Tactica Discussion: Cypher

[Aothaine]

Hey everyone!

 

There maybe similar posts floating around in random places but I think I may have found a way to use Cypher in a somewhat effective way.

 

A little about this Fallen Angel. Dude uses two pistols with ranges of 16" & 12" meaning that an army he is in should be all about close range firepower. He can be fielded with any Chaos army or Imperium army allowing him incredible flexibility and Mysterious Protection is really damn good. This tactica is designed to develop deployment methods for Cypher with the goal of winning in mind.

 

List - 975pts

 

Faction: Imperium

Outrider Detachment

 

 

HQ

Cypher - 110 (Warlord)

 

FAST ATTACK

Inceptor Squad x3 - 675

 

HEAVY SUPPORT

Hellblaster Squad - 190

 

This army is 13 models. 

 

Has significant firepower. Denies Warlord victory conditions. Is fast and can disengage with the Inceptors and Cypher and still fire (without penalties?). 

 

I know this is a very small list. You will need to know which targets to need to use the hellblasters and Cypher's plasma pistol on. S7AP-4D1 and S8AP-3D2 is pretty damn good imho. Sure you don't have all the rerolls and that could hurt but you're still rolling 2+ for Cypher and 3+ for everything else. Also don't forget that Cypher can advance and still shoot.

 

 

Anyway... what are your thoughts on Cypher?

 

Edit:

 

Also looking into using custodes to team up with Cypher. Might be interesting to have a bunch of gods roaming around the battle field.

Edited June 17, 2017 by Aothaine

[JustinianTheGreat]

I think you're really handicapped by Cypher footslogging it unless you're playing on a 4x4 or smaller table. He'll be stuck running up the table, leaving him open for any deepstrikers to take him out.

 

If you were to go with this - i'd run the Hellblasters as Fallen with plasma guns and have them run up the table with Cypher. He'll give them re-roll 1's so you can overcharge every turn with little worry of dying. When stationary, Fallen re-roll 1's naturally - giving you the freedom to have Cypher get up close and leave them behind on a midfield objective.

Cypher & Fallen can't take transports, unless i'm reading it wrong. I think this may have been a mistake on GW's part, but it really handicaps them - i don't think they'll be seen in any competitive matched play until there is an errata or new dataslate.

[JustinianTheGreat]

One more thought - i'm coming at this from the angle of a 2000pt game. Don't mean to be overly negative, i'm just dissapointed in GW on this.

For a 1000pt game or a 4x4 table Cypher is not a horrible choice. He does have some nice natural abilities & is fairly cheap. Positioning will be important. He'll have a hard time keeping up with Inceptors. I think you'll have to leave 1 back with him, or have the hellblasters/converted fallen accompany him to midfield and have 1 of the Inceptor units deepstrike on any interlopers in your backfield late game.


Also, if you run the hellblasters as converted Fallen you have 50 extra points to burn on 1 or 2 additional Fallen models with a plasma pistol & sword or more double pistols, or swap a plasma gun for a heavy weapon etc. Ends up being significantly more firepower than Hellblasters if you factor in overcharging every turn, for the tradeoff of less wounds.

Edited June 22, 2017 by JustinianTheGreat

[Aothaine]

Thank you both for your comments. In my escapades to find out how to make Cypher work I've actually resolved to team him up with Adeptus Custodes. They provide a large enough threat that at 2k games Cypher will be almost ignored until it is to late.

 

Running 6 dreadnoughts, 2 8-man Custode squads and Cypher. They will deploy and act as an assault army.

 

Basically you hide Cypher in among the Custodes and them behind the dreadnoughts and just flit him around where the extra punch of his pistols is needed. In this role he will be mainly there to focus on anything showing up behind the Custodes with the Custode counter-charging anything that charges him. He can withdraw and go shoot something else or just shoot down the enemy in front of him.

 

He is very versatile.