Psychic Awakening: The Ritual of the Damned

[Prot]

Thanks for the batrep. I have probably enjoyed Duplicity the most. I think the combination of pregame shennanigans (during deployment) and the ability to 'escape' houdini style make it mandatory in pure Thousand Sons. At least that's my experience.

 

The problem I am finding is damage is still a bit flat. That's why I think in most competitive chaos armies Magic will still be stronger. It just makes a non named DP better, and he's able to leverage that amazing Astral Blast with his WL trait making the DP nearly a 'mini-magnus'. 

[Heliomanes]

Duplicity and Magic work well together though. Take all your Rubricae and Scarab occult with a few Sorcerer HQs as a Duplicity batallion, and add on either a supreme command or another batallion from the Cult of Magic, focusing on Daemon Princes and Exalted Sorcerers, and perhaps using those cultists and tzaangors you have lying around as troop choices. They can't get anything from being Cult of Duplicity anyway.
If we are right in thinking that you only get one Cult specific relic at the moment, then it isn't the end of the world, since that's the weakest element in Cult of Duplicity, and the relic/warlord trait/spell combo from Cult of Magic is nuts.

[Dolchiate Remembrancer]

Duplicity and Magic work well together though. Take all your Rubricae and Scarab occult with a few Sorcerer HQs as a Duplicity batallion, and add on either a supreme command or another batallion from the Cult of Magic, focusing on Daemon Princes and Exalted Sorcerers, and perhaps using those cultists and tzaangors you have lying around as troop choices. They can't get anything from being Cult of Duplicity anyway.

If we are right in thinking that you only get one Cult specific relic at the moment, then it isn't the end of the world, since that's the weakest element in Cult of Duplicity, and the relic/warlord trait/spell combo from Cult of Magic is nuts.

I'm probably going to move towards this at higher point levels.

[Archaeinox]

Well today I had a sorcerer Boon of Mutation himself into Daemon Prince. It was a teaching game and I didn't have a model so I was like ok this dude just killed himself. I had already used a Psychic Phase cmd re-roll.

 

lol. was a fun game. 

 

Indomitable + Weaver of Fates is......... interesting. Watch huge discussions get prompted when that unit gets hit with damage 1 weapons ;)

Edited February 1, 2020 by Archaeinox

[Dolchiate Remembrancer]

Well today I had a sorcerer Boon of Mutation himself into Daemon Prince. It was a teaching game and I didn't have a model so I was like ok this dude just killed himself. I had already used a Psychic Phase cmd re-roll.

 

lol. was a fun game.

 

Indomitable + Weaver of Fates is......... interesting. Watch huge discussions get prompted when that unit gets hit with damage 1 weapons ;)

Why is that?

[Archaeinox]

My gaming community is pretty convinced that, for the moment, it's possible for Damage 1 weapons to turn 2s into 3s if a unit has both of those effects. At no point does the unit have an invulnerable higher than 3+. It's shaky for RAI, but RAW it would appear as though it's clean. Folks were chatting about it this afternoon. lul

Edited February 2, 2020 by Archaeinox

[Heliomanes]

That's the consensus here too. It makes me like the use of rubricae, scarab occult and flamers of tzeentch. They are all weak against D2 weapons, so it makes sense to take a lot of them for target saturation, making the opponent face some difficult target priority choices. They also all have reactive stratagems that buff their invuln saves, which makes the strategy a bit stronger.

[Archaeinox]

I think it's all just fantastic. I will deliberately be trying out some other cults besides duplicity and magic, soon.

[Prot]

Well I took a thorough flogging yesterday that reminded me of some really large holes in the army... or at least my army.

 

Some tournament level Admech had first turn and I did everything I could to get cover on the big guy (Magnus). Surprisingly Magnus not only didn't die, I double healed him just enough to get him back into his top bracket! 

 

But the bad news is even with lots of terrain, and using Duplicity, I could not escape the plethora of "mid power/ multi-damage" shooting.

 

I mean my 10 man Rubric squads absolutely melted! Cover was okay, but the problem was when I was being hit by strong shooting I didn't get to use All is Dust, and then when I did get to use All is Dust, that normally meant taking fist fulls of save. (Eventually you're rolling the odd snake eyes).

 

Magnus was something I was uncertain of. He lived T1 which is unusual for sure but I did deploy second so increased his odds. However I slingshotted him up the side board where AdMech transports shielded 3 Skorpius tanks. 

 

Lately the way I've been using Magnus is moving up, doing some offensive powers, then using Warp Time to pull him back out of range. But in this case I felt I couldn't pull it off in this match up because getting close enough to do damage also meant being too close to pull back out of harms way from all the shots. However if I stayed put 2 things would happen: 1, I wouldn't do any real damage. 2, Magnus could only be targeted by half the weaponry.

 

Anyway I get him close, he gets off the Infernal Gateway but it's paltry damage. Then a super smite on 2 D6 blows up a transport. I figure I have to use this to leverage my distance, but it fails miserably. Magnus makes the combat against the blown up transport's passengers but they have a 5+/5++. I only kill like 3 of them. They don't hit hard enough back, but it's over for Magnus because I had to clean out that squad, THEN consolidate into a Skorpius which would have been in a good position to cause panic in the AdMech forces.

 

I still feel I had to take that gamble. 

 

Without Magnus I find a LOT more of my powers fail. I roll a lot of 1's and the math isn't usually average for me so I take him actually for his aura but it's expensive. 

 

The Scarab Occult came in with about 18 Tzaangors. What a mess. The Tzaangors make an assault, and the Scarab Occult do kill a Lot, BUT I'm using VotLW and trying to kill a pile of vehicles with them. 

 

It's at this point that I realize the army (or my list at least) is not going to work at all in a competitive environment with a heavy vehicle platform. 

 

I've been enjoying about a 50/50 win ratio (Maybe a bit better?) but those wins are coming against elite infantry armies.

 

The scarab Occult were really the only threat aside from the psychic phase. So the AdMech next turn just pulled away from Tzaangors, then the rest of the tanks just laced into the Scarab Occult. And killed Magnus of course.

 

Magnus took a TON of firepower as expected with his buffs. (I really did get lucky to get him to T2). Scarab Occult therefore took less heat then expected and it became apparent that Scarabs in cover are not going down to AP-1.... unless it has multi damage.

 

I still lost 7 Terminators!!! 

 

The next turn (That second battalion of mine was using Cult of Time) I had a once in a blue moon event. I was just about ready to call it a game because I had killed so very little of the truly damaging tanks. But I wanted to see how this would go down....

 

Anyway the big event was I did the resurrection spell on a 10, so D3 came back..... I rolled and 3 Termies came back. Then I played the strat for another one making 4 coming back from the dead. That put my squad from 3 up to 7 Termies!

 

That was pretty cool. Probably won't happen again but it was cool.

 

The Termies cleaned out a transport, and another assault squad of Fulgurite Priests (My Termie Lord had removed their invuln which was key). Then the Termies got as deep as they could and multi assaulted 2 squads of Vanguard with plasma, and an Onager tank and an HQ. I killed the Onager tank, and consolidated in , but I knew it wouldn't be enough.

 

Surely enough the next turn I lost the last of my Rubrics, all my termies. my Daemon Prince (his screens were gone), and I had nothing but a Termie Sorc Lord, Ahriman, and an Exalted flanked by about 20 Cultists left.

 

It was a rough learning experience. I think as 'fun' as this new stuff is, it can't make a flexible enough army. You probably want to try all these powers, but it forces you to make multiple Detachments of expensive stuff... eventually you don't have the points to run what the meta dictates, but at the same time I'm hoping our powers will be enough to close those gaps, but I don't think they are. My list was probably never capable of beating the Admech list no matter who was generaling the armies.

[Heliomanes]

Thanks for sharing, Prot. I agree that we will have to rack our brains to come up with good ways to survive in a competitive environment. Sharing with people facing similar circumstances is a big step in that direction. Out of curiosity, what did your list look like?

I agree that we need some way to buff our spellcasting abilities. I think we have 3 options at the moment, most of them requiring a detachment slot. Either use Magnus to get those rerolls, a tzeentch demon detachment for the Locus of Conjuration stratagem, or a Cult of Change detachment for the Crest relic. All of those are major investments which will require us to build the list around it, but I cross my fingers that the upcoming FAQ frees us to choose relics more liberally.

[Archaeinox]

Yes, I was just discussing with a fellow TS player in my group last night about the new rules. The strat you mention could see Magnus survive at least 1 extra turn in a competitive environment but otherwise I'm not convinced his inclusion remains a competitive option as a whole around the world. Related to your post as well, we also discussed that Change might be a very important option to ensure critical powers go off in the absence of Magnus.

 

Healing the terminators like you describe certainly is a cute trick. I'm still considering Time with 10 of them but fishing for that situation in my area requires the terminators to take damage in the first place and if they are taking significant damage which I want to heal, someone will have the power to erase them anyway. :\

 

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Last night I played against a Blood Angels player who was trying to get back into the groove of 8th edition and had just purchased Blood of Baal. When he shot his AP -3 lascannons from devastators at my predators I realized it would quickly turn into a 'teaching game' and I don't mind. I mentioned the page he should check for the Doctrines and we went from there. Even with learning the new stuff, he put up a hell of a fight and as such I stepped it up a little bit and pulled out all the tricks like swapping to Gift of Chaos on an aspiring sorc to try and get rid of the odd characters nearby etc. He had sanguinary guard and a smash captain type deal and using a single detachment (Duplicity) I am still very pleased with what I get.

 

Turn 1 I gave him a CP from perfidious tome. I got 2 from it over the course of the game and then the character holding it turned himself into a daemon prince. I didnt have a model so I didnt place one and just removed him as a lesson to not do that crap again because I lost a relic and Gaze of Fate (which I had already used on a test that phase). 

 

It was 1500pts and I started the game with 20 Rubric Marines using RR near his lines, as I was Attacker and he didnt seize initiative. They melted about 8 intercessors in cover with Infernal Fusillade. I was happy with that because it showed that while powerful, it wasnt too much for a new(ish) player with a casual list. As such, I will probably be using it often and especially at 2000pts against all players. He wiped enough to make a critical morale test remove everyone. Ultimately, the small arms hurt them. I forgot to cast Weaver so that unit had Indomitable for a 4++ against his hellblasters. I neglected to shoot them because I wanted to see how the 3++ would do and yeah I forgot to cast Weaver soooooooo.. not a good test. 

 

Anyways I won by a single point after I was curious and attempted to score AFTER the game since I didnt much care. It was Front Line Warfare (CA2019) and I highly recommend playing it.. We did not use ITC building rules and all was well. I have more fun with games like that.

 

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My Iron Hands best friend showed up and spectated while I played the BA guy. He knows my TS can't handle that IH list and he knows that it's so brutal I could play it for him and table myself while he goes to smoke or something.. [vent mode]Which makes me sad because I don't play with him at all unlike in 7th ed with his Ultramarines where I could absolutely keep up with Wrath of Magnus. :\

Edited February 3, 2020 by Archaeinox

[Heliomanes]

Anyone know when we can expect the FAQ? No idea how long time they spent between the other PAs

[Archaeinox]

Probably soon. Disciples of Tzeentch was just before RotD and it just got a faq, so

[BoomWolf]

They didn't faq CA yet, so likely not that soon.