Inductii "ranking"

[Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf]

Yesterday, I was speaking with some guys about Night Lord's Inductii, and later I found  this video-podcast talking about them and ranking from better to worst:

 

I quite agree with thin ranking,  specially with the lower part of it, but I want to know your thoughts. Do you use Inductii squads in your army lists? I have one squad in my SoH and I'm thinking to add another one or make the one I have bigger (12 members now). 

 

Edited January 29 by Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf

[SkimaskMohawk]

Oh jeez. YouTube tier lists for 30k are notoriously janky/uneducated.

 

First, their graph needs a relabel since you can't be average when the minority is there and in bad. Call it side grade from the tactical/despoiler base.

 

DA idk enough about hexagramaton to really comment. On the surface, keeping heart and getting volkite for free is good. Pretty sure that bs5 bolters from stormwing is very good too though. So side grade feels right ish.

 

Emperors children are very good, for sure. Swarms of high initiative, high breach, LD 10 vs shooting, scoring are great. Give em all pinning flamers in 3rd company and have a fantastic 340 point unit of 20. They're "good".

 

Iron warriors are good. They stand on the objective on your backline with a vexila and need to be killed off to prevent scoring. Scoring wins games, and being in the back prevents forced shooting/return fires. Bump them up to full good.

 

White scars are dependant. Getting a 5+ fnp that can't be ignored against ws5+ is good. Getting a vp if you don't die or fall back from combat is very very good. But therin lies the issue. Ws5 units tend to excel at gobbling up 3+ armour ws4 targets. You lose heart for stubborn, and you can't join a character for stubborn or fearless, so not falling back can be a large challenge. If call them still good, but like in the middle of good and side grade. Bump em down a half thing. Until you take sagyar mazan and just jam in charging units with fearless and start winning for free (though sadly you can only get 4 vp this way). Bump em back up to good.

 

Space Wolves are weird. If you give them all shields then they're 1 attack base for a pretty eh invul without fnp to back them up, and if you use their bonus distance they're never getting past that 1 attack each. But if you, idk, go chain axes and take russ in bloodied claw you have 7"+1"+6"+7"+5 threat range (base move, Russ's +1, run with fleet 2, average roll on 2d6 with headstrong charge bonus and fleet 2 bonus and movement 8 bonus), or about 26". You'll also be STR 7 (+1 from axe, +1 from Russ, and +1 from bloody claw), stubborn, and bonus combat res. For 220 points you can pressure almost anywhere, with 40 STR 7 attacks that reroll to wound, with combat res advantage and scoring. From the troops. They're very good, or I'm crazy. Bump those nerds up.

 

Imp fists can get pinning on two heavy weapons once per game, per unit. HBs average a wound through, but they're really competing against recons at that point. I'd put them in between good and sidegrade.

 

The glorious eighth has no equals and is obviously good. Jokes aside, breaching 6+ averages more damage than chainswords, and curze pumps them with bloody murder and preysight to make them extra killy, and not run off the board in a second during night. The challenge thing is a gimmick bonus. Losing the LD hurts, but snipers/challenges make it a bit moot. 200 points for mass breaching is great. They're good. They're night lords.

 

Blood angels are bad. So, so obviously. Very bad. Bump em down. They're in their own tier.

 

Iron hands are defensive; they get Heavy and keep Heart, and can boost up to ws 5 for melee deflection. Plop them on an objective and try to grind out other scoring units. The thing is, they don't seem to synergize with the primarch or the rites, and when they fail the 3+, there's not much difference with tacs. I'd call them good where they are.

 

World eaters is a sidegrade for how the the ws/wound modifier falls. losing heart kinda tips the scales and dump them into the position on the chart. Good where they are.

 

Ultras are good. Inexorable is good, couple of special weapons in a scoring squad is good. Synergy with the legion trait is good for a shooting unit. But ultras aren't lacking on scoring units (lazy suzans), and 10 man squads can take a pasting from return fire. I'd honestly bump em down half a peg.

 

Death guard aren't good. Heart is almost always better, since death guard like standing on the points and grinding people down. The fact the special save still gets instant deathd really seals it. They're where they deserve to be.

 

Thousand sons are the bait legion for tier lists. A lot revolves around abusing psychic powers; most people don't even bother thinking of how to combine them. 200 points for 20/40 breaching shots with heart and scoring can't not be good. Guard of the Crimson king is their premier rite, removing support as much of a downside. And then psychic support: divination. Snipe stuff with divination and breaching. Ahriman is stuck with it, and he's already great. You can have 8 real psychers in a list, and being scummy with covidae is like, part and parcel of their playstyle. Like, how isn't this a clear upgrade over tacs? They're good. Bump them way.

 

Soh are good. Chainaxes for 1pt, furious charge and rampage if they're close to good units. 

 

Word bearers are bad. Just pay for corrupted. Start the game with corrupted and don't worry about jumping through hoops, be able to be joined by characters, and take artificer. Furious charge for all of that isn't good. Put them down into the bad or middle bad zone.

 

Salamanders are good. They're an upgrade. Keep em.

 

Raven guard are good. No-penalty fallback means you ain't ever giving up objectives from pinning, and you're not getting overwatchd in the open while charging.

 

Alpha legion are also odd. Can't be targetted by shooting attacks turn 1; if you could set up charges turn 1 easily you could do cool things. Or, if you do a lot of the terrible progressive scoring missions (core book, cthonia, or goon hammer; terrible missions), you can do a lot with alpharius. But otherwise, why would you want to shoot them turn 1? You don't; they don't matter. So this, imo, is a sidegrade, at best. Usually in between being bad the rest. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 30 by SkimaskMohawk

[WrathOfTheLion]

For Dark Angels, the big thing with the Hexagrammaton isn't even the bonuses that they miss out on, but that you can't take them in all but one of the DA rights of war. So if you take Inductii, you're almost exclusively limited to just the basic RoW. That doesn't mean you can't have a potent force in those, but it does put a bit of a damper on having some fun with them.

 

Depending on viewpoint, you may even have to bump them down to bad, simply because they significantly impact your ability to decide RoW or even construct a list. Which shouldn't be the case for a basic infantry unit.

Edited January 30 by WrathOfTheLion

[Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf]

But combat shields allows the bearer to use an additional weapon or a two hand one, right?

[SkimaskMohawk]

16 minutes ago, Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf said:

But combat shields allows the bearer to use an additional weapon or a two hand one, right?

Sure....if you didn't trade your pistol for it in the first place.

 

That's why people dump on the unit initially, because the free upgrade is actually a downgrade for an offensive unit. 

[Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf]

1 hour ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

Sure....if you didn't trade your pistol for it in the first place.

 

That's why people dump on the unit initially, because the free upgrade is actually a downgrade for an offensive unit. 

Yep, that's very true 

[Squark]

I think I ran the math when Inductii came out, and DA inductii were better than a Stormwing tactical squad if they moved unto close range that turn, but fury of the legion tips the needle back in favor of the tactical squad when they can stand still, and the difference wasn’t so great within that sweet spot, especially since a tactical squad could opt not to move and still get two shots per bolter, but be less vulnerable to return fire and charges. Where DA Inductii are probably at their strongest is leaping out of a rhino.

Edited January 31 by Squark

[Marshal Mittens]

I like the Dark Angels one. It's not powerful, but it's pretty ok, and it has a lot of flavor. 

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

I don´t understand the concept of these units. They are supposed to be inexperienced soldiers quickly pressed into service. Thus they should suck and yet they seem to be often alternatives to tactical squads. Weird.

[WrathOfTheLion]

12 minutes ago, Marshal Mittens said:

I like the Dark Angels one. It's not powerful, but it's pretty ok, and it has a lot of flavor. 

They're definitely cool, I'm painting up a squad myself. I just personally wish they had an exemption from the RoW requirements if they're not going to let them have access to the Hexagrammaton rules.

[SkimaskMohawk]

3 hours ago, Deus_Ex_Machina said:

I don´t understand the concept of these units. They are supposed to be inexperienced soldiers quickly pressed into service. Thus they should suck and yet they seem to be often alternatives to tactical squads. Weird.

 

In 1st, the only inductii that existed were world eater ones, and they were tied to their apothecary special character. The concept was they did some extremely sloppy hypno indoctrination and morally dubious surgery/enhancement on top of the nails to get this quickly produced berserker force. You could make your tacs better at melee and tougher, but at the cost of BS and scoring. You also couldnt just take the character as the only hq, so you had to pay some premium in points, as well as configure the list properly to make up for the lack of scoring. 

 

But ya, most of them have no real downside and are more like, legion archetype units, rather than new recruit formations. Probably a marketing thing to appeal to the excitement of world eaters inductii.

[DuskWalker]

On 1/29/2024 at 9:40 PM, SkimaskMohawk said:

Oh jeez. YouTube tier lists for 30k are notoriously janky/uneducated.

 

First, their graph needs a relabel since you can't be average when the minority is there and in bad. Call it side grade from the tactical/despoiler base.

 

DA idk enough about hexagramaton to really comment. On the surface, keeping heart and getting volkite for free is good. Pretty sure that bs5 bolters from stormwing is very good too though. So side grade feels right ish.

 

Emperors children are very good, for sure. Swarms of high initiative, high breach, LD 10 vs shooting, scoring are great. Give em all pinning flamers in 3rd company and have a fantastic 340 point unit of 20. They're "good".

 

Iron warriors are good. They stand on the objective on your backline with a vexila and need to be killed off to prevent scoring. Scoring wins games, and being in the back prevents forced shooting/return fires. Bump them up to full good.

 

White scars are dependant. Getting a 5+ fnp that can't be ignored against ws5+ is good. Getting a vp if you don't die or fall back from combat is very very good. But therin lies the issue. Ws5 units tend to excel at gobbling up 3+ armour ws4 targets. You lose heart for stubborn, and you can't join a character for stubborn or fearless, so not falling back can be a large challenge. If call them still good, but like in the middle of good and side grade. Bump em down a half thing. Until you take sagyar mazan and just jam in charging units with fearless and start winning for free (though sadly you can only get 4 vp this way). Bump em back up to good.

 

Space Wolves are weird. If you give them all shields then they're 1 attack base for a pretty eh invul without fnp to back them up, and if you use their bonus distance they're never getting past that 1 attack each. But if you, idk, go chain axes and take russ in bloodied claw you have 7"+1"+6"+7"+5 threat range (base move, Russ's +1, run with fleet 2, average roll on 2d6 with headstrong charge bonus and fleet 2 bonus and movement 8 bonus), or about 26". You'll also be STR 7 (+1 from axe, +1 from Russ, and +1 from bloody claw), stubborn, and bonus combat res. For 220 points you can pressure almost anywhere, with 40 STR 7 attacks that reroll to wound, with combat res advantage and scoring. From the troops. They're very good, or I'm crazy. Bump those nerds up.

 

Imp fists can get pinning on two heavy weapons once per game, per unit. HBs average a wound through, but they're really competing against recons at that point. I'd put them in between good and sidegrade.

 

The glorious eighth has no equals and is obviously good. Jokes aside, breaching 6+ averages more damage than chainswords, and curze pumps them with bloody murder and preysight to make them extra killy, and not run off the board in a second during night. The challenge thing is a gimmick bonus. Losing the LD hurts, but snipers/challenges make it a bit moot. 200 points for mass breaching is great. They're good. They're night lords.

 

Blood angels are bad. So, so obviously. Very bad. Bump em down. They're in their own tier.

 

Iron hands are defensive; they get Heavy and keep Heart, and can boost up to ws 5 for melee deflection. Plop them on an objective and try to grind out other scoring units. The thing is, they don't seem to synergize with the primarch or the rites, and when they fail the 3+, there's not much difference with tacs. I'd call them good where they are.

 

World eaters is a sidegrade for how the the ws/wound modifier falls. losing heart kinda tips the scales and dump them into the position on the chart. Good where they are.

 

Ultras are good. Inexorable is good, couple of special weapons in a scoring squad is good. Synergy with the legion trait is good for a shooting unit. But ultras aren't lacking on scoring units (lazy suzans), and 10 man squads can take a pasting from return fire. I'd honestly bump em down half a peg.

 

Death guard aren't good. Heart is almost always better, since death guard like standing on the points and grinding people down. The fact the special save still gets instant deathd really seals it. They're where they deserve to be.

 

Thousand sons are the bait legion for tier lists. A lot revolves around abusing psychic powers; most people don't even bother thinking of how to combine them. 200 points for 20/40 breaching shots with heart and scoring can't not be good. Guard of the Crimson king is their premier rite, removing support as much of a downside. And then psychic support: divination. Snipe stuff with divination and breaching. Ahriman is stuck with it, and he's already great. You can have 8 real psychers in a list, and being scummy with covidae is like, part and parcel of their playstyle. Like, how isn't this a clear upgrade over tacs? They're good. Bump them way.

 

Soh are good. Chainaxes for 1pt, furious charge and rampage if they're close to good units. 

 

Word bearers are bad. Just pay for corrupted. Start the game with corrupted and don't worry about jumping through hoops, be able to be joined by characters, and take artificer. Furious charge for all of that isn't good. Put them down into the bad or middle bad zone.

 

Salamanders are good. They're an upgrade. Keep em.

 

Raven guard are good. No-penalty fallback means you ain't ever giving up objectives from pinning, and you're not getting overwatchd in the open while charging.

 

Alpha legion are also odd. Can't be targetted by shooting attacks turn 1; if you could set up charges turn 1 easily you could do cool things. Or, if you do a lot of the terrible progressive scoring missions (core book, cthonia, or goon hammer; terrible missions), you can do a lot with alpharius. But otherwise, why would you want to shoot them turn 1? You don't; they don't matter. So this, imo, is a sidegrade, at best. Usually in between being bad the rest. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the best Inductii review I've seen since Siege of Cthonia released, which is no small feat given that many have tried with...mixed success. 

 

The only ranking I think I might disagree with is for the IWs. I think a lot of folks miss that Pinning immunity makes them one of the stickiest objective grabbers imaginable, but the "shoot at closest unit" restriction is also extremely punishing if you want your tacticals to be anything but a roadblock. Too much of a mixed bag to be a straightforward "good" or upgrade.

 

It still wounds me that the DG inductii are pretty much useless outside of maybe a very narrow niche in ZM games. Just giving their FnP the ability to override Instant Death (as the WS Inductii do, for some reason!) would have instantly made them at least a viable sidegrade. 

 

  

4 hours ago, Deus_Ex_Machina said:

I don´t understand the concept of these units. They are supposed to be inexperienced soldiers quickly pressed into service. Thus they should suck and yet they seem to be often alternatives to tactical squads. Weird.

 

Compared to the average Tactical Squad, the Inductii aren't so much inexperienced as much as they're a divergent way of creating and training Astartes.

 

I'm personally quite happy with that change, as GW used it as a way to show how the Legions re-configured during the Heresy, often in ways that are "call forwards" to later successor chapters.

Edited February 4 by DuskWalker

[SkimaskMohawk]

19 hours ago, DuskWalker said:

The only ranking I think I might disagree with is for the IWs. I think a lot of folks miss that Pinning immunity makes them one of the stickiest objective grabbers imaginable, but the "shoot at closest unit" restriction is also extremely punishing if you want your tacticals to be anything but a roadblock. Too much of a mixed bag to be a straightforward "good" or upgrade.

 

It still wounds me that the DG inductii are pretty much useless outside of maybe a very narrow niche in ZM games. Just giving their FnP the ability to override Instant Death (as the WS Inductii do, for some reason!) would have instantly made them at least a viable sidegrade. 

 

See I almost always use tacs as backfield mooks, and exclusively used them for that in my iron warriors in 1st, so that's just kinda how I think of them. Backfield unit that needs to be ground down. Hopefully they won't have los to most things in general (to prevent them getting shot in the first place), but paying for shrapnel bolters is also a way to cut their range so they're less likely to shoot stuff by accident. Or do something ridiculous like always run them in the movement phase (and leave them in place) and lock them out of shooting that way lol. Maybe they're not as slottable as a lot of the inductii are, since you're using a non compulsory slot to backline, but I still think they're better than tacs for tacs pretty much primary role. 

[MegaVolt87]

Eh, I'm more aggressive with my IW tac squads, so shrapnel bolters and rhino's for me. Plus I can LOS block with the rhino. IW inductti are more of a liability for my playstyle. If I can't dictate what I shoot at, forget it. 

[Gorgoff]

On 2/5/2024 at 3:42 AM, MegaVolt87 said:

Eh, I'm more aggressive with my IW tac squads, so shrapnel bolters and rhino's for me. Plus I can LOS block with the rhino. IW inductti are more of a liability for my playstyle. If I can't dictate what I shoot at, forget it. 

Absolutely agree.

I think the Iron Warriors inductii are so boring and not very useful. I mean if they sit on an objective and the enemy shoots with pinning stuff they are obviously superior to tacticals but that's such a niche use.

We do play the SoC missions only around here (without the stupid strategic advantage though) so we need units who can rapidly march up to something and score. 

That's why I think the Alpha Legion unit is great as well.

Besides with Dynat or Alpharius we can just infiltrate them towards shooty enemy units which they can shoot without getting shot back.