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Posted (edited)

Well - first game with new Codex last night and I was well pleased with it. Faced new DG, and opponent made some deployment mistakes so that I was able to terraform everything and then just keep pushing him back so I had like 50 points by turn 3 and he had 15.

 

Berzerker Warband list (We play 2100pt games with a mandatory extra non-Epic character):

 

Khârn

MoE (Glaive)

2x10 Berzerkers

2x Rhino

2x Spawn

2x Jahkals

2x Forgefiend

2x Maulerfiend

2x 8Bound

1x Goremongers

1x Helbrute (ML / autocannons)

 

Unit analysis:

 

Spawn - The very finest trading piece. One pair got wrecked by a cannon drone, but the other one suppressed a Rhino turn 1, and then killed it in turn 2. Blunting his expansion for 85 points was key. I was ready to trade Zerks over there, but I didn't need to in the end because the Spawn kept him at arm's length.

 

Maulerfiends - The speed on these was clutch for staging and hiding in round 1. While one kinda bounced on a daemon Prince, in opponent's turn Mortarion flubbed his attacks charging into one and it slapped him for 24 damage, putting him down to 2W remaining after FnPs. Solid.

 

Forgefiends - Opponent sort of accidentally gave these are a harder target than I'd have preferred - Nurgle Daemon Prince. For all that, stripping any wounds off of big stuff is a big help when Maulers are around, and anything without an invulnerable save is gonna catch heck. Should have likely considered occasionally not shooting the closest thing, but it's still lots of fun to have SOMETHING to do during shooting phase.

 

Helbrute - Ok. I was threat overloading enough that he never caught a bullet and just stripped some Rhino wounds and then sat pretty on left flank. I may try a triple Brute list at some point, or a different loadout, but next list I'll do something else with the points.

 

Zerks - real good in Warband anyway. I missed the opponent's Fights First on the first thing I charged with them, and adding a solid Overwatch to that, I only had 4 guys attacking 7 Plague marines... S6 Lethal and Eviscerators got it done though, so that Khârn could punt the smelly character into the sun. Next turn I CP re-rolled the last guy's save so that I could Surge Khârn on to his rear Plagueburst. They're still a bit fragile, but they HIT, even at small numbers.

 

8Bound - Good, but hard to protect. First three just died to Plagueburst and drone fire, other 3 mulched some Spawn and hauler before disappearing to a second hauler's melta. They certainly seemed like a candidate for punching up, but their problem is positioning and resilience. Feeling like Invocatus leading 3 for a DS play might be better than the 2x3 rolling solo.

 

Jakhals - Yes, always. They did nothing but score points, which is something we desparately need so that we don't need to stop for actions.

 

Rhino - Same, pretty much, as well as a good way to protect Zerks obviously. MoE and friends never even left the bus lol.

 

What have others found so far? My opinion of the book definitely went up based on this, and I'm excited to run them again, but will likely do so swapping Helbrute and 1 Spawn to 2 characters for the 8bound, and possibly trying the Exalted for DS instead of trying to push Scouts. With all the Zerks mounted, the 8bound feel too vulnerable as obvious bullet catchers in turn 1, whereas a little Rapid Ingress and Battle-lust could get them right where they need to be for turn 2/3 charge.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

Edited by Dr. Clock
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Thank you for the write up.

How did the Goremongers work out? I'm interested in getting a unit when I can. Cheaper action monkeys are going to be needed, like you mentioned.

I think Invocatus would be a great addition to the 8bound. Gaining DS and the ability to move through terrain could lead to some cheeky rapid ingress and charges through a wall.

2 hours ago, MadEdric said:

How did the Goremongers work out?

Great!

 

Turn 1 Terraformed, then sat pretty on my right for a turn before taking Deathshroud in the face. 1 each Jakhals + Goremongers + Spawn is mandatory minimum IMO.

 

3 hours ago, MadEdric said:

Invocatus

 Yep - He'll probably show up in game 3 alongside a Slaughterbound and 3 Exalted for the double DS threat.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

  • 4 weeks later...

I had a big issue vs. Blood Angels. Essentially I took the possessed detachment and he took 3 Vindicators. It was nasty... but got worse when I thought I was 'home free' after getting the Vindicators stuck in close combat, and then he proceeds to read off the rule that Vindicators can not only shoot normal in CC, but they can do so with Blast Weapons as well. Ouch.

 

Next game I took the same detachment and barely took out Votann.  Points wise I hammered him but that's because I was across the table quickly and he just couldn't reliably get out of his quarter to score without risking close combat.

 

I have to admit it was a bad first game, but it was this second game that even though I won, I felt like the Dataslates are quite lethargic. This is where I was very disappointed.

 

I ran into a plain jane squad of Votann troops. T5, 1 wound... plebs. With an HQ and they had a FnP rule. I charged them with 10 Berzerkers with a character (I think in this case it was Kharne but this happened multiple times in the game.) 

 

I proceed to kill 3 models all said and done. His HQ (and squad) return back and kill 4 marines. This goes on until he has Berzerks come in and slaughter my squad. 

 

Like I said this happened again, and again, and I was quite miffed because hey, I'm the close combat guy. Not my height challenged, bearded little friends. So I found the fact he had those annoying tokens on me (giving him +1 to wound and hit) and being T5 to my lethargic S4 was extremely annoying.

 

After a few games, I've decided to go back to Warband. Which really sucks because... well I've been playing the Index detachment for a long time. My feeling, as I write this anyway, is that the codex is written for Warband.... why do I say this? Because while we have a detachment rule that gives you +2 strength to any Dataslate, you design the dataslates keeping in mind they may receive Plus 2 S.  This sucks, and limits the design and I think it's a poor choice by GW

 

I think Berzerkers should go back to S5, and the Warband back to +1 S. It would make the other detachments far more troop friendly. Anyway, for the time being I'm going back to Warband because I have Deathguard in our group as well so... no thanks to that match up with S4. 

 

 

19 hours ago, Prot said:

the codex is written for Warband

Kinda, yea... It's not amazing to feel like you need to stack 2 or more buffs on Zerks to make them hit proper. Basically if you're in a detachment that's not doing anything directly to support Zerks, they kinda just become disposable forward objective grabbers rather than the true buzzsaw we might expect. That and maybe they don't need to be 180 pts if we're forced into 10 minimum, but that's a question for a later date; they are worth it in Warband and that's enough for now. I'd agree that putting them back on S5 base would be ideal, but that kinda removes '+1 to wound' as a lever you can use on them because they'd suddenly be wounding T4 on 2+ coming out of Rhinos in Goretrack or whatever. 

 

So yeah - definitely need to play the buff stacking game to make Zerks hit, and Warband is the easiest 'bottom layer' to acquire, and also has the benefit of making everything ELSE in the army better by default instead of focusing on narrow parts of the list. It's a classic GW detachment canard at this point: detachments that buff a specific unit type only make sense if you really focus on those things. 

 

I guess I just don't rate blood surge so highly on 8Bound, in no small measure because they are overcosted to start, and the minimum squads too easy to eliminate before their surge even achieves anything.

 

Basically if you want to take more than just 10 Zerks + Khârn (who probably do still show up in every list), you probably are best off with Warband... Then if you want more than 2 transports, Goretrack starts to make sense MAYBE, and if you want Skarbrand, obviously Daemonkin has some legs. Cult is interesting, or would be if I had a Lord of Skulls, but I'm not really ever going to have enough 8Bound to make Possessed work right.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

I just need to get this off my chest. Bezerkers losing S5 is just stupid. 

It would be like Plague marines losing T5, and getting only one or two detachments that boosted their resilience.

Bezerkers, outside of Warband, are worse than Legionaries with chainsword/pistol. They have the exact stats/weapon loadouts (2 heavy weapons/3 plasma pistols) but their abilities are in stark contrast. Bezerkers can run into combat and then get no benefit, where CSM get reroll wounds of 1, or all if opponent is on an objective. 

CSM can be taken in squads of 5 or 10, making them useful in all aspects, combat punch or action monkey, take the size you want. 

Bezerkers being size 10 or 20 is no comparison. A squad of 20 is very unwieldy and unless you are lucky, will never reach the enemy at that number.

I'll still play my WE, but sadly Bezerkers are just additions now, not the core of my army.

8 hours ago, MadEdric said:

I just need to get this off my chest. Bezerkers losing S5 is just stupid. 

It would be like Plague marines losing T5, and getting only one or two detachments that boosted their resilience.

Bezerkers, outside of Warband, are worse than Legionaries with chainsword/pistol. They have the exact stats/weapon loadouts (2 heavy weapons/3 plasma pistols) but their abilities are in stark contrast. Bezerkers can run into combat and then get no benefit, where CSM get reroll wounds of 1, or all if opponent is on an objective. 

CSM can be taken in squads of 5 or 10, making them useful in all aspects, combat punch or action monkey, take the size you want. 

Bezerkers being size 10 or 20 is no comparison. A squad of 20 is very unwieldy and unless you are lucky, will never reach the enemy at that number.

I'll still play my WE, but sadly Bezerkers are just additions now, not the core of my army.

You definitely bring up something I mentioned on Reddit, and it's how Berserker Marines are the only Cult Marine you can't justify taking as an ally. Noise Marines are basically Havocs on steroids without the Pacts, Rubric Marines have decent durability and the Flamer loadout is really good, and Plague Marines have half the Pacts built in to 90% of their weapons and have that neato T6.

17 hours ago, MadEdric said:

Bezerkers are just additions now, not the core of my army.

It's an interesting discussion - I tend to make allowances that the 'core' of an army is not usually the hammer as well, though other Cult lists do seem to go that route whether through lack of diversity or otherwise. 

 

I also agree that if you ignore (or lose) the army rules there's really not much to commend the basic unit, but we should not forget the added 2" of move, which is honestly a pretty big deal.

 

17 hours ago, MadEdric said:

losing S5 is just stupid.

I totally understand this feeling and somewhat share it, especially if we compare to other Cult marines. If we're comparing straight data-sheets between Plague Marines, Noise Marines, Rubrics and Zerks, the Zerks definitely struggle, although weirdly enough it seems GW has added Infractor/Tormentors as the ones we're 'supposed' to be including in that rather than NM as 'the Battleline MeQ', and in that comparison we end up with Rubric and Plague Marines as the 'superior attack profile' guys while EC and WE have the 'mainstream marine' profiles. But then EC gets NM and we get... jakhals? At this point they've somehow finally made all the Cult marine lists feel really different indeed, and more different than they've ever been, I believe. So I kinda like that part, even if it seems like Zerks specifically get the short end of the stick a little bit.

 

So yea - it still does feel like Zerks need a little something even if it's not as signficant as a whole pip of S. 

 

However, I'll also suggest that this issue is strongly connected to the lack of 'general support/buff' characters for WE. MoE is fine for what he is now: a glorified Sgt. with a sick sword. Khârn is great but you can only have 1. Juggerlord is cool, but doesn't actually help you hit (all positioning and move but also forces you out of transports). Invo again is interesting, but unique and doesn't do anything for unit protection or DPS. I guess what I'm saying is that there's a 'Generic foot lord' sized gap in the list I'd want to see closed before we consider a global +1 S on Zerks and the added 20 points that would likely entail on that sheet. CSM and Space marines both have '+1 to wound' buff characters... I don't understand why we shouldn't.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

The army is indeed warped around Berzerker Warband. Warband had +2 S / + 1 A on charge to all units which must be taken into account when writing the datasheets.

 

It also provides an advance and charge strat, a +1 AP strat, and a -1 damage strat. Some of the other detachments end up feeling like playing a totally different army. This can be good from a playstyle variety perspective, but it limits your choices for playing a traditional WE army to Warband, Goretrack, and Vessels.

 

Warband is the default, Goretrack mostly feels like “worse Warband but with jank” and Vessels isn’t a book detachment. Cult of Blood and Demonkin feel like totally different armies, and the Possessed detachment is bad.

1 hour ago, Rain said:

The army is indeed warped around Berzerker Warband. Warband had +2 S / + 1 A on charge to all units which must be taken into account when writing the datasheets.

 

It also provides an advance and charge strat, a +1 AP strat, and a -1 damage strat. Some of the other detachments end up feeling like playing a totally different army. This can be good from a playstyle variety perspective, but it limits your choices for playing a traditional WE army to Warband, Goretrack, and Vessels.

 

Warband is the default, Goretrack mostly feels like “worse Warband but with jank” and Vessels isn’t a book detachment. Cult of Blood and Demonkin feel like totally different armies, and the Possessed detachment is bad.

Vessels isn't in the codex but it's a free download, and frankly I think it's near the power of Daemonkin and equal to Warband. Auto choosing certain benefits to be on is REALLY good, and it's ironically the best detachment for Angron users since you can still give certain units those benefits after resurrecting Angron. 

I was really hoping for a Red Butchers Detachment, incorporating Terminators and Eightbound as the focus, but GW does seem intent on never giving us a Terminator Lord. 

All in all, I'm actually a little excited to try some lists. I had been leaning into lists with more shooting and see a place for my Hades cannon/jaws Fiend now. I do have at least 2 more rhinos to finish up and would like to see a Goretrack list. Someday I might get some demons, but there will probably be an edition change before I get to that.

My next game is testing out a Seer Council, but I think I'll try warband after that.

Something like:

Khorne/10 Bezerker/rhino

MoE/10 Bezerkers/rhino

10 Jackhals

2x5 Terminators

Jugger Lord/3 Exulted 8bound

Demon Prince

Helbrute (probably lascannon/scourge)

Forgefiend w/jaws/Hades cannon

Maulerfiend

 

I've had fun with this list before, so am interested to see how it's changed from the index.

 

 

Supporting my last post…. I happened to play Votann coincidentally again only this time with Warband. Big difference. Again the codex is written for it. Otherwise Zerkers are really lethargic.  This was a huge mistake by GW I know facing T5 like DG is ugly with S4 and you’re also at -1 toughness. 
 

Although I personally did not want to try the daemon variant, I also didn’t want to be locked in the index detachment over the others. 

 

++EDIT++

I just wanted to add that  I'm not using Helbrutes to any great effect yet although they are touted as the bee's knees in this codex. (I field too much infantry and usually find the odd armour piece decimated by T2-3.)

 

One of my favourite units that I am trying to field in respectable numbers are the Eightbound/Exalted. The Exalted are almost mandatory in my experience, and get a good boost from Warband. 

 

I'm still not a fan of the B.S. 4 stuff even with the rapid fire bonuses. It's just too much gambling for my playstyle; meanwhile the Exalted are going to punch through just about any armour. If you get Dev wounds on the chart, it's a potent combo. These guys are expensive, but nearly mandatory in my lists.

Edited by Prot
Posted (edited)
16 hours ago, Prot said:

Exalted are going to punch through just about any armour. If you get Dev wounds on the chart, it's a potent combo.

Unclear if you're using Anti-3+ Dev wounds against armour - note that Decapitating Strikes only applies to attacks vs. Infantry... so there's no combo with the Anti- 3+ on Exalted 8Bound.

 

Anti-vehicle/monster 3+ is still definitely a nice thing to have in your pocket to be sure, along with the exceptional AP-3, but the damage 2 is a bit low... I'd honestly prefer AP-2 and Dmg3...

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

Edited by Dr. Clock
1 hour ago, Dr. Clock said:

Unclear if you're using Anti-3+ Dev wounds against armour - note that Decapitating Strikes only applies to attacks vs. Infantry... so there's no combo with the Anti- 3+ on Exalted 8Bound.

 

Anti-vehicle/monster 3+ is still definitely a nice thing to have in your pocket to be sure, along with the exceptional AP-3, but the damage 2 is a bit low... I'd honestly prefer AP-2 and Dmg3...

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

 

Nope you understand me... I'm just using it wrong.... !

 

I bought a handy chart on etsy that I use to keep all my game turn rolls accurate and I've been playing it wrong.

Wow that changes a ton... I mean that is night and day. I do find though that I get a ton of wounds through on a 6 man squad. Even taking away the Dev Wounds it does seem pretty potent in Warband. 

 

Usually I do have Sus1 running by T2+ which also helps.

 

It just occurred to me that the once per game Slaughterbound Dev wounds, extra attacks was a big part of that.

I've been going over the Codex and list building and have come to the conclusion that the WE codex just is a bad codex.

Don't get me wrong, I do think each detachment has it's strengths, but it how the detachments work that I have issues with.

In other codexes (codexi?) most of the detachments let you play your army in a certain style, but still support or affect all or the majority of your units. With the WE codex, only Warband does this.

All the other detachments have such narrow approaches that only benefit a couple of units each. Slaughterbound you only benefit possessed, Cult you only benefit cult units and monsters, Demonkin you need Demons and focus on them (this one is more broad than the previous two as you can mix in World Eater units and they can benefit). Goretrack only has benefits for units in a transport, or disembarking from it. Besides Warband and Goretrack, there is no compelling reason to take Bezerkers.

I guess what I'm saying is that several detachments were designed not with the army in mind, but with only a couple units as focus. This is where I think it fails. 

Like previously, I think that a Red Butchers detachment would have been great and could have been used instead of Slaughterbound. In it you could have had a rule that boosts Terminators as well as 8bound, enhancements that gave both benefits, strats that could affect most infantry (including Bezerkers), This one could focus on Martial Superiority, increasing melee output.

Maybe it looks so skewwed because the index has so few units to work with, but that is GW not trying to increase them. I understood not adding bikes and jump pack units in the previous index, as allowing these fast units to advance and charge was too much, but we no longer get that, so adding in those units would really help us.

I think I'm just rambling on now, but needed to put my thoughts and feelings down.

 

I agree. It’s not bad competitively, per se, but it’s poorly designed. The bonus from BW should have been + 1 S/A as before, and all datasheets should have +1 S baked in. Berzerkers should also be AP -2. If that means they cost more, so be it, but Berzerkers should be scarier if they get to you.

 

It’s also weird that some of the best datasheets are old CSM units like Spawn, Forgefiends, and Helbrutes. It feels like GW trying to dump old kits before pulling the rug out and discontinuing them entirely.

19 hours ago, MadEdric said:

In other codexes (codexi?) most of the detachments let you play your army in a certain style, but still support or affect all or the majority of your units.

It still does feel like most detachments focus on discrete portions of other armies. Eldar have bikes detachment and guardians detachment and aspects detachment; Guard have infantry detachment and tanks detachment and transports detachment and artillery detachment... Indeed I find that most detachments that fail do so because their buffs are too niche, on units that are too niche. So they end up being nice and maybe cool and fun if you have the right collection but effectively pointless without a few hundred dollars to spam the right stuff, and many books have the 'generalist' combined arms option whether or not that ends up being the 'best' one. 

 

So I think this state of affairs is perfectly predictable for lists like WE that just start with a fundamental lack of diversity. At the point of trying to 'buff different sections of the army', that kinda entails... actually having different sections that aren't like 1 unit deep.

 

I think a better approach, especially for lists that are already pretty narrow and constrained like the Cults, would be to find some army-wide benefits 'as good as' Warband's +2S +1A on the charge. Could do like...

- Crit 5s to-hit on the charge army-wide to encourage focus on Lethal/Sustained Blessings

- Units gain Fights First on a 4+ at the beginning of Fight phase to spoil enemy charges and overall grind a bit better

- army-wide Blood Surge and +2" to Zerk Surge moves for the ultimate aggro move jank list

- Roll 6 dice for a Blessing at the beginning of the game that is then activated in addition to other Blessings for the rest of the game (if no doubles or triples are generated, re-roll the dice until a double or triple is rolled').

 

So yeah... I don't think it's a bad Codex so much as it just kinda exposes deep flaws in the 10th Ed. detachment paradigm when applied to the lists with the thinnest rosters. 

 

TLDR; I think it's more the lack of units, not the detachments per se; with 1 or 2 other units to use the detachment buffs on, it'd be so much easier to see a way to playing them. 

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

To me one of the deepest flaws is that GW cannot differentiate from unit 'X' as used in Detachment "1" or detachment "2-5"  or Army type. etc.

 

Perfect example is Intercessors with jump packs. Nearly mediocre to most marines, but very potent with Blood Angels. The result is all marines suffer the point increases.

 

Berzerkers kind of fit a bit into that issue. A Berzerker in any other detachment aside from Warband is incredibly lethargic by comparison. 

 

 

 

So on  another note, I'm at it again tonight. I'm stick back with Warband. I'd love to try Angron but I just can't fit him now, and the DP is literally the only reliable CP management which I think is very needed.

 

The goofy thing I want to try is 2 Maulerfiends. Ideally I may go back to a Helbrute, and get rid of both Maulers because they are a little too overpriced, and if I ditch them it allows me to put at least one squad of Spawn back in the list which are so good. (But more expensive than Jakhals!)

 

The thing about Maulers is they really scare people with their movement and 'lascannon fists'. It's a fun unit.

 

 

EDIT: Just for clarity I don't have Forgefiends. I know everyone is using them. I know they're good I'm just experimenting with out them.

 

ALSO.... I love my 8 bound/exalted.  Probably too expensive but with Slaughterbound HQ's they are fun. (incredibly expensive though.)

 

 

 

 

Edited by Prot
  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/27/2025 at 12:33 PM, Prot said:

The goofy thing I want to try is 2 Maulerfiends.

The Doom Weasels salute you. I am a '2 Maulerfiends minimum' player. People fear them with good reason and every shot that they soak is one not hitting your Rhinos!

 

They're way more straightforward than Helbrutes, but the speed, T10 and +50% wounds definitely makes up for the +30pts in my view. The one thing to look out for is their special rules kick in on damaged units, which indicates that you want to soften things up before they pile in, suggesting any list they feature in should have at least a couple  shooting platforms... So Helbrutes AND Maulers is totally an option... 540pts for 2+2 is a pretty solid base if you accept that the Brutes are primarily there to tee up the Mauler charge as they casually walk to objectives. 

 

This kinda has my Nails itching, so thinking another outing for the Weasels is due - will return with a report next week ; )

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

The Nails were slaked! Victory over Sisters in short order - we called it end of 3rd turn with me up ~25 points.

 

List was basically 2 of everything!

 

Daemon Prince (Glaive)

MoExecutions

Khârn

 

2 Rhinos

2x Berzerkers

2x Spawn

2x Jakhals

2x Maulers

2x Forgefiend

2x 8Bound

 

Deployed on short edges, and basically rushed flanks and staged centre turn 1. He made 2 mistakes before game really started: he Scouted Dominions in a Rhino forward (inviting a Turn 1 Mauler/Spawn charge) and he left Vahl and her 3 ladies exposed to a turn 1 forgefiend salvo which killed 2 of them. His turn 1 all my Spawn are dead, but he can't crack the Maulers and only 1 Rhino dies. Turn 2 Daemon Prince eats Vahl and consolidates into a Castigator, I get second Mauler into his right flank Sisters squad, and I've got Jakhals just about everywhere, plus left flank Rhino is just camped out ready for Khârn to jump off turn 3. Turn 2 he does kill both Maulers but they've already jailed him and he fails reserve charges on 2 Penitent Engines and Seraphim... By which time MoE and 7 Zerks have made it into his deployment, I'm sitting on centre with 3 8Bound and 10 jakhals and he's run out of time and hitting power 

 

So yeah... 6 vehicles and the Prince feels like plenty of chonk and buddy is in a bit of a crisis as to how to challenge this list... Is this a job for Canis, or 2 Warglaives on his side? Or maybe just a few more of the Mortis/Penitents since they feel pretty good value on crowd clear and trading...

 

Skarbrand and friends are like a month out at least for me... and I'll probably do a DiscoLord list before coming back to WE... So more at a later date!

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

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