List First match 10th edition. CSM vs Thousand sons.

[Cpt.Danjou]

So tomorrow I will try the first match with CSM, we will play the Only war mission.

 

My list is as follows ( I guess points values are ok as they are free now, but I can edit them if it is not ok.)

 

Master of possession MoT and Eye of Tzeect (110)

Heretic Astartes Daemon Prince with wings  MoS (195)

 

10 man Chosen unit with 4 combi weapons, 2 Power fists and Icon MoT (230)

5 man Chaos Terminators with Reaper autocannon, powerfist, chainfist MoS (195)

5 man Chaos Terminators with Reaper autocannon, powerfist, chainfist MoS (195)

 

10 man cultist unit with Cultist Grenade launcher MoN (55)

10 man cultist unit with Cultist Grenade launcher MoN (55)

20 man cultist unit with 2 Cultist Grenade launchers MoN (110)

 

Maulerfiend with Tendrils, MoS (155)

Maulerfiend with Tendrils, MoS (155)

Havoc Squad  2 lascannon, 2 reaper chaincannons Powerfist Undivided(135)

Havoc Squad  2 lascannon, 2 reaper chaincannons Powerfist Undivided (135)

Chaos Predator Annihilator 2xLascannon, Combi-weapon, Havoc Launcher MoN (135)

Chaos Predator Annihilator 2xLascannon, Combi-weapon, Havoc Launcher MoN (135)

 

Total points 1995

 

What do you think? 

 

 

Cpt. Danjou

Edited June 17, 2023 by Cpt.Danjou
Split one cultist mob in to two.

[Kaiju Soze]

I think you're a Battleline unit short.

Edited June 17, 2023 by Kaiju Soze

[Cpt.Danjou]

4 minutes ago, Kaiju Soze said:

I think you're a Battleline unit short.

Chucks you are right! Ok I'll split one of the cultist units in to two.  :)

 

Cpt. Danjou

[acrozatarim]

There's no minimum Battleline requirement. Battleline just means you can take up to 6 of a given unit rather than up to 3 max.

 

I'm really interested to hear how you go with the winged daemon prince. Sitting here with the daemon prince box and trying to decide which way to build it!

 

I think cultists are one of the few places that the Mark of Tzeentch seems better as a shooting buff than the Mark of Nurgle, since lethal hits does a bit more work on a S3 attack. If you had a Helbrute I'd recommend a Mark rather than Undivided on the Havocs, since getting 5+ sustained and lethal is just so good, but since you don't Undivided does seem a solid choice there for greater accuracy.

[Kaiju Soze]

8 minutes ago, acrozatarim said:

There's no minimum Battleline requirement. Battleline just means you can take up to 6 of a given unit rather than up to 3 max.

Could have sworn the previews said minimum 3 battleline units. I'll have to reread the army building rules. 

 

Edit: Huh. if I didn't imagine a battleline requirement, it didn't make it into the core rules.

Edited June 17, 2023 by Kaiju Soze

[Cpt.Danjou]

I do own a Hellbrute, and I wanted him in, but I had no idea what to take out from the list, I was thinking of getting rid of cultist, but I think I need something annoying to hold objectives so all of them can't go. Thank you for the heads up on MoT on them. I could get rid of the larger Cultist unit and one predator, but the I don't know what to fill the last 95 points. Maybe a Sorc in termninator armour attached to one of the termi units?

 

 

Cpt. Danjou

[acrozatarim]

Honestly, I dont think there's anything grievously wrong with the list you've got, so I'd try it out as is, then try a list with a helbrute another time to compare.

[Cpt.Danjou]

Close match, but the Thousand sons won with a just a couple of points. No need to discuss what I did wrong as tactical discussions are pointless.

 

Cpt.Danjou

[WatchCaptainNavar]

How did you find shooting vs melee in terms of damage done and received and it’s impacts on your game plan?

 

I haven’t played 10th yet but having read warphammers new articles they seem to be of the opinion that shooting is a bigger deal in 9th thanks to the new overwatch strat and fights first. If your opponent deployed flamer rubrics I’m guessing you’ll have had a front row seat to the new movement phase overwatch.

 

 

Edited June 21, 2023 by WatchCaptainNavar

[MasterDeath]

10 hours ago, Cpt.Danjou said:

Close match, but the Thousand sons won with a just a couple of points. No need to discuss what I did wrong as tactical discussions are pointless.

 

Cpt.Danjou

Agreed, but how was your Impression of 10th?

[Cpt.Danjou]

The shooting was kind of one sided, as my opponent tried to keep away from the big guns, as per usual my predators can't hit a the inside of a barn wall, if hit something he had the incredible luck to inv save the shoots. Sure his goats did not like the reaper cannons. The melee was fun, but mostly my big guys did the heavy lifting, dp, and maulerfiends, and few things can survive those. Thousand sons are still wet noodles when they enter CC, especially with a those big guys, so I did not see that much of change of the game.  My opponent had concentrated mostly on psychic and shooting, and I think precision weapons are great against them, I even though about getting the named Slaanesh daemon, Shalaxi, as it can kill characters both at range and in CC, but boy it is expensive (400).

 

With thousand sons, killing characters asap is important, I think it is important with all armies, but with Sons even more important.

 

When it comes to the terminators,I think MoS was a mistake, I used the "UNNATURAL SWIFTNESS" stratagem on the Maulrfiends all the time, even if they hit harder in cc,. If they had have MoT and a Lord in terminator armour in one of the squads I would have been able to rase two each turn, if you have two squads, with "SKINSHIFT", healing terminators are extremely hard, and with MoT they shoot hard too. I never lost one wound to Dark Pact, and I used it a lot.

 

It was a fun match and it went quicker than the same amount of points did in the 9th.

 

Cpt.Danjou

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Strats are still once per phase, so you can't Skinshift two different units in one turn.

[danodan123]

2 minutes ago, Iron Father Ferrum said:

Strats are still once per phase, so you can't Skinshift two different units in one turn.

 

Using the chaos lords ability you can, very handy.

[WatchCaptainNavar]

The terminator lord allows the strat recycling through his  data sheet ability, you just have to order it right.

 

 Use it on the unit without the lord first, then use the lord of chaos ability to use it on the unit he leads

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks for the summary, it is always great to hear people's experiences with a new ruleset.  Did you find Dark Pact (pardon the pun) very impactful?  I'm always very warry of things that only trigger on a 6 as it never seems to happen (or at least not when its meaningful).

 

Oh, and I definitely agree about Shilaxi's point cost - 400 is a definite "ouch" - unfortunately for my slanneshi demons army, her/him/it and the soul grinder (which I don't have) are the only things in the army that can really be considered "anti-armour".  I would think that we have things in our CSM armory (I mean, you take 2 maulerfiends or hellbrutes for the same price and be well on the way to buying a 3rd) which can ho Shilaxi's job better for far cheaper, so I was a bit surprised when you mentioned considering taking her/him/it as an ally for your CSM.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Cpt.Danjou]

It is always nice to get that extra oomf to your shooting or melee, but for me it was not groundbreaking except when used with the right mark. I think Dark pact works best with in combination with marks, if you are not using the marks in a stratagem tactic. So choose well. For me it was a good lesson, learning how to use marks, and Dark Pact, and I might have lost due to my inexperience with them, and now I am going to bring units that are dedicated to specific tactic in mind.  I definitely see the argument with giving dedicated hard hitting, long range units MoT, specially on units with multiple lascannons and such. But also MoN can be useful to unit that shoots a lot at hordes like a Havoc reaper cannon unit vs orks. I think that I will mark units with Undivided if it is a unit that is not dedicated to a specific role.

 

And when it comes to Shilaxi, I think I will bring it just in fun casual games, as it is way to expensive, 20% for one unit in a 2k list is a bit to much.

 

Cpt.Danjou

[Iron Father Ferrum]

My theory crafting on Marks so far:

 

Lethal Hit-inducing Marks should go on units with low/medium-strength but medium-high rate of fire.  My anecdotes is Legionaries with bolters, heavy bolter, & RCC.  They already generate enough dice to clear chaff, but S4-5 will be wounding most infantry on 3s or 4s at best.  Lethal Hits sidesteps that issue.

 

Sustained Hit-inducing Marks should go on high-strength, low-medium rate of fire units.  My anecdote here is lascannon Havocs.  Average dice on four lascannons is one miss and one Sustained so it flattens your Hit percentage and increases reliability. On *good* rolls you can actually generate more hits than the number of shots, which is key because you're likely to drop a few hits on your wound rolls.

 

If you're going Undivided, you'd better have a well thought out reason for that.  The two I've used to justify it so far are:

 

1. Maximize the utility of Profane Zeal on Possessed to generate mortal wounds.

 

2. Helbrutes are too low-wound count to really lean into Pacts too heavily, so the RR1s from the Mark benefits their one-shot lascannons to ensure hits at range.

[danodan123]

I believe you have to still do a dark pact to get the undivided re roll 

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Oh, you're right!  I was just looking at the individual Mark rules themselves, not the overall rules for assigning Marks.

[danodan123]

9 minutes ago, Iron Father Ferrum said:

Oh, you're right!  I was just looking at the individual Mark rules themselves, not the overall rules for assigning Marks.

I think we're just going to have to admit that dark pacts are just going to be all the time left right or centre

 

I was pretty much ready for helbrute spam but then the points came out and I think they seem quite pricey to be honest, not to sure.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

No, I think you are right about them being kind of pricey.  While they are more resilient against mid-strength guns like plasma, they are as as vulnerable to chip damage from small arms as they were previously, and even more vulnerable to real anti-tank weapons which largely outpaced its toughness increase and many of which have gotten a boost to damage as well.

 

Compare them with wardog's from the chaos knights list, which are tougher, have more wounds, are faster, are better armed, are better at holding objectives, have an inherent invulnerable against shooting and - except for the all melee variant - are cheaper to boot.  That said, wardogs are likely underpriced and are liable to come up in price as we settle into the edition, and unlike the Hellbrute's boost to Dark Pact, don't have any rules that improve anyone but themselves.  They also, obviously, can't benefit from Dark Pact themselves or from Chaos Marine stratagems.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Dr_Ruminahui

[MasterDeath]

I think getting both benefits of a pact + 5+ crits for Marks (rerolls are also nice, but not that potent) is worth quiet some Points. Helbrute Is on my Shopping list. After accursed... And fellgore... And traitors... And Commune... And...