Thousand Sons and the spring FAQ

[Raven1]

So what is everyone doing since the FAQ. I had my first game tonight against Tau and got stomped into the ground. I was basically tabled on turn two. Between the Tau Commanders and crisis suits, i had didn't have a chance. I have to completely rework my list from the ground up.

 

I had a Tzaangor blob and Magnus (which in my opinion is an absolute waste, he is a 130 dollar paper weight) 3 Predators (auto/Las) and MSU Rubrics, and a daemon prince with wings.

[Panzer]

Against Crisis, try to spread out your screens so he can't drop in range to kill your expensive stuff (18" range on most guns + 10" drop from units away means your screen has to be ~9" away from the units they want to protect). It's kinda difficult with 18" Crisis guns I admit but not impossible. They also do cost their fair share of points (42p base without any weapons) and only have BS4+ so without heavy Markerlight support and potentially being from the Farsight Enclave they struggle to get their points back.

That being said a unit of Crisis with CIB, FSE Stratagem for +1 to-hit on the drop and a single Markerlight can kill Mortarion on the drop for equal points (and also fry a lot of their own suits due overheating) so that's that.

 

The Coldstar ... well it's a super mobile character with lots of BS2+ guns. Unless you snipe him with spells etc. you pretty much have to mow down the rest of the army to get to him I fear. Just be prepared to get harassed for the most part of the game by Coldstars. Only saving grace is that he can't really stay completely out of reach due all his guns being 18" or less (overcosted Missile Pods and overcosted Plasma Rifles being the exception with 36" and 24").

 

 

At least the Crisis will be much less of a problem to you if you play with the beta rules so they can't drop turn 1 and you have enough time to spread out your screens. Better watch out for things like mass HYMP Broadsides in the future imo (8 S7 AP-2 D1d3 + 8 S5 AP-1 D1 shots at 36"/30" range for 152ppm and re-roll wounds for 1CP with a support Commander nearby).

 

Also I agree that Magnus and Mortarion go down way too fast with all the anti-tank flying around currently. They should either be cheaper or, better, be more durable.

[Skerr]

did u have 1 or more MSUs. I have never had a Tau opponent in my Meta but if I had an opportunity i might consider 2 MSUs with warpflamers to thin things out and also balance with anti tank and mortal wounds.

 

Maybe Tzangor blob turn 2 and try to charge as many units as possible to tie up shooting. Though they probably have a strat that allows to shoot after disengaging from a charge.

 

Having never played Tau this is where I might start though not sure how effective it would be.

 

Panzer always has good analysis so def reread his post and try different things.

 

Also think how to work terrain in at set up after looking at how terrain effected you last game.

 

Good luck!

[Panzer]

Most T'au units have the FLY keyword. You can't really tie them up apart from Broadsides and Firewarriors. ^^

[Skerr]

Never mind on that then.  Is Heldrake worth it in this instance?  

[Heliomanes]

Cultists, terminators and leviathans. Been pretty fun so far, but I haven't played true competitive lists with them yet.

[Raven1]

Sfpanzer, that's a lot good points. I was in a league where you couldn't change lists except for options so I was set up for the Tzaangor bomb so I couldn't show up till turn two but I decided not to deepstrike them in place for deepstrike denial. He tried to kill my demonprince turn1 with a cold star but failed to do so, but apparently Tau have two strategems that allow mortal wounds on the charge and a second on death to every model in 3" and that devastated my Tzaangors.

 

Still I think the thing I'm most upset about is he knew what list I was taking and in the escalation he added units and switched out options to specifically target my weakness in what "was" a who cares its the end of the league so let's just have a friendly game, which was tailor as much as I can against you.

 

I think Magnus should be a 2+/3++ base. He can always be targeted and you cant hide him or deepatrike him even reserving him to T2 coming in our turn would completely turn him around.

 

I'm probably going to drop my Tzaangors for cultists and finish up my 2nd BN of daemons.

[Kite Senet]

Sfpanzer, that's a lot good points. I was in a league where you couldn't change lists except for options so I was set up for the Tzaangor bomb so I couldn't show up till turn two but I decided not to deepstrike them in place for deepstrike denial. He tried to kill my demonprince turn1 with a cold star but failed to do so, but apparently Tau have two strategems that allow mortal wounds on the charge and a second on death to every model in 3" and that devastated my Tzaangors.

 

Still I think the thing I'm most upset about is he knew what list I was taking and in the escalation he added units and switched out options to specifically target my weakness in what "was" a who cares its the end of the league so let's just have a friendly game, which was tailor as much as I can against you.

 

I think Magnus should be a 2+/3++ base. He can always be targeted and you cant hide him or deepatrike him even reserving him to T2 coming in our turn would completely turn him around.

 

I'm probably going to drop my Tzaangors for cultists and finish up my 2nd BN of daemons.

Wait, the Tau have a strategem hitting every *MODEL* within 3" with a mortal wound upon death?? What is this madness, a personal nuclear dead man's trigger?

[Raven1]

There's more to it on the charge it triggers on a 6+ and on death it triggers on a 4+. With the charge he rolled like 17 dice and on his death another bunch of dice.

 

So against MSU not an issue, but hordes. Tzaangors, Orks etc its a bigger problem

[Panzer]

The Stratagems are:

Repulsor Impact Field for 1CP
Use this Strattagem after an enemy unit successfully charges a BATTLESUIT unit from your army. Roll a dice for each model in the enemy unit within 3" of your unit. On a 6 that model suffers a mortal wound.

 

 

and

Fail Safe Detonator for 1CP
Use this Stratagem when a BATTLESUIT unit from your army is destroyed in the Fight phase, before removing the last model. Roll a dice for each unit (friend or foe) within 3" of that model. On a 4+ that unit suffers one mortal wound.

 

 

 

The Repulsor Impact Field is really strong against melee hordes. Against a unit of 30 it kills on average 5 before the fight even begins unless most of the unit isn't even within 3". Basically the counterpart to the Tyranids Brute Force Stratagem (just for Behemoth, after charge roll a dice for each model in the charging unit that's within 1" of the enemy, 6s are mortal wounds).

The Fail Safe Detonator is pretty trash tho to be honest. The whole unit has to be destroyed before you can use it and then it does only a single Mortal wound to the enemy units within 3" and only if you roll a 4+ for that unit.

[Raven1]

The Stratagems are:

Repulsor Impact Field for 1CP
Use this Strattagem after an enemy unit successfully charges a BATTLESUIT unit from your army. Roll a dice for each model in the enemy unit within 3" of your unit. On a 6 that model suffers a mortal wound.

and

Fail Safe Detonator for 1CP
Use this Stratagem when a BATTLESUIT unit from your army is destroyed in the Fight phase, before removing the last model. Roll a dice for each unit (friend or foe) within 3" of that model. On a 4+ that unit suffers one mortal wound.

The Repulsor Impact Field is really strong against melee hordes. Against a unit of 30 it kills on average 5 before the fight even begins unless most of the unit isn't even within 3". Basically the counterpart to the Tyranids Brute Force Stratagem (just for Behemoth, after charge roll a dice for each model in the charging unit that's within 1" of the enemy, 6s are mortal wounds).
The Fail Safe Detonator is pretty trash tho to be honest. The whole unit has to be destroyed before you can use it and then it does only a single Mortal wound to the enemy units within 3" and only if you roll a 4+ for that unit.

It's not per model its per unit. The LIAR...i didn't read it i just trusted him

[Kite Senet]

Ah, okay. That makes more sense. Repulsor Impact Field still seems pretty bonkers for just one CP though; I hardly seem to recall any strategems in Thousand Sons or Chaos Space Marines that deal that degree of damage without some sort of additional cost: Linebreaker Bombardment, but it costs three Vindicators worth of shooting; Coruscating Beam, but it costs 3CP, your Warlord's shooting, and can only be played once per game; Soul Flare compares well to that second strategem at least, but one mortal wound conditionally isn't particularly exciting. I suppose we already have a good source of mortal wounds in psychic powers, which the Tau don't (I assume) have, but an expected 1/6 of an attacking enemy force *just on a charge?* And here I thought the Rubric's warpflamers punished charges heavily!

[Panzer]

Nah, it's fine. If the opponent is smart with pile-in moves there won't be too many models in range to roll 6s for and it only works against melee in the first place. A unit of 5 Space Marines? Not very likely to kill even one of them. A unit of 30 Gaunts? You'll kill quite a few but that's not a lot of points you kill. If the opponent pays attention and keeps them out of range until he piles in? Means the T'au player can roll only 2-3 d6.

It's a very niche Stratagem and can be countered by smart positioning easily. Costing only 1CP is fine I say.

[Kite Senet]

Perhaps, and I understand it's probably balanced from a competitive perspective, but it's still a massive newb trap. That's surely going to make some awful first games against Tau. Even in games between skilled competitive players, it seems like it'd just make a charge into an obnoxiously intricate affair if you really have to be so specific with your model positioning just to nullify this one obnoxious strategem. What entertainment value does that add to 40k as a game?

[Raven1]

Nah, it's fine. If the opponent is smart with pile-in moves there won't be too many models in range to roll 6s for and it only works against melee in the first place. A unit of 5 Space Marines? Not very likely to kill even one of them. A unit of 30 Gaunts? You'll kill quite a few but that's not a lot of points you kill. If the opponent pays attention and keeps them out of range until he piles in? Means the T'au player can roll only 2-3 d6.

 

It's a very niche Stratagem and can be countered by smart positioning easily. Costing only 1CP is fine I say.

For sure positioning is important. It mostly caught me by surprise, a mistake I won't make again.

[Panzer]

Perhaps, and I understand it's probably balanced from a competitive perspective, but it's still a massive newb trap. That's surely going to make some awful first games against Tau. Even in games between skilled competitive players, it seems like it'd just make a charge into an obnoxiously intricate affair if you really have to be so specific with your model positioning just to nullify this one obnoxious strategem. What entertainment value does that add to 40k as a game?

 

Actually I wish there were more such things to give movement and positioning proper meaning again. However that's me coming from Warhammer Fantasy where the movement phase won you the games.

[Kite Senet]

I can certainly understand and appreciate that sentiment in the abstract, but is this really the best way to make positioning matter? Some ephemeral positioning difference, exploiting a technicality in the pile-in rules to avoid a stratagem that would, without exploiting this loophole, be potent to a degree that is quite out of proportion with other stratagems? Surely there are better ways to make positioning important in 8th edition; this just feels like a hoop you're forced to jump through for no good reason, achieving nothing ultimately (you're just going to move them a few seconds later when you pile in anyway) but bogging down the game.

[Heliomanes]

I don't see how that's out of proportion with other stratagems. Necron destroyers can get reroll to hit and to wound from a single CP. The infiltration stratagems are also infinitely more valuable.

[Kite Senet]

I don't see how that's out of proportion with other stratagems. Necron destroyers can get reroll to hit and to wound from a single CP. The infiltration stratagems are also infinitely more valuable.

 

I don't have the current Destroyer rules. Working off the Index, and assuming it's a unit of 6 to maximize the efficacy of the stratagem, 

 

Destroyers already hit on 3+ and re-roll 1's, so the re-roll only matters if they roll a 2. This modifies the probability of hitting from 4/6+1/6*4/6 = 7/9 to 8/9. If in cover, the chance would be 3/6 + 1/6 * 3/6 = 7/12; with the stratagem upping this to 3/4.

 

Against a foe with 3 or 4 toughness, they would wound on a 3+, a 2/3 chance. With re-rolls, this is improved to 8/9.

 

Against a 3+ save or a 6+ invuln, the AP-3 gives a probability of 5/6 unsaved. Against 2+/5++, this is 2/3.

 

In all, we obtain certain probabilities of an individual shot going through:

• Out of cover, vs 3+/6++, no strategem: 35 of 81 shots succeed
• In cover, vs 3+/6++, no stratagem: 35 of 108
• Out of cover, vs 2+/5++, no stratagem: 28 of 81
• In cover, vs 2+/5++, no stratagem: 7 of 27
• Out of cover, vs 3+/6++, with stratagem: 160 of 243
• In cover, vs 3+/6++, with stratagem: 5 of 9
• Out of cover, vs 2+/5++, with stratagem: 128 of 243
• In cover, vs 2+/5++, with stratagem: 4 of 9

How many additional shots succeeded with the stratagem?

• 55/243 shots without cover vs 3+/6++
• 25/108 in cover vs 3+/6++
• 44/243 out of cover vs 2+/5++
• 5/27 in cover vs 2+/5++

Numerically, these are about 22%, 23%, 18%, and 18%. With 6 Destroyers firing a total of 12 shots per turn, these amount to 2.64, 2.76, 2.16, and 2.16 additional shots making it to the enemy. With an expected value of 2 damage per hit, these are 5.28, 5.52, 4.32, and 4.32 wounds total, which have substantial restrictions on how they can be distributed.

 

Therefore, in best case scenario, this Destroyer stratagem would deal approximately 4-5 additional wounds with restrictions on how they can be applied, and these can be mitigated substantially by any means which improves a unit's invulnerable save (say Weaver of Fates), and anything which affects hit and wound rolls. Contrariwise, a flat 1/6 chance of a mortal wound, which are not wasted on overkill and cannot be mitigated in any common way, still seems quite strong to me, dealing an expected 5 mortal wounds to 30 models (Tzaangors) or 6.66 wounds to 40 (cultists). As far as I know, the difference between 5 or 6.66 mortal wounds and an extra ~2.5 d3 damage hits is pretty big. Note also that this is contingent on the size of the unit, so that proactive damage to the Destroyers can ameliorate the stratagem, whereas (if I understand correctly) the efficacy of the Tau stratagem is only mitigated by damage in the sense that a smaller unit of battlesuits simply has less "surface area" in which you could accidentally place your charging models -- and this would of course need to be dealt at a range, which is not an option for every army.

 

(Disclaimer: I might've made some calculation errors, but I've given enough of the numbers I think to ensure that the reader can catch any such mistake.)

[Heliomanes]

Destroyer and heavy destroyers can both use the stratagem. Remember that we're not talking about single wounds here - any damage caused can do multiple wounds - which makes a double reroll much more valuable. You are also comparing a stratagem that applies when someone charges a single battlesuit unit per turn (with a strong preference towards big units), with a stratagem that can be applied every time a shooty unit wants to shoot something. Which means one is very situational, which has to be taken into account when comparing the two. I'd still argue that the infiltration stratagems are much stronger than than either the Tau or the Necron one.

[Kite Senet]

Destroyer and heavy destroyers can both use the stratagem. Remember that we're not talking about single wounds here - any damage caused can do multiple wounds - which makes a double reroll much more valuable. You are also comparing a stratagem that applies when someone charges a single battlesuit unit per turn (with a strong preference towards big units), with a stratagem that can be applied every time a shooty unit wants to shoot something. Which means one is very situational, which has to be taken into account when comparing the two. I'd still argue that the infiltration stratagems are much stronger than than either the Tau or the Necron one.

 

I was under the impression that Tau lists were comprised primarily of battlesuits. However my info is slightly out of date considering I'm looking at tournament lists from before the Commander restrictions, so I doubt many lists are managing 12 Commanders in one list now. I also did not realize Heavy Destroyers were a thing, so that is a notable error on my part.

 

I accounted for the D3 damage characteristic of the Gauss cannon. It's only 2-3 extra hits, which then roll into 4-6 wounds. That is a disadvantage relative to the more fluid damage type of mortal wounds, because it will only be on average able to kill 2-3 additional models max, whereas the mortal wounds will be able to take out 5-6 if they have 1 wound.  As for how situational a stratagem is, this seems quite irrelevant to me, considering almost all stratagems are intrinsically situational. A stratagem is no more or less broken if it occurs every other game, or once in 100 games; though the situational nature will prevent it from breaking the army (and I certainly cannot and would not argue that Tau are broken), it will break that game (or perhaps even matchup) anyway. There is, after all, no opportunity cost to having an unused stratagem at your disposal.

 

And, yes, I agree that there are more powerful categories of stratagems; infiltration ones in particular are naturally strong.

 

I suppose to me the most irksome thing, whether this is self-consistent or reasonable or whatnot, is that it's a stratagem which simply directly deals mortal wounds: It doesn't modify dice flow. It doesn't help with positioning. It doesn't even represent a specialized, alternative form of attack using mortal wounds like Linebreaker Bombardment does. It's just a lot of additional, free wounds in addition to the normal flow of the game. And worst of all...it makes Corsucating Beam look like complete and utter garbage! Why can't we have a direct damage stratagem that good?!

[Heliomanes]

I still think your comparison is not showing the entire picture here, though I agree with your points about the fluid nature of mortal wounds. I guess the core disagreement is that you consider, as you say, that how situational a stratagem is to be irrelevant. I disagree. My perception might be skewed because I very rarely bring or see 30-40 man units, much less any such squads tooled for combat. Popping the same stratagem when I charge in with Magnus or a squad of chaos spawn isn't going to impress anyone - so you are relying on the stars being right when you use it. Which is fine, of course, but how strong or valuable a stratagem is should surely also be connected to how consistently it can be of use?

Considering the utility of coruscating beam - I'm entirely in agreement. I remember the shock when 8th first dropped and my Mechanicus blob of robots, datasmiths, enginseers and Magi got struck by the orbital bombardment stratagem, and all the support personell was just annihilated. No units involved at all, just a card I'd never seen before, some dice and bam.

[Kite Senet]

I agree that it won't be a good stratagem in those situations. Does that matter, though? Nothing's forcing anybody to use stratagems when they aren't useful, after all. I mean, suppose there was a stratagem that said

"Use this stratagem after you roll at least 10 dice at one time with no re-rolls and every die shows 6. You win the game."

I think we could agree, this hypothetical stratagem would be both extremely situational and quite broken. It might not break the army equipped with it overall, since it is so very situational and will be statistically irrelevant in the scheme of things, but at the same time if it *does* happen it will quite certainly imbalance that one game. That is to say, from the short-term perspective of the quality of an individual game, the specificity of the situation in which a stratagem is broken does not matter--it still breaks that game in which the "stars align."

 

And considering there are entire armies based around large mobs of melee guys, including the Khorne Daemon armies that are always playing at my LGS, I don't think this seems like *that* rare of a situation to encounter; rather than breaking a particular scenario, this (without the loophole stated previously) would seem to break at least one if not more matchups, by essentially ensuring Khorne Daemons have little way of effectively dealing with battlesuits. (Maybe Tyranids too, but I think they're quite a bit shootier than Khorne Daemons.)

[Panzer]

The thing is, it's not just very situational, it's also not that broken to begin with.

Realistically what is it going to kill? Even if the opponent isn't paying attention and puts his whole 30 model unit within 3" of the Battlesuit unit he's going to lose an average of 5 models. That is what? The melee units with such huge numbers have usually a model cost of 7 points or cheaper. So the Stratagem would kill ~35p.

Now if the horde player knows about it he can simply decide to not move so many models within 3" before activating the unit to pile in and the Stratagem would kill even less.

 

It's really not that strong. Neither against new player and especially not against experienced player.

[Kite Senet]

You make a very good point there with the cheapness of these horde units that the stratagem would actually be optimal against. I didn't take that into account--even if they *are* mortal wounds, they're still quite restricted in value by what targets will actually wander into that particular situation.