AbusePuppy

Eh, a single S8 shot really doesn't scare vehicles very much. It takes you, what, four turns to kill a single Rhino? Not exactly the most exciting use of your 120pt cannon. And yes, being able to ignore cover is great against Ravenwing and handful of other units even when you don't penetrate their armor save, but all in all it's not a huge ability in that respect. That does help. Rhinos aren't really necessary, although they could sorta maybe have some use here- but honestly, I don't think you really need them at all, and they wouldn't be on my list of "ideal" units in the first place. If you can, I would look to be adding two Skull Cannons or a big ol' horde of Flesh Hounds to your army. There are lots of cheaper alternatives to the standard Flesh Hounds if you're willing to do that, and as West says they are a unit that will almost always be golden for you. Fast, reasonably killy, and great for delivering a character on a Juggernaut or bike. Failing that, you could do either some kind of "Lord of Skulls + lots of walkers" list or possibly a "just so many Bloodletters, you guys" army. I don't think the latter would perform all that well in the objective missions, though.

He doesn't have any Soul Grinders, though, so that's a bit of a moot point. And yeah, I forgot that the Skull Cannon gains AP3 from its "mega-blast" formation, not the Ignores Cover. Ignores Cover with only AP5 is a lot less impressive, although not completely useless.

As of the new FAQ, this is correct. Psychic Shriek does not roll to hit, and weapons which do not roll to hit cannot be fired as Snap Shots and cannot hit Swooping FMCs. (The case is a little less clear with regards to a Swooping FMC using such an attack on another FMC, however.)

Hmmm. Unfortunately with the models there I think that there are a couple things you're missing to really take advantage of Daemonkin's big strengths. You could build an alright list out of it, and one that would threaten some armies, but there will be others that you really struggle with. The Lord of Skulls is a reasonable unit and depending on how you kit him he can be a nightmare for some factions (that Hellstorm flamer is just brutal), but at the same time he is a huge investment of points and isn't nearly as resilient as he might seem at first glance. Maulerfiends and Skull Cannons give you some good backups in the list, bringing a host of other armor value units to overwhelm enemy guns, but having only two Fiends and one Cannon is a big limiter. Similarly, only eight Hounds is problematic, since they would normally be excellent for supplementing an all-aggression list. Bloodletters are pretty reasonable troop choices and I imagine that 2-3 squads of them would be solid inclusions in any list; Cultists aren't bad, but are less useful in Daemonkin than they are in CSM. Berzerkers have several good formations in CSM these days, but I don't believe they have anything specific in Daemonkin- or at least nothing that we have access to, since the one formation I'm aware of is a Forge World release and thus can't be used at the Elvensword. The Heldrake and Bloodthirsters are both pretty solid units and would be well worth including. The 'Drake in particular can answer a number of things nothing else in the codex can, which is useful- investing 300+ pts into the Firestorm Redoubt just to shoot down airplanes feels like a bit of a weak option in a Daemonkin army, I think. I've never seen Bloodcrushers used particularly well, but the formation of them + Terminators is actually fairly decent I think, so if you have any Termie squads then that could be an option? The Elvensword's rules about Decurions are a bit limiting, but it might be worth looking at. Drop in, fire off a bunch of Combi-Meltas and then hopefully be ready to assault next turn while they're dealing with your other fast stuff. I believe they do- a model firing an emplaced weapon counts as shooting their own gun for all intents and purposes, so the unit inside the Obliterator would be the one that is technically scoring the kills. It could be fairly nasty if you had a Herald of Khorne shooting it, but it'd still be quite expensive in any case. I feel like the Skull Cannon is pretty "meh" unless you're running the formation with three of them that adds Ignores Cover and Apocalyptic Blast. And yeah, that shot is dangerous, but it's also pretty easy to disrupt (or ignore) for a lot of armies. The thing to remember about this mission is that while distributing your points across many different battlefield roles means you don't automatically give up points for a particular, it also means that you will have fewer units in any given battlefield role and thus makes it easier for the enemy to kill those particular units and thus claim the points anyways. I generally take it as a matter of course that my lists will lose out on one slot automatically, and even having two that you're missing isn't unbearable if the rest of your list is appropriately resilient. It is a significant deterrent to taking a fortification and/or Lord of War, however. Yeah, Flesh Hounds are one of the best units that Daemonkin have access to. Point-for-point they are as resilient as a Space Marine or better and they are a great way to deliver a killy HQ unit, control the enemy's access to the board, etc, etc.

If we are talking a strict RAW interpretation here, having both the Rune and the Locus would give you Adamantium Will twice (though you can't actually have an ability twice, so that would do nothing.) Activating the Rune would then cause you to lose Adamantium Will... but as that is an instantaneous (albeit permanent) effect, the continuous effect from the Locus would then re-grant you Adamantium Will anyways. So yeah, it works the way you would expect it to work.

Ha ha yeah. New Sisters, after they've been using the same models (and the same "there will be a plastic kit any day now I swear" rumors) since 3rd Edition.

Because it represents a lot of the elements that some people find underwhelming and bland about the current SoB range? :P

Mmm. Might make top 8, but will probably fall pretty quickly at that point unless they get lucky and get matched against an Eldar army that isn't prepared for them.

I haven't played it a lot, but I have gotten a few game in against it and against a hybrid version with Tyranid allies. The key is having enough anti-infantry, which seems obvious but it's something a lot of people forget about this edition. Armies like Tau and Renegades that pack a lot of strong guns in will usually do fairly well against it, although that is contingent on having enough bubble-wrap units to hold off their initial wave of assaults. It's also important to know your target priority and how to shut down specific units. For example, taking out their HQs can be very clutch, especially if you can take away the morale bonuses- once they're just testing on Leadership 8/9 with no Stubborn, the army becomes a lot easier to handle and it becomes easier to wipe out individual units. Unlike a lot of forces, sniping their heavy/special weapons doesn't really work very well because they can be replaced with Into the Shadows- it's always more important to kill all the models than specific models. GSC plays a really strong objective game so it's often hard to win the Maelstrom against them (although as they lack ObSec it's far from impossible- Battle Company can do it, as can many Daemon armies.) But if you can play an actual attrition game against them they often will go down. The Cult acts as a strong spoiler army against certain kinds of forces, but I don't think it's quite top-tier right now; it potentially has some serious issues with certain missions and matchups. I think for the GSC player the challenge is to know what "mode" your army needs to be in. Sometimes you have to go full aggressive and push your advantages; sometimes you need to play more conservatively and wait for the endgame to pounce. Knowing when to adopt each mode is an important tool for the army, since it can potentially vary its playstyle quite a bit. I also think there's still a lot of experimentation going on with exactly how to build a Cult army, though it seems pretty clear that the Insurrection detachment is going to be the centerpiece in any case.

I think bonus attack is different from a normal attack- while this isn't explicitly specified in the rulebook, there are lots of things that are never explicitly specified. "Attacks" is an ambiguous term, as is "all [your] attacks" and it doesn't necessarily mean literally every attack the model makes. Language always requires a certain amount of interpretation, and if the nigh-universal conclusion of people is "I don't think that is what the rule is intended to do" then it's worth considering that perhaps the universal assumption is the correct one.

Why can't it be swapped? If you are replacing all your attacks- of which Hammer of Wrath is one- why is the resulting "replacement attack" made at some other Initiative, and not Initiative 10? I'm playing devil's advocate here. If you contention is "this is what the rules exactly say" then you have to be able to defend your own suppositions from a similar contention. If you believe that Hammer of Wrath is just another attack that a model makes, I think there are a lot of outcomes of that assumption that you need to be prepared to defend.

But, if as you contend, Hammer of Wrath is one of your melee attacks why can't you choose to use the grenade profile? You are making melee attacks at multiple different steps and replacing all of those attacks, why would one take precedent over another? And why couldn't, for example, a model with Smash chose to resolve their Hammer of Wrath attack as a Smash attack instead?

A couple of other issues that have come up while reading/playtesting the missions: -What board edges do units fall back towards/arrive from reserve on in Blitzkrieg? Short edges, long edges, or the L-shape area that is along a player's deployment zone? -Do the No Man's Land abilities in Secure the Tarmac affect flyers? If so, will they still auto-pass the dangerous terrain test incurred as they do with all others? -Are the objective markers in Evacuation considered to be impassible terrain, the way the markers are in other missions? It is the only one whose text does not specify. -Does The Shrine Point mission use the First Blood objective? Missions say that they use FB, Linebreaker, and Warlord "unless otherwise noted," but unlike all of the other missions Shrine Point specifically calls out the latter two in its own text. -When "sacrificing" a unit for The One, what happens to any other Independent Characters attached to the unit- are they removed as well? If so, do they count towards the "at least 75pts" restriction on the unit that must be sacrificed? -Can the two "secondary" lightning towers in Super Eclipse not be placed within 12" of the central tower, or just not within 12" of each other? -When rolling to end Night Fighting on Super Eclipse, are the rolls made each player turn or each game turn? -Are Assassins or Inquisition allowed to be included in Armies of the Imperium this year?

Hammer of Wrath is an attack, yes. Specifically, it is an ability that makes an attack. Using a grenade replaces a model's normal attacks with the single attack with the grenade- it does not replace bonus attacks such as Hammer of Wrath, Stomp, Melta Cutters, etc- that is the difference between a bonus attack and a normal attack. (note that this is also different from something that gives you a bonus to your attacks characteristic.) Do you think that if you choose to use a grenade on a model with Hammer of Wrath, the grenade would strike at Initiative 10? If you are replacing it with a grenade, why would it not?

You can use your HoW and still go in with a grenade, yes.

Charging, extra melee weapons, etc, all add a bonus to your Attacks characteristic and can thus be affected by Lasher Tendrils or other effects. Hammer of Wrath cannot, because while it makes an attack, it does not change your Attacks characteristic. I had another post typed up that explained the idea better, but it got eaten. :\

Actually, I believe this is a different case- Lasher Tendrils reduce the Attacks characteristic of a model, which is different from an attack made by a model.

The GW draft FAQ's ruling on Tervigons strongly implies that other abilities that spawn models (not including conjuration psychic powers, which have their own rules) would also create models that are considered part of the "original" detachment and benefit from any of its command abilities, including Objective Secured.

Hmm, an interesting thought. My intuition on Magma Cutters would that that isn't how they are intended to work, although I'm not sure I could support that with anything- as best I can tell, Hammer of Wrath must (by definition) be an attack and automatically hits, thus allowing you to always trigger Magma Cutters- presuming the target survived both your Hammer of Wrath attack and any subsequent attacks, of course. I don't know how Low Blow is worded, so I can't comment on that part.

Generally speaking, Battle Company, Superfriends, War Convocation, Eldar, Tau, Renegades, and Daemons are considered top tier. Bottom tier is usually Sisters of Battle, Dark Eldar, Blood Angels, and the various "minor" codices. You can find someone who will quibble over most any of those individual choices, but that's the general list.

Pretty much, yes. Some people do specify an explicit set of tiers in 40K (although typically for armies, rather than units)- however, as already mentioned these are highly subjective and usually come as much from a particular person's biases as anything. Most people will agree generally about what the topmost sections of the tiers are, and also the bottommost, but the middle is usually quite murky.

"Tiers" are a term used in a variety of competitive gaming circles to describe various options within the game. There is no hard-and-fast set of definitions as to what exactly constitutes which tiers, or even exactly how many tiers there specifically are- it's really more of a convenient fiction used to separate the metagame into some discernable categories. Tiers can shift pretty rapidly and are often contingent on local factors (such as army point values, how/what terrain is used, which missions are standard, etc.) Tiers, especially as applied to particular units or formations, are not an absolute restriction either; a unit that is low- or middle-tier might appear in a very strong list, if other factors warrant it. Generally speaking, "top tier" or "tier 1" can be considered the usual suspects for winning tournaments. If it consistently shows up top 8 at large events, it's probably top tier. Middle tier are typically the also-rans, things that have a lot of strengths and can do a good job in many situations, but have major deficiencies against one or more of the top-tier competitors. Bottom tier, then, is anything outside of the former two, i.e. probably the majority of options in the game. Not necessarily bad per se, but not good enough to have any real chance when fighting against the options of top- or middle-tier. You may also see references to things like "tier 1.5" or "top of middle tier" indicating sub-rankings within the tiers themselves. Like the supposed tiers, these are entirely nominal and subjective, but they are often used to further subdivide the groups to indicate significant disparities within them.

Well, as I said, you're well within your rights to not have enjoyed the list or results- it's your play experience, obviously. And if it's not doing it for you, there are options- as pretre suggested, you could switch to another chapter that might fit what you want to do better or add in allies to fill weaknesses in the army. Also as already mentioned, there are ways to improve the army you have or rebuild it into something stronger, presuming you have (or are willing to buy) the models needed. The new BA detachments along with the earlier stuff do give them some nontrivial advantages- Initiative 5 on the charge is pretty huge. If I had to sum up your mistake with the army, it would be trying to build a "deathstar" from subpar components; fluff aside, BA simply aren't the best combatants around and haven't been for a long time now. That doesn't mean they can't do a solid melee army, but it's not going to be a huge blob of DC with characters attached that slams facefirst into the enemy. Mixing in the tanks I don't think did you a lot of favors, either- while it gave you some shooting capacity, it made eliminating all of your melee threats a lot easier for the enemy, as the list didn't have a strong focus. If you really want to make BA work, we can make them work for you. It's not even a matter of "well you have to know the way of the water warrior and master these l337 skillz or anything of that sort- the tactics for them aren't trivial, but neither are they exceptionally complex. There's even a couple potential builds that I think have the "oomph" to at least come out swinging against most opponents, though admittedly I haven't actually done anything more than theorycraft them, so I can't speak from experience. It is also worth noting that the competition at Guardian Cups is usually pretty fierce- you're looking at over half that room being top 10% of the ITC, and many of them top 5% or even higher than that. You played some tough opponents with tough lists, so don't feel like losing your matches was just because of some failing on your part.

See, that's a fair point- saying that you don't enjoy tournaments is fine, and no one is gonna object to that. But that wasn't what you said the first time- you said that people in general shouldn't enjoy tournaments, because that was "playing the game wrong." And it's what you have continued to say throughout the remainder of your post, which sorta undermines any kind of point you're trying to make. You can't dictate to other people how they should play the game any more than they can dictate the same to you. Obviously you and I are not going to see eye-to-eye on the viability of tournament play, but it's worth pointing out that almost no game is designed for tournament play. Soccer and football aren't designed for tournament play; chess isn't designed for tournament play; none of the games of the Olympics are designed for tournament play; Magic: the gathering wasn't designed for tournament play; poker wasn't designed for tournament play. All of these games are still played in tournaments, however, and quite extensively so. What a game was "designed" for is pretty irrelevant to how the customer base ends up playing it, and a smart company realizes that and adapts to that reality. So yes, it is GW's fault for designing a game with poorly-balanced rules. Good rules balance isn't just about tournaments- in fact, it benefits casual players as much or more. Nothing ruins a friendly game faster than a blatant power imbalance, and in the absence of good rules design that is very likely to happen. Good rules design is about putting both players on an equitable footing and giving them an equal chance to win the game, not about some mythical "only works in a tournament" rules system. For someone who claims not to be a competitive player you sure seem to know an awful lot about how we think. Well heck, son, two can play at that game- lemme make some broad generalizations about casual players! Casual players don't want fun rules, they just want to kick all other players out of the game so they can get their Participation Trophy for first place no matter what crappy army they bring to the table. Most casual players can't even read, so it doesn't matter what rules GW puts out- they'll buy literally anything. And the ones that can read are just going to cheat and build their army wrong anyways, since all that time inhaling paint fumes has completely scrambled what little brains they might have had. See, sweeping generalizations about other people really are both fun and productive!

I can understand the frustration, but "everyone who plays the game differently than I do is wrong and doesn't understand the true truth of the system" is an needlessly divisive and hollow thing to say. There are lots of reasons to play games, and no one person's way of enjoying it is better than anyone else's. Just because you don't particularly like a part of the game doesn't mean that other people can't, because that is an arrow that flies in both directions. As far as "armies not representing the fluff" goes... well, which version of the fluff? One of the novels? Which one? They don't all portray the factions the same. The codices? Again, which one? Each new edition presents things with a different spin. Or maybe you meant as shown in more active media, like games or movies? There are dozens of drastically different iterations of any one given faction, which makes it virtually impossible to come up with any one, definitive version of the "true" fluff of an army. Moreover, GW actively opposes this kind of absolutist view of the 40K universe- they explicitly draw things in very broad strokes to allow players to craft their own fluff for the armies they love. And, it should be pointed out, arguably several of the best armies in 40K right now- the Battle Company and War Convocation- follow the strictures set down about "typical" builds for their faction almost to the letter. You realize that the reason competitive play is where it is right now is because of GW's game design? The competitive players didn't write the codices, supplements, or rules that have placed it in this state- GW did. If you want to point the finger, point it at the people responsible not the people affected by it. Most competitive players would love to see better rules balance in the game, but GW has made it clear that they don't care about that.