AbusePuppy

The maximum reach of the unit is quite large- 12" with the pregame movement, 9" with its first-turn movement, and then 18" with its first-turn charge. In practice, avoiding this maximum reach is almost impossible, even in Hammer/Anvil deployment, provided that the unit is placed centrally on the table. Of course, you also won't typically roll boxcars twice in a row for the unit, even with a reroll on your charge distance, so your actual reach is going to be a lot lower. Still, your opponent has to be fairly careful about where they deploy if you're going first, as you have the potential to really get out there and cause some damage- blocking units are all but a necessity.

This is the most relevant page of things. Specifically, the line "Unless otherwise noted, Ambushing units move onto the table as described for other reserves and cannot move any further the turn they deploy or arrive on the battlefield." The contention is two-part; those in favor of it counting as movement note that it explicitly uses the "movement" language and that all other forms of arriving from reserve likewise have the unit count as moving, and also that the unit is disallowed from moving "any further" that turn, which similarly implies that it has in fact moved already. On the other hand, the opposing argument notes that arriving from reserves in and of itself does not necessarily count as moving- as otherwise the specification in the Deep Strike rules that the units count as moving would be redundant, and that the Cult Ambush rules never explicitly state such.

*shrug* If Hanaur rules it that way then that's his choice, obviously, but the tournament's rules don't say anything about that and those very clearly are not formations or detachments of any kind, as they don't have a datasheet.

You can only take a total of two formations (or other non-Combined Arms) detachments at the Elvensword. However, the "War Engine" selection in a Blood Host detachment is not a formation, so you are free to take as many of those as you please. So you could, for example, do something like this: BLOOD HOST DETACHMENT SLAUGHTERCULT (CORE) 1 Herald of Khorne (Juggernaut) (90) 8 Bloodletters (80) 8 Bloodletters (80) 5 Possessed (150) WAR ENGINE (AUXILIARY) 1 Maulerfiend (125) 1 Maulerfiend (125) 1 Maulerfiend (125) 1 Soul Grinder (Phlegm) (165) 1 Soul Grinder (Phlegm) (165) 1 Lord of Skulls (888) Each of the walkers are technically a separate War Engine selection, but I grouped them all together for convenience and readability. The list doesn't have a lot of tricks up its sleeve, but it does throw down a fair number of fast, dangerous walkers. If we had infinite models to pick from I would probably say throw more Maulerfiends and Soul Grinders in to replace the Lord of Skulls, but the big dude isn't the worst thing in the world- he will f*** up a Wraithknight something fierce and anything with less than S10 attacks in melee is gonna struggle to put any damage on him. Also, don't forget he's got an AP3 hellstorm flamer that he can aim at one target while his gattling cannon goes at whatever you wanna charge- superheavies really need to be killing more than one unit per turn. An alternate take would be to remove the Lord of Skulls and include a Gorepack of Brazen Onslaught, probably with some additional models in the core detachment to back things up (additional Cultists for scoring, additional Bloodletters for some Deep Strike threats, etc.)

Yeah, there is no legal way to bring a Knight of any kind to the tournament.

Actually the Plague Colony gives a good reason to run Plague Marines over CSM: it has a 7" aura of -1 Toughness, Initiative, and Weapon Skill, making the PM a lot scarier in close combat. It isn't necessarily better than the Chaos Warband, but it does have a nontrivial benefit to using them. (Getting two special weapons at minimum size is also worth a fair bit.)

Speaking as a Tau player who runs Advanced Targeting Systems on my battlesuits with regularity, Precision Shots is a really good rule. It lets you pick off heavy/special weapon models, who don't get a Look Out Sir! roll as well as aiming for models not in cover, models that a player is using to keep the squad inside an aura or in range of an objective, and on rare occasions it can even pick off a character. It's not reliable, but when you are throwing a big bucket of dice at the enemy it will usually trigger a couple times per set of shots.

Even on 25mm bases Terminators are garbage.

Yes, that's basically what the question boils down to. It's fairly clear how it works when actually coming in from reserves, but when using the Infiltrate version at the beginning of the game there is less consensus.

I'm just waiting for the comedy of errors that results in Immolators somehow gaining the Tyranids faction (but still being disallowed from being taken by Tyranids.)

The Cult Ambush rules have a random d6 table that allow you to set up your models in unusual ways. The 3+ results on the table are all "set the models up X inches away from the enemy units" (though there also results from entering by table edges.) Normally you can only use the Cult Ambush rules by placing the units in reserve, or by returning to reserve via one of their other rules. However, units in their decurion formation can do so as part of Infiltrating, where they roll on the table for each unit that Infiltrates instead of deploying in the normal fashion. The question is whether this special deployment counts as moving- it is nominally "arriving from reserves" and units that arrive from reserves normally count as moving, but Cult Ambush is somewhat different than normal. It is particularly relevant because GSC units have access to several heavy weapons and can potentially fire them when arriving from Cult Ambush.

I'm not being snarky. It's pretty clear we disagree on the subject sufficiently that neither one of us is going to convince the other with simply words alone. So I'd like to see what it is you do with the army that makes it so supposedly good- and what kind of opponents you are playing and what mistakes (if any) they are making. I don't know who you're beating with it, or how they actually built their armies, or how the match went down. Every time I've seen you at a tournament, you've had a non-Sisters army. Which, hey, is your right and all, but I've literally never seen you play your Sisters, so that's obviously not doing anything to convince me. It's not even a matter of you needing to "prove yourself," because we both know that winning (or losing) a single game doesn't really mean anything. I'd just like to see what you're doing with them on the tabletop, because if you are indeed right, then you're doing something pretty spectacular that other SoB players (and other players in general) haven't figured out, and that is worth knowing.

I would live to see you bring your Sisters to tournament and show us all how well they work.

A Searchlight isn't a shooting attack, so your example is irrelevant. And as far as the Shooting sequence goes, Psychic Shriek is not a weapon and thus the Shooting sequence cannot be applied to it. Again, shooting attacks that do not roll to hit CANNOT be made as snap shots. Unless you can find something to contradict that (our you would like to argue that Shriek isn't a shooting attack), you really have no ground to argue from.

It's not a matter of whether it "hits automatically" or whether it "just works." It is a shooting attack. It does not roll to hit. It cannot be legally declared against a target which it would have to make a snap shot against- including a Zooming/Swooping target, any target while the caster is Pinned or Jinking, etc.

So you say.

I think it's pretty worth it for a lot of Imperial armies, since that's another roll on the Strategic table fishing for one of the good traits. You do have the possibility of doubling up, though, which is either bad (in the case of something like Conqueror of Cities) or hilariously good (in the case of something like Master of Ambush.) The problem is that the Immolator is a pretty expensive buy for what you're getting. In 5th Edition it was clutch because it was a transport with a melta weapon on it and another melta inside, but these days that's not nearly such a big deal. It makes you pretty resilient to enemy Boltguns and whatnot, but you lose ObSec (which is a very strong ability) and the ability to reroll non-Sororitas warlord traits (which is to say "the good warlord trait tables.) Plus there's the Elites tax, which doesn't really have any good units in the slot. It's really just a worse version of a CAD.

Why are they not shooting attacks? Where in the FAQ update does it say or imply that?

All witchfires are shooting attacks, even if they do not roll to hit or otherwise follow the normal shooting process. This is part of their own definition and it is one of the reasons you cannot use them when locked in combat, for example. Shooting attacks which do not roll to hit cannot be made as snap shots. The Hard to Hit rule makes all shooting attacks against the target snap shots unless they have the Skyfire rule. QED a witchfire which does not roll to hit cannot be used against a Hard to Hit target unless you have the Skyfire rule.

Yeah but I really, really, REALLY want it to, so that makes the rumors plausible.

Almost nothing changed in the book. One or two wordings were clarified slightly (mostly the Void Shield Generator.) A new option to pay points to take a ruin as your "fortification" was added. Very little else changed.

Witchfires without weapon profiles are not treated as weapons, but they are still shooting attacks (by definition.) That means they will be subject to the rules that govern shooting attacks, including the Hard to Hit rule. And it is not true that witchfires without profiles cannot fire out of transports. You can Shriek from the top hatch of your Rhino all day long, but you can't Cleansing Flame even though it has a weapon profile. Having a weapon profile is not what determines a power's type or how it functions.

No, it's fine. GW loves Sisters of Battle and really wants to make them good, that's why they keep releasing one crappy codex after another that gets worse every year. But any day now they are going to get a better model range and plastics and everything, that's why they put them in another half-a**ed supplement book for someone else. It's a good sign. 8th Edition will fix everything. We have always been at war with Eastasia.

Yeah, that's a big one: does deploying via the Cult Ambush rule count as moving, or not, assuming you aren't coming in from reserves? Been a lot of discussion on that one.

I wouldn't do Power Swords on the champions; when you're Initiative 3, the Sword just isn't very good at anything. An Axe, a Maul, or a Fist would be better. Some Meltaguns are good to have, but I would go with more Plasma if you can manage it. Plasma is great for Plague Marines. I think you really kinda want Rhinos for the Marines, if that doesn't completely break your vision of the army. Five Plague Marines inside a Rhino are incredibly annoying to get rid of- they shoot out the top hatch and when you wreck the transport, they fall out behind the chassis so you can't shoot them. Plus, the same guns that are good at killing Plague Marines are the guns they want to be shooting at your Rhinos. The Terminator Annihilation Force wants more Combi-meltas. Dropping in, vaporizing a target, and then hitting another one is a great way to use them; it also might be nice to slip one or two Power Fists in there. Since you're gonna be scraping for points in a number of places, the only realistic option I see would be cutting the squad sizes down below seven- sad, I know, but it will help a lot. Is Typhus required for the core formation? Some of them let you take a generic Chaos Lord instead, and I don't remember whether that one does.