Cult of Scheming competitive (and spotlight I suppose)?

[Skywrath]

As I'm new to the faction, there are a lot of things I'm yet to discover. However an interesting thought occurred in my exploration was with the Cult of Scheming and it's competitiveness viability. Now let's overlook the typical Umbralefic Crystal + Master Misinformator combo and the Duplicity teleport. All of those are very solid and good and they work, but here we are exploring alternatives. So here's why I think it could be a nice competitive option instead of Duplicity:

Theorem relic - Does anyone remember the golden days of the old Trajann Moment Shackle ability in 8th where any strat he chooses costs 0CP, once per battle? In a Nephilim world where you start off with 2-3CP after WL traits and Relics and maybe contemptors, every CP is precious. Now this could be a very nice way not to spend 3CP upfront on Unwavering Phalanx, or 2CP on an interrupt/heroic intervene with Rubrics/SoT's. Because most missions prioritise holding the middle, that represents a potential of 3CP in your pool for a cost of 1CP, or even free, with Dilettante!

Grand Schemer WL Trait - Makes any unit (including Vehicles!) objective secured, and if you have it, each model counts as two. That is invaluable against an upcoming Daemon meta, tyranids, Eldar, especially if you temporal surge a 10m terminator blob with a Exalted Sorcerer on Disc with that WL trait. The range on it is quite small unfortunately, but with some careful positioning you could easily maximise it. 

Seeded Strategy Psychic Power - the cult psychic power. For a measly WC7 you can fall back, shoot and charge if you are tied in combat. Most TS lists would still run 1 x 10 terminators, and having that ability cast on them ensures they are just that much more survivable as the firepower of the TS is secondary only to the psychic phase. This also makes certain units for the opponent extremely dangerous to charge into. Then there are high skill, high ceiling potential with this power to maybe fall back onto an objective and score points that way.

Could this replace Duplicity as the Cult of choice? Off the bat you'd be trading the redeploy and GoI for fall back/shoot/charge, super-obsec WL trait and the ability to have more CP in your pocket. You still have access to the Crystal to gate a blob of maybe 10 flamers or use rise rubricae on them, and you have the option to temporal surge a 10m terminator blob. I suspect this might not be enough mobility, despite me feeling satisfied with having access to the three options. Then the redeploy for the Master Minsinformator only works on INFANTRY which while nice, is also not terribly important - I'd feel more strongly about this if I could redeploy vehicles like Custodes or Grey Knights with their equivalent. But I play slow factions so maybe there is a subconscious bias there. 

Keen to hear your thoughts.

 

[Xenith]

The theorem might see some play as being a free unwavering phalanx in turn 1 if you don't have enough cp. Essentially +50% CP for the cost of a relic in nephilim isn't too shabby. 

My issue with seeded strategy is that you need to commit to the fall back, and then try to guarantee the power going off - either through more cabal points or sheer luck. Generally the units you want to fall back will be a small rubric unit so you can shoot the enemy unit, in which case their shooting isnt great so you can do a regular fall back. Otherwise a large SOT unit that's just been tagged by something, and psychic powers can't deal with it. Again, you need to fall back and lose the cast from the SOT sorcerer, and risk getting the power off.  Seeded does have the advantage of 24" range, though, so I guess you could take the prism of echoes on a support sorc in your back line and just sling this all over the table from outside denial range. 

Compare this to facade where you can just remove the unit from combat (not counting as a fall back) shoot and assault (albeit from >9" away). Though I guess you could facade, then do 4 smites, then autocast smite on 9+ from the SOT sorcerer and bring a model back with the strat to make that a 5" charge. 

The WLT is not great I think. Would maybe be average if it was 6", but we already have ObSec on stuff, which stops that lone troop model from flipping objectives on us.