It's quiet...... too quiet.

[Prot]

Arch, I get what you're saying. I remember those days, but these are modern times for development, and rules writing. GW is a heck of a ton bigger now, their stock proves that. I'm afraid I can't give them much leeway when it comes to modern rules. That said, I'm not going to make any judgement until most of the codexes are out.

 

Here's a crazy comparison; I decided in 8th edition to expand my multitude of Marine based forces to include an old xenos army I used to play for years, Eldar.

 

In this edition, I find they play a strangely familiar game as Thousand Sons. The Psychic Phase is depended on heavily by both factions. Without it, they are largely dysfunctional.

 

When I win with my Thousand Sons, it happens in a very similar result to my Eldar. Both armies are playing the 'denial' and 'objective' based game. For both armies, killing just isn't a good metric for success. They simply don't have it compared to marines/tau/astra/admech/etc. 

 

So both armies find success in different areas of 9th ed. I've had wins with both armies where I've hardly killed anything. (Trust me, I'm not bragging about this. lol)

[Mordas]

Brave taking the Eldar out, I haven't seen much point in taking mine out though that might be down to the units I have...

 

For the Sons, I have been heavily relying on the HellBrutes / Contemptors / Decimators for much-needed firepower. I have had fun with this army (I have 8 in total) and for my games, that's what I look for. However, I would not be willing to go up against a Marine meta-list at the moment, I don't think we can compete at that level or even challenge it, my last game against marines (not with Sons) I think I managed to kill 4-5 models before conceding to avoid the whitewash.

 

I do see hope on the horizon though, 9th seems fun and the playtesters seem positive it will be better than we think. The recent announcement of the "core" rule may help tone down some armies and allow for new and surprising list builds. So I am going to keep trying new things with my newest army (and last, can't afford another army lol) and hope we get a shiny new stuff in our book when it drops!

[casb1965]

I have played four games, won one and lost three. I think your idea about a unit of rubric in a rhino is a good one, I have used it and it´s hard for your opponent to kill them. I also tried in the game I won, to put 20 rubrics with a strat on a forward objective and my opponent could never get me off it in the whole game. So that´s positive, we can hold objectives very good.

 

The negative thing I found out is that we have not so much else to do. We have a hard time to put out damage, both in pshycic, range and close combat. So in the long run my armies (at least) just slowly gets grind down and have a hard time to put out opponents. Together with a lack of fast units it´s hard to stop them from reaching there goals. Also, to give 15vp to opponents from the start is step to catch up from (because of abhor the witch).

 

You can and will win games but it seems right now we are lacking some things that other armies have. Mostly, flexibility. I hope Gw will adress that when the come to make our 9:ed codex. I will anyway play the army as it´s very beautiful and looks awsome on the table but right now I´m wondering if my ad meach army is not more fun?

 

I have a similar problem with GKs, surely deepstriking a 10 man unit of Terminators with a Sorceror into cover will give you enough time to counter Abhor the Witch with Psychic Ritual.

 

Also, in my area I don't think I've ever played an opponent without at least one psyker in his army so Abhor the Witch is out the window for them.

[Sorceress]

its much harder to get off psychic ritual than abhor the witch. abhor the witch gives points for every psyker unit killed. psychic ritual requires the same psyker character to successfully preform the action 3 times over what is likely 5 rounds during which you must be within 6 inches of the center of the board. plus your giving up Casting two powers and many if not most missions don't have a objective near the center of the board to let the babysitter unit hold. 

[Archaeinox]

This is probably too far-fetched but it's possible we could see a TS trait that allows our psykers to function without giving up doing anything when taking a Psychic Action (ie: just allowing the psychic action to count as one of our manifest attempts per psyker). 

 

It would eliminate the problem of us not having good psychic secondaries in the first place and reward us for having so many psykers, making it our 'thing' to take just like others take Abhor the Witch vs us. 

 

hmmm

[casb1965]

its much harder to get off psychic ritual than abhor the witch. abhor the witch gives points for every psyker unit killed. psychic ritual requires the same psyker character to successfully preform the action 3 times over what is likely 5 rounds during which you must be within 6 inches of the center of the board. plus your giving up Casting two powers and many if not most missions don't have a objective near the center of the board to let the babysitter unit hold. 

 

It's not every unit it's every unit Character for Abhor the Witch and they can't have any Psykers in their army so no chance to deny any powers performed. Get a unit 10 Terminators within 6" of the centre line, in cover and that's 18 wounds your opponent has to get through with a 2+/5++, +1 to save All is Dust, +1 to save minimum for cover. Unless they unleash hell on that unit your Sorceror should survive 3 turns.

 

Also how often do you play an army without any Psykers?

[Archaeinox]

Quite often, lately. There's a majority of builds in my local area alone that would gladly just take 5 intercessors over a single librarian, for example.

 

The Eldar and Tyranid players never show up anymore. They're all moving to other games. Even Harlequin players aren't running Shadowseers or whatever.

Edited September 25, 2020 by Archaeinox

[jay170788]

 

its much harder to get off psychic ritual than abhor the witch. abhor the witch gives points for every psyker unit killed. psychic ritual requires the same psyker character to successfully preform the action 3 times over what is likely 5 rounds during which you must be within 6 inches of the center of the board. plus your giving up Casting two powers and many if not most missions don't have a objective near the center of the board to let the babysitter unit hold. 

 

It's not every unit it's every unit Character for Abhor the Witch and they can't have any Psykers in their army so no chance to deny any powers performed. Get a unit 10 Terminators within 6" of the centre line, in cover and that's 18 wounds your opponent has to get through with a 2+/5++, +1 to save All is Dust, +1 to save minimum for cover. Unless they unleash hell on that unit your Sorceror should survive 3 turns.

 

Also how often do you play an army without any Psykers?

 

 

Actually it is 3 points per psychic unit, 5 points per psychic character. Thousand Sons are the only one of my 3 armies I run a psyker in at all. When I collect my harlies it'll be 2 out of 4, so half.

[casb1965]

Quite often, lately. There's a majority of builds in my local area alone that would gladly just take 5 intercessors over a single librarian, for example.

 

The Eldar and Tyranid players never show up anymore. They're all moving to other games. Even Harlequin players aren't running Shadowseers or whatever.

 

Every army I play against brings at least one Psyker, maybe when they look at Abhor the Witch and know they're playing my GK that'll change.

[Kite Senet]

Well, I've been pretty quiet because ironically, I've only played 8th edition since 9th was released, and I've played more 8th than during 8th's lifespan. My regular opponent and I were both frustrated by the constant changes, and so we're enjoying finally having a stable, fixed game to play. We did agree that we'd reconsider 9th when we both have codexes for our factions, but considering he plays Space Wolves and he's upset that they're getting downgraded to a supplement, we may end up taking that criteria very literally and simply sit 9th out.

[Montoya]

I do find it utterly awesome that your regular opponent plays spacewolves!   What a thematic and epic long term rivalry that you're living out in game play

[Prot]

Well, I've been pretty quiet because ironically, I've only played 8th edition since 9th was released, and I've played more 8th than during 8th's lifespan. My regular opponent and I were both frustrated by the constant changes, and so we're enjoying finally having a stable, fixed game to play. We did agree that we'd reconsider 9th when we both have codexes for our factions, but considering he plays Space Wolves and he's upset that they're getting downgraded to a supplement, we may end up taking that criteria very literally and simply sit 9th out.

 

Your friend will likely save money, and not be downgraded. I think having a separate codex, that requires the 'parent' codex is far more frustrating. (Like Thousand Sons currently are.) I don't think any units are lost as a result, and I have to wonder if it will happen to Thousand Sons since the model line is so tiny (but there are so many things we don't get, that it might be poor form to throw us in the Chaos Space Marines Codex.)

 

To me the 9th ed changes are fairly static now. I don't see much changing, and the secondaries (once you're used to them) are VERY ITC-like, and unchanging. (Frankly I seriously miss the way we played modified Maelstrom.) But the point is 9th ed is actually 'easy' and I think the hardest thing is the terrain changes which are actually a very good change.

 

I will probably still never use the psychic secondaries. I used them at the start but I still think they need to re work them. I will say I play armies without psykers though.

 

I'm actually surprised you guys don't run into -any- of them! Lately this includes (but is not limited to) some marine armies, and of course Necrons, AdMech, Custodes and Tau. I'd say if you are avoiding all of these archtypes it's unfortunate you don't have that balance in your meta. But when you face those match ups, it can be punishing. 

[The Yncarne]

I'm not using the psychic secondaries for any of my other armies either. My opponents are okay with forgoing a psycher of their own to play abhor the witch against the sectai prosperine.

[Ahzek451]

I'll be using this time to finally wrap up some painting and taking a break from the gaming aspect. I believe GW knows that our army needs some model attention. Death guard has had a bigger initial wave and a slow tickle of new models (and still receiving). Hoping GW is working on a big splash release like what the necrons got and we will finally step out of the odd spot we have been in since the last model drop. Come on lucky Tzeentch number 9 for 9th edition.  

[Kite Senet]

Your friend will likely save money, and not be downgraded. I think having a separate codex, that requires the 'parent' codex is far more frustrating. (Like Thousand Sons currently are.) I don't think any units are lost as a result, and I have to wonder if it will happen to Thousand Sons since the model line is so tiny (but there are so many things we don't get, that it might be poor form to throw us in the Chaos Space Marines Codex.)

 

I'm not sure I follow how it would even be possible for my friend to save money by buying a $50 SM fat codex and a $40 SW thin supplement over just a $40 SW thin codex. (I am figuring based on 8th pricing, but even that might change.) This is especially so considering GW was happy to make Codex SM the only codex in 8th that a player ever had to buy a second time. I'm also not sure what you mean by a "parent" codex; I could almost see how the T-Sons options are limited enough to require Codex CSM (even there I play mono T-Sons without CSM) but is there even anything (in 8th) that Codex SM adds to Space Wolves that they don't already have? I don't get why my friend would have any reason to get Codex SM. (I would note that he never did get Codex SM in 8th either and that hasn't stopped us from playing.)

 

I do find it utterly awesome that your regular opponent plays spacewolves!   What a thematic and epic long term rivalry that you're living out in game play

 

It is a lot of fun! We are definitely more narrative-focused players, so the rivalry in the backstory adds a lot to the game. (We're also both rather bad losers, so having a good narrative playing out to focus on instead of the fact that we're losing helps keep things fun for both of us.) We have a lot of fluff built up between our armies as well--rivalries between particular characters in our armies, or backstory that has been influenced by events in the game. For example, he has a Redemptor Dreadnought which he has painted to be covered in runes, which after a particularly silly match where I summoned a mob of 20 pink horrors to surround that dreadnought--who promptly did absolutely nothing but scrabble at the dreadnought ineffectually, wasting most of my reinforcement points--we decided the runes were a traditional Fenrisian protective ward against daemonic entities. (Taking some inspiration from that horror story about the "tomtenissar of the Yukon" which has circulated around the internet for a while.)

[Heliomanes]

Most of my friends play semi-compeitively, and the Thousand Sons are just smeared into a fine paste by 9th edition, so I'm sitting this out until further notice.

[Sonoftherubric21]

I shelved all marine armies across the board until our 9th books come out. 

Edited October 5, 2020 by Sonoftherubric21

[Naryn]

Been playing a lot of killteam with my 1k Sons lately, and having a decent time. Wish it was safe to play in public so I could play someone besides my roommate!

[BoomWolf]

Most of my friends play semi-compeitively, and the Thousand Sons are just smeared into a fine paste by 9th edition, so I'm sitting this out until further notice.

 

Really?

Until the new marine books came out (that leaves us in the dust, pardon the pun), my rubrics kina slaughtered their way through my opponents to the the sheer valuetown of cult of duplicity dominating the objective game.

 

The new marine books though...no competition. we can't fight their buffed up versions while we remain so weak in comparison. not to mention the meta shifting to more D2 weapons hoses us.

[Xenith]

Well, I've been pretty quiet because ironically, I've only played 8th edition since 9th was released, and I've played more 8th than during 8th's lifespan. My regular opponent and I were both frustrated by the constant changes, and so we're enjoying finally having a stable, fixed game to play. We did agree that we'd reconsider 9th when we both have codexes for our factions, but considering he plays Space Wolves and he's upset that they're getting downgraded to a supplement, we may end up taking that criteria very literally and simply sit 9th out.

 

There's actually a lot to be said for that. I did enjoy the times where a codex/army book was stable for a period of years and you could get plenty of games in, and learn the weaker units, or play enough games to gain experience with them.

 

I think if you stick with the first base codex from each edition, and just ignore all the FAQ/Chapter approved stuff, point changes, etc, then you'll probably have some stable games. That said, SW always seem to get the love from codex writers, so are generally much more powerful than Thousand Sons - how have your games been turning out?