerator, Repentia near a canoness, Seraphim near Celestine and Dialogus in general

 

* Canoness with Eviscerator and Repentia: roll a 2 to hit, can't re-roll it because it isn't a 1 yet.

 

* Dialogus: Test is always going to pass for Ld 7 models before the modifier kicks in since the max you can roll is a 6, so you can't re-roll the test Morale test.

 

* Seraphim: roll a 5, it fails before the modifier so you must re-roll it even though the test would pass with the +1 -- there's no may or can clause on Seraphim like there is with the canoness and Dialogus

 

The Mistress of Repentance isn't affected because she lets you re-roll for Repentia whether the roll is successful or not, so you know that 3 to-hit will turn into a 2 for your Repentia and you know that your charge is 2" short because you charged from certain terrain features.

[sedibear]

Canoness and Repentia - That makes it so you get a 1/6 reroll instead of a 1/3, which is weaker overall.

 

Dialogus - Doesn't a morale test modify the base leadership and not the roll? Not sure about that one.

 

Seraphim - yeah, that sucks RAW.

[ERJAK]

Canoness and Repentia - That makes it so you get a 1/6 reroll instead of a 1/3, which is weaker overall.

 

Dialogus - Doesn't a morale test modify the base leadership and not the roll? Not sure about that one.

 

Seraphim - yeah, that sucks RAW.

TBF, Canoness only gives reroll 1s so only 1 dice result was ever going to be rerollable anyway, as for the dialogus and priest I think you're right. Seraphim get shafted.

 

The thing about this compared to Sigmar is that A) Most Sigmar rerolls say you 'can' reroll fails, where most 40k rerolls say you have to and B ) Areas where there are oddities, such as with rend and rerolling saves, or hit modifiers and hit rerolls, players just gloss over them and end up doing whichever order of operations would be the most efficient for the player rolling dice. 

Edited June 15, 2017 by ERJAK

[Atrus]

Just double checked the wordings on sisters reroll sources. All of them except seraphim say 'can' reroll.

So yeah...poor seraphim.

[ERJAK]

Just double checked the wordings on sisters reroll sources. All of them except seraphim say 'can' reroll.

So yeah...poor seraphim.

Found a Loophole! Celestine's ability increases the models invulnerable save by 1, not the save ROLL.

 

Since Celestine is modifying the statistic and not the dice it isn't subject to the wibbly wobbly timey wimey thing with rerolls vs normal modifiers.

[Atrus]

 

Just double checked the wordings on sisters reroll sources. All of them except seraphim say 'can' reroll.

So yeah...poor seraphim.

Found a Loophole! Celestine's ability increases the models invulnerable save by 1, not the save ROLL.

 

Since Celestine is modifying the statistic and not the dice it isn't subject to the wibbly wobbly timey wimey thing with rerolls vs normal modifiers.

 

'Fraid not.  Just checked her entry and it says friendly Adepta Sororitas units within 6" add 1 to their Shield of Faith saves.  That's a +1 modifier.    Shame, I really thought you'd found the solution.  If it was phrased like: ...have a 5+ SoF save;  then that'd be spot on.

 

But I feel like I've started to derail this thread with the reroll thing.  While this tangent is interesting, it's not what this threads about.

 

How do we think Immo spam would fare these days?  Min squads of sisters with no upgrades slapped inside Immos of varying breeds?  (I've never had enough Immo's to try this myself in the past)

Edited June 15, 2017 by Atrus

[Daimhin]

 

But I feel like I've started to derail this thread with the reroll thing.  While this tangent is interesting, it's not what this threads about.

 

How do we think Immo spam would fare these days?  Min squads of sisters with no upgrades slapped inside Immos of varying breeds?  (I've never had enough Immo's to try this myself in the past)

 

 

 

I still can't get excited about Heavy Bolter Immolators, unfortunately.

 

I feel I need to play a few games to try to get a feel for Immolators in the new environment. The cost increase means they are no longer cheap enough to spam without thinking, but if their survivability and killing power have both increased significantly, then maybe we'll actually want more.

 

I personally have 7 (including unbuilt) so I'm going to be using them for the foreseeable! 

Something I thought about Sisters Superior in the new bolster heavy squads (storm bolter x2, or x4) is that we can give her a hand flamer which will get to fire in overwatch. In a Power Level game, there is no reason you ever wouldn't do this.

[sedibear]

If the IG threads are any indication, Immo spam with Immolation Flamers are going to be super good.

 

I've started building 2 more Dominion squads with flamer loadouts. 4x Flamer + Combi Flamer in an Immo Flamer sounds very very nice. Maybe stick a character in there to maximize the 6-cap.

 

Retributors with Heavy Flamers in Immo spam seem really good as well. But it might not be worth all those extra points.

[Daimhin]

I've always been a fan of mixing my Immolator loadout and the squad load. So I tend to put flames squads in a MM Immolator and melta squads in a flamer Immolator.

 

This way I can pop a transport with one and cook the troops inside with the other. But it also means that if a transport and squad get cut off and obliterated I haven't lost all my flamers or all my meltas in one go.