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Offline Wyddr

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1500 Thousand Sons Vs Orks - No Mercy!
« on: August 12, 2017, 02:37:54 AM »
1500 Thousand Sons Vs Orks - No Mercy

No fluff intro this time around for two reasons: one, I'm writing this from a hotel room in Helsinki and there's other stuff I should be doing and, two, this game doesn't make any fluffy sense in any reasonable way (why would the Ksons be engaging in open battle with an Ork Horde? How many stupid mistakes did they have to make for this to happen? Do I want to portray the Thousand Sons as stupid? Answers: pretty stupid, a hell of a lot, and no.).

Last batrep I posted, I got a lot of requests to see the Thousand Sons take the field again. I've played Thousand Sons since 4th edition. Since that time, they have only ever actually been a *good* army in the last few months of 7th Edition. In 4th and 6th they were "barely playable." In 5th edition, they were incredibly awful to the point where I put them on a shelf and almost sold them. Let's see how they fare in 8th, eh?

Thousand Sons Patrol
HQ
Ahriman the Sorcerer (Warlord: Inspiring Leader)

Troops
9 Rubric Marines (Sorcerer w/Force Staff, Hand Warpflamer)
--in Rhino w/Havoc Launcher, Combi-bolter
9 Rubric Marines w/3x Warpflamers  (Sorcerer w/Force Sword, Hand Warpflamer)
--in Rhino w/Havoc Launcher, Combi-bolter

Elites
5 Scarab Occult Terminators w/Hellfyre Missile Rack, Sorcerer w/Force Staff

Heavy Support
Defiler w/Twin Lascannon, Twin Heavy Flamer
Forgefiend w/2x Hades Autocannons, Daemon Jaws

Ork "Patrol"
HQ
Weirdboy (Da Jump)
Big Mek on Bike w/Kustom Force Field (Warlord: Tenacious Survivor)

Troops
30 Shoota Boyz w/Nob (Big Choppa)
30 Shoota Boyz w/Nob (Big Choppa)

Elites
10 Tankbustas
--in Trukk w/Big Shoota
Mek

Fast Attack
15 Stormboyz w/Nob (Power Klaw)

Heavy Support
5 Killa Kanz w/Kustom Mega Blastas
5 Kustom Mega Kannons

Mission, Terrain, and Deployment
The board was set up to look like an ancient, abandoned temple--a pyramid at the west end, two smaller buildings on the north/south side of the center board, and two walls on the north and south (respectively), all of them running away from the pyramid. Add in some streams, some forests, and some fallen statues and rocks, and you've got a board with a lot of LOS-denying terrain. This should serve to keep my guys alive, but it will also make it harder to bring my own firepower to bear, so it should even out a bit.

The mission is kill points, which sort of works to my advantage (more potential points for me), but also means I need to kill a lot of orks to win, something I'm not confident this army can do.

We get the Spearhead Assault deployment, which means (paradoxically) that we'll probably wind up pretty far apart. I know that I'm probably going first, so I deploy as refused a flank as I can manage, clustering in the SW corner of the board, mostly behind the pyramid--the Daemon engines go up front, the Terminators will Teleport in. Of course, thanks to the new deployment rules, there is just about no way I can *really* refuse his flank. He holds back his Mega Kannons until I'm on the board and then drops them and the Tankbustas in spots where they can shoot my Daemon Engines all they like without much reprisal. Hopefully their dice won't hold up and I can shrug off the damage.

The rest of the orks deploy with the two 30 shoota mobz in the extreme NE with the Weirdboy between them (one guess what they are going to be doing). The Stormboyz and Kans deploy behind the ruin in the north-center. The Mek backs up the artillery while the Big Mek follows up the Trukk.

Deployment


The Ksons Castle Up
Damn, that's a lotta green (or, in this case, gray)

Turn 1
The Orks fail to seize the initiative. My prediction for this game was as follows: I would be stuck in my deployment zone, trying to kill the orks as they hit me in waves, and *hopefully* I can kill more of them than they can of me.

Ahriman disembarks from his Rhino and the Defiler shuffles slightly to the west to try and get a little cover from Ork shooting. Ahriman seeks to cast Prescience on the Forgefiend and fails (I even spent a CP--nothing!). The Defiler tries to take out two mek gunz--one with the two lascannons, one with the battlecannon. I fail to wound with the lascannon and the battlecannon does 5 wounds--not enough. The Forgefiend also mostly chokes, trying to damage the Trukk but doing nothing. My Havoc Launchers manage to strip another 3 wounds off the Trukk, but it's not enough to matter.

I opt to hold my terminators in reserve another turn, as any amount of damage they might do on this first round of combat is counteracted by the fact that I would lose them immediately thereafter unless I dropped them in my deployment zone, where I feel they would do the least good.

Top of Turn 1


The Orks begin by jumping the Stormboyz over the ruin to about halfway up the board. The Kanz stumble up the side of the ruins, hoping to get range for a shot, but don't (even while advancing). The Kustom Mega Kannons pound on the Defiler really hard, stripping away all but 6 of its wounds. The Tankbustas advance in their trukk and shoot up the Forgefiend, doing 6 wounds to it. Finally (and most unsurprisingly) the Weirdboy uses Da Jump to teleport 30 shoota boyz to my east flank, where they shoot and charge the Defiler. They take off 3 wounds in shooting and then knock it down in assault pretty quickly. So there's 300 points of my army that didn't pull its weight.   

Bottom of Turn 1


One of these days, the damned orks will miss a charge. One of these days...

Turn 2
My opponent has made a mistake! His weirdboy is the unit furthest east in his army. There is plenty of room for my Scarab Occult Terminators to drop in an assassinate him--which they do pretty easily with a pair of Hellfyre missiles and a Mini-smite. Their combi bolters are able to kill about 9 of the other Shoota Boyz up there, too. Hopefully the Terminators will be tough enough to endure the counter-strike, but even as a sacrifice, I've taken out his ability to teleport units (HUGE) and will draw the Shoota Boyz up there and hopefully the Kanz away from my main lines, which will overall help things.

In the south, Ahriman smites and Infernal Gazes the shoota boyz, killing 5, and shoots another one dead with his bolt pistol. He also uses Prescience to boost up the Flamer-Rubrics, which have disembarked and are getting ready to mess up some orks. They lead off with their Sorcerer trying his mini-smite, and...

Boxcars. Perils of the Warp. My Sorcerer dies. He takes 2 Rubrics with him. Ahriman takes 2 wounds. The nearest Rhino? 2 wounds. The Forgefiend--2 wounds, you guys. You guys, you paying attention here? In exchange for a (potential) 1-3 mortal wounds, I JUST TOOK 9! beslubbering beslubberity beslubber beslubber beslubber! beslubber you, GW, and YOUR STUPID PERILS OF THE WARP BULLamphetamine parrot.

Anyway, the 6 remaining Rubrics shoot like gangbusters and kill a LOT of orks (the flamers accounted for 6, the inferno bolters killed another 4-5) and they are joined by both combibolters from both Rhinos, which gun down another couple. Finally, the rubrics and closest Rhino charges, slay a couple more orks (thanks Prescience!) and lose only one (thanks to All is Dust), though I believe the Rhino took a few wounds from a Big Choppa. The remainder of the orks run for their lives thanks to morale. 

Elsewhere, my other rubrics had already disembarked and their bolter fire combined with the Havoc Launchers knock out about 10 stormboyz and my opponent is forced to spend 2CP for Insane Bravery to keep them around. Finally, the Forgefiend does 6 wounds to the Trukk, but it's probably too little, too late.

Top of Turn 2


That's 1 KP!
Alllmost 2 KP
Behold, my Wizard-Assassins!

Okay, okay--a pretty solid second turn for me, though I'm nowhere near out of the woods. The Orks respond by using their artillery to nuke the Rhino the flamer rubrics had been riding in. The Tankbustas split their fire between that Rhino and the Forgefiend, doing a few wounds to the Forgefiend. The Stormboyz charge the other Rhino, doing 2 wounds of damage, but losing a boy to overwatch.

Finally, in the North, the Killa Kanz and shoota boyz swarm towards my lone terminators. Lots of ork plasma knocks out two Terminators and lots of orky bullets and a charge kills another 1.5 termies, leaving me with the Sorcerer and one wounded guy left. I believe a took a few of them out in overwatch and combat, but not enough to substantively matter.

Bottom of Turn 2


Well, I guess I saw this coming...
The stormboyz scratch the paint

Turn 3
Okay, okay--time to take out the next wave. I pull my Rhino out of combat (though, in retrospect I really could have kept it there, since the entire plan was to smite the Stormboyz out of existence, which would free it up to shoot--ah, well, probably a more costly mistake than it seems, given my limited resources). Anyway, Ahriman scores the magic 11 on his smite and wipes the remaining stormboyz away. The rest of my firepower (including Ahriman's Infernal Gaze and the mini-smite of the Aspiring Sorcerer) was devoted to killing the Tankbusta's trukk, which thanks to the Forgefiend and one unit of Rubric Marines, they just barely manage. The remaining Rubric Marines (the flamer guys) manage to gun down about 2 of the Tankbustas, while another 3 die in the wreck of the Trukk.

In the north, and perhaps predictably, the ork mob crushes the remaining terminators, though the sorcerer there smites one to death on the way down. The score is currently 4-3, with the Orks leading thanks to their First Blood point.

Top of Turn 3


My Advancing Gunline

In the bottom of Turn 3, the tankbustas kill off the Forgefiend with a volley of rokkits and a few of the Mek Gunz and the Kanz (who are advancing south as fast as their stubby legs can carry them) manage to kill off the Flamer Rubrics. The remaining Mek Gunz blow away about half of the all-bolter Rubric squad. The Shoota Boyz, way, waaay out of position, Advance my direction as fast as they can.

Bottom of Turn 3
 

Turns 4-5
I occurs to me that there is sort of a "missing" turn here, in that I moved my rubrics into the last Rhino this turn and used its guns to kill the tankbustas down to 2-3 guys, I think. Anyway, the tankbustas then failed to do anything, the Kanz got closer, and the few Mega Kannons with LOS knock that Rhino down to its last few wounds. I don't have map of that, but I do have this picture as evidence.

Anywho, coming into turn 5, I have precious few options for victory here. I am down 6-3 and only have 6 models to my name, one of which is a transport. *However,* the Big Mek (the enemy warlord) is exposed because if I kill those last two tankbustas, I'll be able to gun him down. The Kanz, though, are close to running me over and there isn't much I can do about it. My best plan is essentially to throw a "Hail Mary" pass by warptiming Ahriman into combat with them and hope he scores enough wounds to kill a few of them to keep himself from dying. So, I disembark the Rubrics and head towards the Tankbustas. Ahriman's smites do too poorly to take out all the tankbustas--there's still the nob with 1 wound left, which sucks since I'm not not going to be able to take out the Big Mek. I still need to tie up the Kanz, though, so I attempt Warptime.

Double 1s. Ahriman has 3 wounds left, so he *of course* suffers 3 wounds and dies from the Perils. He also kills 3 of 5 remaining Rubric Marines. He also takes 2 wounds off the Rhino. beslubber that bullamphetamine parrot.

At this point, I concede. Winning the game was a sliver-thin option before, and now it's basically impossible. I have 2 infantry and 1 transport with 3-4 wounds left.

Top of Turn 5 (Kanz and Big Mek would be closer in this picture, but it's otherwise accurate)
 

My ignominious end

Final Score
Orks: 8
Thousand Sons: 3

Post Mortem
Here's my problem with the Thousand Sons (and it has *always* been my problem with the Thousand Sons): they pay too many points for too little. At the same cost as an Intercessor, each individual Rubric Marine is pretty much fairly priced, I think. The Sorcerers that I need to take in each unit are wildly *overpriced,* however. I drop approximately 50-ish points for each Aspiring Sorcerer just so they get the dubious benefit of a crappy toned-down Smite attack. The Sorcerer in the Scarab Occult Terminators is even more egregious of a rip-off. Warpflamers? Highway robbery unless you happen to be facing marines. The Forgefiend is right on the edge of being a good value, leaning a bit towards not being worth it. The Defiler is tremendously overpriced in any configuration *unless* your opponent happens to be fielding a bunch of vehicles it can get into combat with.

The Thousand Sons have mediocre firepower, their psychic powers are largely a joke (Warptime has limited utility for them, Prescience is unreliable, and the smites are so-so), and they have no close combat punch. They are slow. They cost a lot of points. In a word, they suck. You can probably use them in a mixed force fairly effectively, and sure they can pull their weight against MEQs. Anybody else will eat them for lunch. On the whole, I'd rather have Intercessors, who are almost exactly as durable, but are also faster, have better close combat stats, and don't have to pay extra for a worthless sorcerer. 

No Ork, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Imperial Guard, AdMech, Tyranid, or Genestealer Cult army need fear them at all. Against Chaos/Necrons/Marines? Well, maybe, though it's still an uphill battle for the Sons of Magnus.

In this battle, my opponent brought what I would characterize as a "tailored but friendly" list--he obviously stacked his list to reflect the armor saves he'd be facing, but he also brought a patrol (when there was no godly reason he needed to) and the heart of his army was really quite fragile. Had I anything that could lay down decent firepower or speed or assault, I could have broken that army's back. As it stands, I struggled to kill 5 orks wallowing in a river.

The thing that made it the worst, though, was Perils of the Warp. I have *always* hated that rule - I understand it belongs in the fluff, but the idea that my psykers have their heads exploding left and right is simply demoralizing. At least in 7th edition, the risk was counterbalanced by the increased power of the psychic phase - you got something for your risk. Here? It's just not worth it to even use the mini-smites on my Aspiring Sorcerers since the odds of me doing *severe* damage to my own guys is way too high to justify doing very little damage to the enemy. And Ahriman? The idea that his head melts off every 1/18 psychic power attempts (i.e. "once per game") is ridiculous. I'm not paying to field the galaxy's most powerful mortal sorcerer just to watch him trip over his own shoelaces.

Overall, the Thousand Sons go back on the shelf, where they've lived most of their lives at this point. I'll wait until the codex comes out. I'm fully expecting to be disappointed. With the singular exception of that 7th Edition codex, I always am.

Thanks for reading and thanks, as always, to my opponent!

Offline Irisado

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Re: 1500 Thousand Sons Vs Orks - No Mercy!
« Reply #1 on: August 12, 2017, 05:17:34 AM »
Actually, I don't think it was as bad as all that.  Had the dice favoured you at more critical moments, I think that the game would have been a lot closer.  Apart from the ridiculous damage caused by Perils of the Warp, your force held up pretty well, especially considering that Orks are one of the most difficult armies for Thousand Sons to face.

My view on Perils of the Warp is the same one that I've held since they made it so dangerous.  It's unnecessary and spoils the game for players who like psychic powers.  Whenever I see a rule like this, I always ask the question, what is it adding to the game?  My answer is nothing.  It's not fun at all.  It's randomised destruction of your own units for no good reason at all.  Maybe it's something else to write to GW about, considering they are meant to be listening to feedback these days.

When all is said and done, I think that you did well in a tough situation for an elite army and had your dice rolls been better, you would have had a chance to make victory more difficult for your opponent, and maybe even tie the game.
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Offline Wyddr

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Re: 1500 Thousand Sons Vs Orks - No Mercy!
« Reply #2 on: August 12, 2017, 08:20:40 AM »
See, I disagree. This game saw me have the optimal mission, optimal deployment, good terrain, a friendly opposing list, and he even made a critical mistake, and I *still* got my butt kicked.

I had no reasonable solution for the killa kanz once both daemon engines went up. There was also no reasonable way my daemon engines were going to survive long enough to handle the killa kanz.

The Ksons just don't have tools. The best thing they got is rhinos. Even if I'd taken cheap screeners (in exchange for Warpflamers), it would not have changed things overmuch (another turn of shooting out of my woefully damaged defiler, I guess).
« Last Edit: August 12, 2017, 08:42:54 AM by Wyddr »

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Re: 1500 Thousand Sons Vs Orks - No Mercy!
« Reply #3 on: August 12, 2017, 12:38:23 PM »
1 - Stop enjoying yourself at Worldcon and get back to the misery and horror show that's over here.

2 - You gave them a try and thank you for that. After their codex drops I hope you will do the same to at least have a data point, even if one filled with tears and rage, to draw upon.
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Offline Lord of Winter and War

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Re: 1500 Thousand Sons Vs Orks - No Mercy!
« Reply #4 on: August 12, 2017, 02:41:11 PM »
From the changes that went from index to codex chaos marines, expect rules and points changes. Defilers went down almost 100pts, going from awful to respective Troy quickly.

Keep at it, and expect changes with the thousand sons codex.

I still personally believe that thousand sons have a lot of potential.

I would not have taken arhiman, defilers and forge fiends in a 1500pts game, personally. Defilers are too expensive before their points change in the new book.

I think screening units of horrors/cultist/tzangors could be helpful too.

Looks like you could have used more reliable anti-tank. Predators are amazing. Predator cannon/lascannon armed predators are really scary.

If using a lot of psychers, it doesn't hurt to save a command point or two to re-roll psychic tests.



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Offline Roboknee77

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Re: 1500 Thousand Sons Vs Orks - No Mercy!
« Reply #5 on: August 12, 2017, 03:32:38 PM »
Thank you, as always, for putting this up Wyddr as well as for a fun game.  I love the snarky caption for the photos too.

I think the Perils of the Warp did almost as much damage to your army as I did.  And having a hundred more models on the board than you leaves you little room for error or the horrible downside of the psychic phase.  I made some bad mistakes and still was able to win.

You're right, this was a tailor but friendly list.  I wanted to try out more units but did want to try to reduce your armor save enough that it and the invulnerable save were the same.  Like you said post game, the Kustom Mega Kannons were really good, both against infantry and against vehicles.

I think the Big Mek on Bike w/ KFF helped the Tankbustas by helping keep the trukk up and running by repairing it and with the invulnerable save.

I definitely need to work on positioning of my characters, I tend to leave them open to attacks after they move/use their powers.

Not sure about the Kanz yet.  They seem versatile but saw limited action this game.

Thanks again to Wyddr for hosting, I look forward to our next Battle and hopefully we'll be able to get some more friends playing soon too.

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Re: 1500 Thousand Sons Vs Orks - No Mercy!
« Reply #6 on: August 12, 2017, 04:16:49 PM »
The humiliation of this loss to you Roboknee made Wyddr flee the country. You should be proud of that.
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Offline Wyddr

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Re: 1500 Thousand Sons Vs Orks - No Mercy!
« Reply #7 on: August 12, 2017, 05:17:54 PM »
From the changes that went from index to codex chaos marines, expect rules and points changes. Defilers went down almost 100pts, going from awful to respective Troy quickly.

This is good to hear. The defiler is currently way, waaay overpriced. 


Quote
I would not have taken arhiman, defilers and forge fiends in a 1500pts game, personally.

Ahriman is only, like, 6 points more expensive than an Exalted Sorcerer and only 20-ish more than a regular sorcerer and, for that, he gets a better weapon, more psychic powers, and more reliable psychic tests. I couldn't field two sorcerers, so he is pretty much the next best thing. 

Quote
I think screening units of horrors/cultist/tzangors could be helpful too.

Fixed that for you.  ;)

Quote
Looks like you could have used more reliable anti-tank. Predators are amazing. Predator cannon/lascannon armed predators are really scary.

Don't have the book on me, but if memory serves Preds are about the cost of a Forgefiend (I think maybe 10 cheaper)? Yeah, they would be better. Don't own any, of course, but yeah.

Doubt it would have made a hell of a lot of difference here. The lack of antitank was really not the issue. May have been in the late game, yeah, but anything that could kill the Defiler/Forgefiend would kill Predators just as easy, if not easier. I needed *more* guns, not better guns. The Kanz were really not a factor in this game--I lost without them making much of a difference. 

Quote
If using a lot of psychers, it doesn't hurt to save a command point or two to re-roll psychic tests.

Again, good advice, but running up against the whole "Ksons are super expensive" problem. All I could afford was a patrol. *If* I had Predators (which would 100% have Havoc Launchers, because they are awesome), I might have been able to pull out a batallion with a second sorcerer and add in 10-20 cultists or so. I don't have those things, of course, so I couldn't.

Even still, though, having my CPs all tied up in the psychic phase is something of a waste, unfortunately, since the psychic phase just isn't that much of a force multiplier at the moment. Especially with those crappy mini-smites. It's a sad fact that you are probably better off *not* using the Aspiring Sorcerer powers since the risk is just too damned high to justify that *single* mortal wound done.

Aspiring Sorcerers should have 2 wounds, full stop. The Terminator Sorcerer should have 3 and 3 attacks. Otherwise they're just anchors for your units, bloating them with worthless point sinks. 
« Last Edit: August 12, 2017, 05:19:18 PM by Wyddr »

Offline Lord of Winter and War

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Re: 1500 Thousand Sons Vs Orks - No Mercy!
« Reply #8 on: August 12, 2017, 07:12:26 PM »
Cultists did go down in price in the new codex. All you need are two HQ and three troops to run a battalion. Some cultists will easily fill those troops slots.

Why only cultists? Brimstone horrors can fill the troops allotment for a battalion detachment for almost no points. Cultists did drop in points though. This all helps mitigate the 'Thousand sons are expensive' thing. If all you want to take is rubric marines, you'll loose games. You need to support them with different things. Chaff, armour, beefcake characters, anything. Rubric marines are tough against small arms (and high AP weapons), and they have phenomenal guns. But, they can't do everything on their own.

The Soulreaper cannon is really good. You might look into taking a few 10 man rubric squads, instead of many small squads. Wont need to pay for sorcerers, and can make better use of powers like warp-time and prescience. Any extra troops you need to fill out a battalion can be done by Brimstones/Blues/Cultists/Tzangors.

**EDIT

Scuttlebut sounds like aspiring sorcerers have no points cost in the new CSM Book, so are free upgrades over thousand sons. Not bad!

**** /EDIT

You should get some predators. The Predator Cannon is one of the best guns in the book. 2 d3 shots with 3 damage each just evaporates things. I've had them used against me with devastating result.

Additionally, a lot of the daemons did go down in cost. You might consider leaving in reinforcement points for summoning, where you can then bring in a unit of fresh daemons where you want them later in the game. It's a really powerful tool in Age of Sigmar, and can work well in 40k too.

I still think even a small squad of rubrics with warpflamers would be really nasty, especially when paired with warptime (to get them right where you need them).

« Last Edit: August 12, 2017, 08:26:39 PM by Killersquid »
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Offline Wyddr

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Re: 1500 Thousand Sons Vs Orks - No Mercy!
« Reply #9 on: August 13, 2017, 12:53:50 AM »
The thing with Horrors (of any variety) is that they contribute almost nothing beyond dying to a stiff breeze. Cultists, at least, have guns (and really aren't that much more expensive).

You might look into taking a few 10 man rubric squads, instead of many small squads. Wont need to pay for sorcerers, and can make better use of powers like warp-time and prescience.

So, I took two squads of 9 Ksons. How is that a "small squad" compared to a group of 10?
The Soulreaper is a better gun than it was before, yes. Definitely more attractive than the Warpflamer overall (which I really don't think pays out *unless* facing MEQ or a lot of vehicles).

Now, *if* you no longer need to pay extra for Aspiring Sorcerers (fingers crossed--please, please!), that makes Rubric marines VASTLY more efficient and useable. Currently the punishment for taking multiple squads of rubrics is a 25 point surcharge you pay on every single squad for a crappy squad leader who barely contributes.

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Additionally, a lot of the daemons did go down in cost. You might consider leaving in reinforcement points for summoning, where you can then bring in a unit of fresh daemons where you want them later in the game. It's a really powerful tool in Age of Sigmar, and can work well in 40k too.

As a general rule, I'm not certain that paying points for units that (a) don't start on the table and (b) do not *all* come in when I want them to is superior to just starting with those models on the table to begin with.

And, at least as of the Indexes, the daemon troops I own (bloodletters, horrors) have gotten substantially worse at the things they purportedly do well.

I can see the utility of having a unit of bloodletters show up and countercharge somebody, yeah, but I hate paying points for things that I then need to roll for to show up (not to mention the reasonable odds of their arrival causing mortal wounds to my characters). If there were such a thing as a "cheap" Thousand Sons character, that would be one thing. No such animal, though--the floor is about 100 points.

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I still think even a small squad of rubrics with warpflamers would be really nasty, especially when paired with warptime (to get them right where you need them).

Not as long as Warpflamers cost as much as autocannons. You tend to play 2000 points, so perhaps it's not as big a deal to you, but at 1500-ish, you just don't have enough points to throw around to burn on a single specialty squad with hyper-expensive weapons. At the moment, that unit of 5 dudes with 4 Warpflamers costs ~185 points!

Offline dog_of_war

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Re: 1500 Thousand Sons Vs Orks - No Mercy!
« Reply #10 on: August 13, 2017, 09:42:05 AM »
Thanks for the great bat-rep as always. Saddened there was no fluff this time, as its always my favourite part.

I agree that the ksons needed some cheap cannon fodder to even out the expensive units. I have limited experience with eighth, but I've found that the 1500 points armies of sixth and seventh are closer to the 2000 point lists of eighth. I think you really need to ramp your games up to that 2000 point level, especially if you want to get some mileage out of an elite force. Orks in this edition are quite powerful at lower level point games, due to the number of models they can drop.

Offline Wyddr

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Re: 1500 Thousand Sons Vs Orks - No Mercy!
« Reply #11 on: August 13, 2017, 02:41:59 PM »
Proportionally more points means proportionally more orks.

1500 makes perfectly reasonable armies for many factions, if not most. The fact that it doesn't for Ksons indicates poor design.

Besides, the whole point to 8th is to play faster, more streamlined games. If I'm just going to up all the point levels I play at, I'm going to wind up playing games that take as much time as 7th.

Offline Roboknee77

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Re: 1500 Thousand Sons Vs Orks - No Mercy!
« Reply #12 on: August 14, 2017, 09:39:25 AM »
I'm going to agree with Wyddr about the point level of the game.  I've played 3 games so far with him, two at 1,000 and one at 1,500.  The 1,000 point games made me feel like I wanted just a few more points to round things out in my army.  They've been good learning experiences for this edition though.  The 1,500 point felt about right.  If I hadn't wanted to try out some different things and tried to create a very focused list I felt like I could and still have just about everything I wanted to field.

If we fielded 1,750 or 2,000 point lists, I don't think I'd have room for all the orks I could bring.  I'd probably start taking more things that come into the game as later deployments, like Deffkoptas and Kommandos.  Or I'd try a Speed Freaks list, since the costs of Trukks wouldn't feel like it was taking up such a large percentage of points.

Offline Wyddr

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Re: 1500 Thousand Sons Vs Orks - No Mercy!
« Reply #13 on: August 14, 2017, 10:42:17 AM »
Generally, I think 1750/1850 is about as big as I usually play. Even the tournaments around here (when there *were* tournaments) didn't usually go over this unless it was a doubles game (or Ard Boyz--shudder).

It's amazing the number of exploitative shenanigans you *can't* manage in a 1500 point game. You can take *most* of what you want, but have to make sacrifices. 1750 lets you bring a fully realized force. 2000 and it starts to get silly. 

Offline dog_of_war

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Re: 1500 Thousand Sons Vs Orks - No Mercy!
« Reply #14 on: August 16, 2017, 02:08:02 PM »
I would generally agree with the 1500 point level in sixth or seventh, but I have a hard time developing some lists under the 2000 point range. I think that is most likely due to the number or walkers and transports I am currently taking for most of my armies, which have gotten a huge point increase. I think it really depends on the type of list you are planning. A kan wall or dread mob would be difficult, as so would most mechanized lists.

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Re: 1500 Thousand Sons Vs Orks - No Mercy!
« Reply #15 on: August 16, 2017, 03:51:17 PM »
I would generally agree with the 1500 point level in sixth or seventh, but I have a hard time developing some lists under the 2000 point range. I think that is most likely due to the number or walkers and transports I am currently taking for most of my armies, which have gotten a huge point increase. I think it really depends on the type of list you are planning. A kan wall or dread mob would be difficult, as so would most mechanized lists.

You can do all of those things. They're just smaller, as they ought to be as vehicles are super tough these days. The whole point here is that those lists of old are *no longer encouraged* in the current game.

I don't take the increase in vehicle costs as an invitation to make more expensive armies. I take it as an intentional message from the developers that they would like to see a shift in metagame.

For the record, there is really nothing stopping the Orks from taking 4 Trukks full of boyz plus supporting units at 1500. You can also take a goodly number of Kans and Dreds at that level, too.

You just can't do both. And you can't do either without making sacrifices elsewhere. This is as it should be, because Kans and Trukks are *absolutely awesome* these days.

 


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