Sorry I didn't get this posted sooner. I thought I had until I pulled the list out and went in to look for feedback.

Also planned is a major revision to the intro regarding the legion structure and a design notes sidebar.

Ahh cool. Have you had chance to finish off unit blurbs at all Neal?

Why are Disc Riders CC units?

I thought that Discs were generally only given to Sorcerors.

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They are. Psychic powers are mostly small arms, but there are really short-range psychic powers and they also have daemon weapons and extra attacks from the disc. Also, they can represent possessed CSMs with flight powers, and those are almost entirely close-combat oriented.

Hmm, I would have thought something more like MWFF would have been more consistent with psychic powers' presentation elsewhere. It just struck me that units composed entirely of sorcerors should have very impressive firefight like MWFF 5+ (For example one Devastator or Terminator Librarian can throw a MW 3+ FF attack all on his own!).

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MW FF for disc riders seems sensible to me.

getting back to FB's question on thralls, how exactly would they be modelled? wouldn't it be easier to count them as an infantry stand? if you wanted to get extremely nit-picky, that would take a (for example) 5 piece unit, replace one w/ a non-combat thrall and still recieve the same stats as the a unit w/ 5 in it. again, i realize that is very anal, but couldn't it be easier to make it an inf stand...... plus it would allow you to model some really evil looking thrall units, burning at the stake, beheadings, etc

The Disc Riders have been CC since the list started and have never had any issues. I don't want to change them at this point without compelling reason.

As far as rationale, I don't disagree that a strong FF could easily be justified from the background, but there are several reasons that I think a CC unit is good and it should stay the same.

The list is overrun with FF. Fast, strong FF is really not needed, whereas CC gives them a unique niche.

Stylistically, there are some serious bad-ass close combat sorcerers in the A Thousand Sons novel. There are several examples of the brethren fighting hand to hand with their staves and the Pavoni cult members use biomancy to boost their personal physical abilities in addition to slinging lightning bolts and being healers. I think at least one strong CC element larger than just characters is warranted.

From 40K, disc riders (when you could take groups of them) and possessed have been largely short-range and hand to hand fighters. That's mostly because the formations get crazy expensive if you load up on ranged psychic powers. I don't feel a great need to follow 40K mechanics but nonetheless a long-standing trait across several editions of 40K does set the flavor.

You could model them in the same way that people do Commissars for the IG. If you know you will always assign them to certain units, you can just put them on the stand (or have a couple alternate units for with/without Thralls). In fact, Thralls can only go on the command stands for the formations, while Commissars can go on any unit, so there are a lot fewer alternative stands and paint jobs to do if you want to go this route.

If you want something physical to keep count in addition to just a visual element, you can use markers, either abstract or with minis. Some people made single-mounted Commissars or command flags that can simply be placed next to the model they are added to. You could do that with Thralls and even make mini-dioramas for Thrall markers if you wanted. As long as they aren't too big, they shouldn't cause confusion over being an actual unit.

Or you can just keep track of them. I've never had anyone comment that they were hard to keep up with.


We tried that and separate units raise other issues. No other unit is "one shot" in terms of being removed from play. That created a whole series of questions that required special rules and explanations.

They would need to be "expendable" to keep them from generating BMs when removed but that makes them valuable as a meat-shield, rather than being just a psychic power battery.

Thralls shouldn't be used to soak BMs. Let's say for example that you are one BM from breaking the formation and a sorcerer burns a thrall. That shouldn't affect the morale of the other units from a style perspective. However, it would break the formation because there are now as many BMs as units. Also, that kind of event would almost certainly happen during assault, opening up all sorts of questions about changing units and BMs during assault - probably not hard questions to answer, but things that need to be addressed.

You have to figure out transport, and make sure the formations can add the extra capacity for them. That adds more meat-shield kinds of manipulations via addition of transport capacity. Adding a Thrall to make odd numbers would mean you would be allowed to add extra transport capacity. You can just drive off without the Thralls if you run short on transport (assuming you haven't already burned the Thrall anyway). So, for ~30 points you could effectively add 2 spare transport slots. That makes a huge difference in the speed and fluidity of the formations, especially Rubric formations. Not only would that require a major reconsideration of point costs, part of the army concept is that the line units are slow and very tough, which means it would be a major change in feel.


I'm not sure what you are getting at with this. Is this about WYSIWYG?

i was referring the individual men on a stand. goes from 5 to 4 if thralls are a character.
i can't see people wanting the waste the points using them as meat shields in an army full of 4+ RA units. but i hadn't thought of the gamey transport gimmick. it probably would cause more trouble then needed.
i also did not realize that they could only be put on command stands, so i guess your right to keep it how it is.
i have to admit, the whole concept of the thrall is brilliant. this should used in every chaos army. in reading through other posts i noticed some concerns about not getting to use greater demons often. adding thralls to the other lists would certainly help.

It's more things like the Adept formations that would be tempted to use them.


Thralls are a Thousand Sons thing, though some sort of lesser "sacrifice" boost for other chaos marines would make sense.

Neal

Out of all the cult lists you certainly have the hardest one to make - so I do not envy you in this respect

I would like to point out with the above that TS, without support, are probably some of the worst Marine CC fighters IMO. They do not train in the physical aspects as do other Marines and spend more of their time on the mind. This allows them to gain the advantage in combat when supported by other units, but not when they are going it alone.

Due to the above, and I know how you dislike unnecessary rules, however I would expect that if we are keeping true to A Thousand Sons novel, the TS would have some benefit from combats that gained a support (probably +1 result to combat) as opposed to being in combat without support (probably a reduced CC stat?).

Not sure if a mechanic could be developed at a Epic level, however it is am important distinction that without supporting formations, the general cabals are pretty 'ho hum' at close quarter fighting compared to other dedicated CC Marine chapters.

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Anyone played the list?

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I've found that I have to make a conscious effort to load up on units with ranged fire when creating a list. Otherwise, I end up without enough prep fire for all the assault units.

The Scarab Occult can hit pretty hard and with First Strike they can produce a pretty good clipping assault. However, at only 6 units they don't have a lot of numbers for a big teleport assault. They are limited to relatively soft targets and I've had them fail spectacularly. Lack of Fearless also hurts them when they break.

I was concerned about the point costs on the Greater Spires for a while. They are nice for a Fearless, DC3 unit at 200 points. However, with the typical WE pattern of tougher/less fire for the points, and my tendency to forget to pack enough firepower, they haven't been a very good option for me. The lack of RA means they are softer than most DC3 WEs and can be brought down pretty quickly with normal AT fire if the enemy gets a chance.

I've found that loading up on Neophytes for activation count is not very effective. They are light troops without ranged fire and not in especially large formations. They are not good line troops so taking then en masse is not a good strategy. I feel pretty confident that they are not too cheap.

All that said, I think there is a lot more potential variety now. The options for cheaper formations have eliminated the mandatory Doomwings-for-activation-count and opened up the ability to take formation upgrades without ridiculously high-priced results.

Let me know if this is similar to your experiences.

==

There are still some other things I would like to test, so if you've tried any of this, let me know.

I still haven't tried a mass deepstrike army (Teleport, Dreadclaws and/or summoning). Theoryhammer still seems like this might be nasty.

I'm a little concerned with a heavy air army. At 150 points per formation, you could jack up activation count with aircraft. If anyone's used more than ~3 formations of air, that counts.

I've not played the new Reaver-level Warp Palace yet. Any feedback on that would be highly appreciated.

Neal do you have any vassal time available? We should perhaps get a SW v TS game in at some stage

Perhaps these two lists need games against established lists to balance themselves out?

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