Decimator Load Out and Perhaps TS Contemptor

[Prot]

Had a really good test game.

 

I went with the Decimators and Contemptor in my Thousand Sons army and at first I was floored by the performance. First volley with re-roll 1's and prescience was 12 mortal wounds on a squad of Warriors. My opponent's jaw dropped.

 

But then it went down from there... that was obviously pretty fortuitous for a first attempt, but the odds caught up with me. The second Decimator blew a gasket causing as much harm to him as the squad he fired at.

 

The Contemptor was far tamer in respect to shooting, but has the potential to be a beast in CC so that's fine.

 

At the end of the day the Decimators are just Dreadnoughts in stature but they can be buffed I supposed since they get the Legion key word, and are 'daemons' right? I would heal them when possible, but I could see with focus, they can be brought down nearly as easy as a cheap dreadnought, and you can't buff them all.

 

The advantage I felt was as "thousand Sons' models/daemons they get those advantages from the codex/Strategems/psychic phase, and the Warglaives do not. However the Warglaives are cheaper, and more efficient. You will never waste time buffing them so this leaves you to buff your core army, and let the Armigers do their own thing.

 

The Decimators 'play the part' of the Thousand Sons very well though.

 

I have to confess I was probably screwed in this game because my opponent brought C'tan/Lychguard/ and a big squad of Wraiths. All are close combat capable and 90% of my stuff typically hates CC. So the Decimators/Contemptor completely made up for that by going right through the shields/Invulns.

 

However once again ONE bad psychic phase and man it hurts. I Lost half the dreads, half my infantry. Amazingly the friggin Goats held it together, fighting twice and re-rolling everything vs his Destroyer lord and Barge commander.... man they love their shiny stuff.

 

Ahriman was my warlord just because I felt fluffy about it.... the Destroyer lord WOULD have killed him with his flat damage 3 relic staff... but I comand re rolled his 3++ save (thankfully for his trait) and just saved him. I healed up, then killed the Destro Lord.... BUT I totally forgot the bugger got up from the dead, rolled around to Ahriman's rear end... and tried killing him again! Same thing happened... I re rolled a 3++ to keep Ahriman alive.

 

Next turn the bloody Command Barge has this stick I keep forgetting about and can aim at characters directly... gets 2 Mortal wounds and 3 savable wounds on Ahriman... it was just not his day. Basically he should have died 3 times that game. I just could not protect him.

 

Second 'janky' moment.. .I forgot that not only can Wraiths teleport through walls, but people... totally forgot and lost my Contemptor (who WAS screened by Cultists) because of that trick, got assaulted and he went down like a sack of spare part from Prospero. He could not do anything against the Wriath 3++ invulns.

 

BUT he had potential. Just a really bad match up. The Daemon prince held it together on that end. The Scarab Termies were pretty bad (typical) and the Rubrics were so-so, but the Decimators probably won me this close game.

[Zodd1888]

Glad to hear you had an interesting game.

 

I didn't realize it was a Daemon until last night. The Daemonforge strat (RR hit and Wound) and Flickering Flame power both would apply. You could also get them to S10 fairly easily with a herald or Mutalith. Changeling also would apply, though I wish he didn't get smashed by the nerf bat.

 

I'm stuck between Decimators and Kharybdis. I just imagine dropping that Kharybdis with goats. Pistol flamers, melta cutters, and double attacking goats roll out!

[Prot]

Glad to hear you had an interesting game.

 

I didn't realize it was a Daemon until last night. The Daemonforge strat (RR hit and Wound) and Flickering Flame power both would apply. You could also get them to S10 fairly easily with a herald or Mutalith. Changeling also would apply, though I wish he didn't get smashed by the nerf bat.

 

I'm stuck between Decimators and Kharybdis. I just imagine dropping that Kharybdis with goats. Pistol flamers, melta cutters, and double attacking goats roll out!

 

Yes I was reading Daemonforge Strat during the game and thinking... I imagine this works!

 

Your Goat Float is quite a funny image. I imagine double attacking, VotLW Goats could be quite a play. However I use mine to push back deep strike usually... and protect characters (which I failed at miserably in my game.)

[GreaterChickenofTzeentch]

 

Glad to hear you had an interesting game.

 

I didn't realize it was a Daemon until last night. The Daemonforge strat (RR hit and Wound) and Flickering Flame power both would apply. You could also get them to S10 fairly easily with a herald or Mutalith. Changeling also would apply, though I wish he didn't get smashed by the nerf bat.

 

I'm stuck between Decimators and Kharybdis. I just imagine dropping that Kharybdis with goats. Pistol flamers, melta cutters, and double attacking goats roll out!

 

Yes I was reading Daemonforge Strat during the game and thinking... I imagine this works!

 

Your Goat Float is quite a funny image. I imagine double attacking, VotLW Goats could be quite a play. However I use mine to push back deep strike usually... and protect characters (which I failed at miserably in my game.)

 

Of course, remember that Daemonforge rerolls hits and wounds, so Soulburners (which don't have a wound roll) won't benefit from the second part, though still nice.

 

Decimators can benefit from Daemonforge, Blasphemous Machines, Flickering Flames, Boon of Change, Diabolic Strength, Temporal Manipulation, Glamour of Tzeentch, Weaver of Fates, Vortex Beast.....all kinds of craziness. They also lack the HELBRUTE keyword so they can use Warpflame Gargoyles. Nearby Heralds/Changeling, etc. also give them buffs from Loci.

 

Even CC Decimators can be utterly monstrous, depending on how much stuff you want to put on them first.

[Prot]

Those are good to know for sure... but I was personally leaning on the dual claw/dual burner Hellforged contemptor for CC work, and hopefully Daemonforge.

[McGibs]

I'm a fan of my dual Storm Laser Decimator. He's not as flashy as a soul burner one, but he clocks it at only 140pts and makes a really good gunplatform for shredding infantry. 10 str6 ap-2 shots that you throw daemonforge onto every turn will reliably dig out pretty much any MEQ. They're also assault weapons, which lets you make good use of the decimators 10" move and hunt down things like hiding devastators or dark reaper squads. It's not going to take down primarchs, but it's also not a massive bullet magnet either. It hits that nice medium threat sweet spot where it gets ignored a lot, but also puts in work.

Just an alternative to consider if you get nervous when units start costing more than 200pts.