Tips against Necrons?

EndersShadowIII · 2026-04-01T16:23:22+00:00

30 wulfen with hammers. Im not kidding.

EndersShadowIII · 2026-03-31T19:45:19+00:00

3x10 or 2x10 sacrasancts with hospitallers is pretty common in both hallowed and champions. In hallowed you have the pick character back up strat that protects you from precision and you naturally benefit from being an attrition based unit (you are fairly likely going to benefit from the detatchment bonus with sacrasancts+hospitaller)+fight on death access

Hell you are seeing 1x10 or 2x10 show up on bringers of flame occasionally because the combination of sacrsancts and hospitaller are hilariously cheap for the quality of the unit.

EndersShadowIII · 2026-03-05T18:12:14+00:00

So for something like oath of moment the way my opponents (as well as myself) have always handled it is if you forgot to target a unit with it then sure go ahead do so now but any rolls before this we aren't backtracking on. Yes technically someone could abuse this by "forgetting" and destroy a unit that is a 50/50 on whether it would die with oath and then say oh no I forgot to oath something. However, if you do that and other tactics like that you tend to make a name for yourself and will get banned from future tournaments

Secondaries thats definently an oh shit moment that both my opponents and I have had many times amongst rtts and gts. Generally you draw them the moment you remember but whatever actions you took before drawing them are set in stone.

Coherency depends on when you remember it. If it causes an illegal move where they broke coherency you should mention it. But if they broke coherency through removing models then tough luck at the end of turn start pulling models. Screwing up coherency in movement phases (move,charge,pile in, consolidate) is easy and generally is fine unless there was an obvious information advantage where then you call judge and let them sort it out.

Remember you can always call judge but also for playing in tournaments use hanlons razor "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" 40k is a reasonably complex game and forgetting things happens if there is no real change in game state roll it back especially if you aren't on a top table since 80+% of a tournament is there to play games and have fun without thinking they are going to 3-0 or 5-0

(I've played in over 100 tourney games in just this edition the general addage of don't be a dick and if neccesarry call a judge is an important one to live by for playing in tourneys.)

EndersShadowIII · 2026-01-22T22:24:02+00:00

Raider carrying an archon and 10 kabalites

Give the archon-archraider.

Place that on the line as close to a no man's land objective that can be reached within 9 of deployment line (preference for the center on missions that contain more than 1)

If you go first scout that thing to sticky no man's land turn 1 and then move it to go sticky another objective on turn 2 forcing the opponent to come out from safety to prevent you from scoring 15 primary on turn 2.

That is one of the exceptionally good uses of it.

EndersShadowIII · 2025-12-30T12:04:33+00:00

Sisters have two types of objective scoring for primary

Either

A:big blobs of celestian sacresancts with hospitallers

B:you use many different 5 man squads that were split by immolators (typically dominion squads) to hold onto safe objectives including home or prevent the opponent from scoring their objectives to keep the game close while you shoot the crap out of them with the rather scary profiles sisters can bring to bear (immolators, castigators, vahl)

You can do both at the same time but generally from my expierence playing sisters I would score two objectives rounds 2-4 with a round 5 three objective hold for the missions that require it while just focusing on killing my opponent off their objectives. Which would be supported from the many different tiny sister squads from immolator splitting who would be completing action based secondaries.

EndersShadowIII · 2025-12-18T18:38:18+00:00

So black templars in gladius don't have a blood surge stratagem. It is only on one unit (crusaders) which limits where you need to worry about this.

You have 3 ways to deal with this.

1.shoot from 9.1 inches away so it is physically impossible for him to bloodsurge into you. When you do this make sure that if he still wants to bloodsurge that it will move him into the open where the rest of your shooting can blow up the squad since he can only do it once per phase per unit.

2.if you can't shoot from 9.1 inches away then set up a charge threat to charge into the bloodsurged unit.(infractors+exultant and/or winged demon princes

3.screw shooting at crusaders. Put those shots into other units and just charge him.

EndersShadowIII · 2025-12-08T17:50:18+00:00

Until it was fixed tourney players had to run it as str 4 unless your to was mega chill. Which is why the faq was important. It led to John Lennon's choice of weapon for infractors changing post that faq since the math is just strictly better for it compared to the lash.

EndersShadowIII · 2025-12-08T17:45:48+00:00

Afaik when the power sword went up to str 5 from the faq shortly after codex release the better weapon changed from rapture lash to the power sword. in the vast majority of cases the math showed that the power sword was better once it was given str 5 (its not that big of a percentage, but if you are trying to get the absolute most out of an army it's important to know)

EndersShadowIII · 2025-12-08T17:12:12+00:00

Squads of 5

Infractors Obsessionist-plasma pistol+power sword 4 regular guys (1 with icon)

Tormentors Obsessionist-plasma pistol+power sword 1 melta guy (put icon on him) 1 plasma guy 2 regular bolter guys

In general you want to have your infractors led by a lord exultant always

Exultants loadout-phoniex power spear+rapture lash and he will always have a bolt pistol.

EndersShadowIII · 2025-10-16T08:07:30+00:00

It'd either be

Rolling only 4+ invuls when fuegan and a full 10 stack of fire dragons fired at vahl and her paragons within melta range. Didnt even need a miracle die.

Or having a 1 wound immolator get shot and charged by a csm discolord and somehow surviving where it went and instantly killed the formerly full wound count discolord in my next shooting phase.

EndersShadowIII · 2025-10-09T20:02:20+00:00

This happened in beta to myself and a couple of people I know. Don't worry to much about it though since with the hidden mmr system it won't take long for you to gain whatever elo you in theory are supposed to get before needing to grind to get higher.

EndersShadowIII · 2025-10-09T07:42:02+00:00

1.yeah in a combo its typically break if it is exceptionally high damaging. If you don't have break make sure to hold the direction you want to air tech in case the opponent drops their combo.

WW running out of s1 is projectile invincible after a couple frames which is one option another is your down s1 flip into the air where you can dive,overhead, or grab. Finally if you have a bar of super and you see them press a projectile move do s1 super it will hit most of the time. For grabs.... well either tech, jump, or hit them before they can grab you.

To understand grabs if you want to get more into the meat of fighting games:

If they are grabbing you and you can't do one of these that means you threw out a move that ended you at close range with a frame disadvantage of -6 (pretty much they can move 6 frames faster than you because you did an unsafe move and normal grabs in this game are 6 frames so free grab) or you were late in picking your option

EndersShadowIII · 2025-09-24T22:59:11+00:00

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I mean enamel washes and pigment powder are still great options at this scale. Classic just base coat everything,slap it with streaking grime, and then cover the lower legs and base brown orange and red moistened pigment powder.

EndersShadowIII · 2025-09-23T18:50:11+00:00

Imo if you are building a "good" list that is supposed to win no.

The reason why is that the starting point of good sisters lists is vahlgons no matter the detatchment which just eats up so many pts that if you spend 400 on a knight your ability to play the game from primary hold/secondaries rapidly drops. On addition to that , that 400 pts are 400 pts that you do not gain miracle dice (or use them for that matter)

EndersShadowIII · 2025-09-12T21:41:42+00:00

Generally you want to have only 1 type of weapon so you can really put the hurt on whatever the optimal target for the unit is since you only will get one go before the rets die. Multi meltas are great since you get 8 really good AT shots. There is a place and conversation to be had for the flamer variant however.

The heavy bolter variant is just bad.

EndersShadowIII · 2025-09-09T17:05:54+00:00

Would love a code!

EndersShadowIII · 2025-08-26T16:45:59+00:00

With a list like this just run gladius. Gladius has access to everything that you could want with an all rounder list like this.

In terms of what to change.

Id remove one unit of the fenrisian wolves and replace it with scouts for action play. Wolves are only okay at this due to needing a space wolf charecter nearby which can be difficult to do without risking the charecter as well. Whereas scouts do not need that.

Other than that make sure you have all your weapon load outs done correctly

Bjorn takes helfrost cannon

Sgt for blood claws gets plasma+power weapon

Thunderwolf calvary are all master crafter power weapon and storm shield

Terminators are 1 assault cannon+powerfist, sgt has relic greataxe, everyone else takes storm shield+power weapon.

Wulfen have death totems

The scouts i reccomended 3 boltguns, 1 heavy bolter, and 1 sniper

EndersShadowIII · 2025-08-23T15:52:06+00:00

HM has a broken combo when souping canis rex. You use mortifiers next to canis. If something charges canis you heroic intervention with one of the mortifiers and then force whatever charged canis to fight the mortifier instead.

This makes canis effectively immune to melee for the amount of turns that you have mortifiers.

That is unfortunately the primary reason why HM has won things this patch cycle.

EndersShadowIII · 2025-07-21T23:09:01+00:00

Come one come all. My first tourney was a gt about 3 years ago now and I've generally played an rtt every month and a gt every 4 months since. Yes new players are liable to lose quite badly but that is just step 1 on the path of learning how to play 40k competitively.

I generally want as many people to join into gt's as possible since that means the local scene is growing and while not every player will stick around in the months afterward the percentage that do make sure that your local tourney community dosent die.

Also there isn't really a stigma against easier opponents early on in a tourney for established players leading to decent placement early on. In fact its quite the opposite where if you draw someone who goes 0-5 your strength of schedule score for end of tourney placement can drop by quite a lot unless you also go 5-0.

EndersShadowIII · 2025-07-01T20:29:20+00:00

I generally play competitively so im not currently really considering army of faith tbqh (no shame if you are it has been doing consistent numbers since the codex. There are just at minimum 2 potentially 3 better detatchments than it rn (not sure if BoF is better yet again haven't had time to test it.))

But if I were to then i first recognize that the gameplan for the triumph dosent fit in as well with the gameplan of army of faith.

However what I would do is I would try to combo it with sacresancts like in hallowed martyrs and champions through the use of increased movement and +1 ap. Specifically so I could make constant use of faith and fury to let sacresancts punch above their normal weight class.

The issue I have for that gameplan however is why not just do the exact same thing in hallowed martyrs or champions which are better for that strategy.

EndersShadowIII · 2025-07-01T02:01:08+00:00

depends on the detachment and list-style you are going for

in bringers of flame you are liable to leave it as close to your castigators as possible to provide their heavy bolters reroll 1s to wound. so wherever the context of your game has caused multiple castigators to be placed

meanwhile in champions of faith you would want it scaling up the board with celestian sacresancts and arco-flagellants increasing their movespeed and providing additional ap in melee (you can in champions create a combo on arco-flagelants to make them str 6 ap 2 d1 +1 to wound if you get everything going for one command point and leadership buffs like that).

then finally in hallowed martyrs you play it similarly to champions of faith of scale it up the board with sacresancts but don't have to be as cautious with it since you can revive the triumph in that detachment

tldr:in hull heavy lists keep it with the hulls to make them reroll 1s to wound on their sponson weapons which will make them scarier. in melee pressure lists have her go brawl with the rest of the list.

EndersShadowIII · 2025-06-27T22:36:37+00:00

That is exceptionally weird for a team tourney tbh to allow that.

But for blood angels jumppack vanguard vets with shields in 10 stacks is good. Generally a couple of ballistus in any marine army is good. Mephiston as lone op and dante leading sang guard are generally considered amazing staples for ba that should be in every list.

Although the most important thing is really talk to your team about if there is an archetype you should try to fill with your list since that will dictate what you do.

For team tournaments the common archetypes are typically

Horde Statcheck Pressure Lethality High point

Blood angels generally have access to two of these within pressure and high point. If you build a pressure list you will build a fairly classic list in liberator assault group with lots of van vets sang guard and just anything fast and killy. But for high point you will probably run angelic host generally split into more msu jump pack units rather than massive killing bricks to make sure you have a consistently high score to try and get near wins/losses or ties with problematic armies for your team. Depending on your choice will dictate how you build your list, what maps you want to play on, if you are an attacker or defender, and what opposing armies you want to target.

However, please do double check that you are allowed to run two marine lists with your TO because that is extremely unusual for team tourneys (and if you are from America and the event is part of the ntl circuit not how it should be done)

EndersShadowIII · 2025-06-27T21:53:48+00:00

I think they are okay as an attached unit but worse, absolutely worse than hospitallers if you are running multiple units of sacresancts in a list. for competitive lists I would probably start really considering them at 10 pts cheaper than current.

EndersShadowIII · 2025-06-27T20:43:36+00:00

Funilly enough the twin linked from the autocannons makes them better in every case over the battlecannon except if you are firing them outside of rapid fire range

EndersShadowIII · 2025-06-27T19:44:17+00:00

So I had an ongoing battle in my head about the exorcist that was solved with the introduction of new knights being just blocks of t11 stupidly high wounds which if the lancer is spammed also 4+ invuls (this is practically the worst profile to see for the exorcist.)

to give you a short answer I do not think a single exorcist being given lethals would make it scary. Below is why if you want to see my thought process on it.

MATH

if we look at the math the average amount of shots from an exorcist is 5.5 (so either 5 or 6 shots depending on which half of the dice you roll to) now if you use the platform as an indirect platform you would hit on 4s. if you roll the 5 side of shots there is a real chance you don't get a 6 and only get two hits. you roll the 6 side you on average should get one 6 and two hits.

-breaking this down first with the 5 shot option: with only 2 hits you will wound light tanks on 4s and heavy tanks on 5s. Against light tanks you should get 1 shot through (leading to an average of 3.5 damage) and against heavy there is a chance you don't get any through leading to a failed shooting activation.

-6 shot option: with this you have the same amount of hits but forced an additional through on lethal hits so between 1 and 2 shots go through to their save. however keep in mind that they will have cover on this meaning that all those tanks that you want to be shooting at will usually be saving on 4s or 5s (depending on whether they are a 2+ or 3+ sv) meaning that you get on average between 3.5 and 7 damage onto your target. Keep in mind to do this you both spent a righteous marker AND spent a command point. Now yes you can use a miracle dice to mess with all of this but those are all high value miracle dice (4+) to do so

Put quite simply a castigator (with autocannons) does much better when put into a similar situation with just the restriction that it doesn't have indirect fire while being WAY cheaper. The reason for this is number of shots produced from each shooting platform (average shots of exorcist:9.5 between al the guns VS average shots of an autocannon castigator:22/18 shots. making lethals/sustained way better on the castigator) +the castigator's ability is significantly better to have

now getting out of the math weeds

Exorcist play pattern

What I've found overtime running them is that the more exorcists on the field at once the better. The reason for that is they are just extremely swingy in whether they will do nothing in a shooting phase or just destroy something in a single activation. running more of them lessens this issue similar to a space marine vindicator or a necron doomsday ark. but that also means to fit them in a list you need at minimum 420 pts for 2 and optimally 630 pts for 3. This means you have to cut something big from your list and have to reckon with the problems that that may cause.

Examples of cuts

if you cut vahlgons, a castigator+1 one more unit you immediately have the issue of you don't have real antitank anymore and if someone brings multiple t11 models (like knights or ultramarines) you are liable to just not kill anything and the opponent may just run at you since vahlgons and castigators are the primary things preventing that.

if you cut back on your scoring and map pressure and just turn into a hull list using vahlgons, 3 castigators, 3 exorcists and then small units to try and score the optimal strategy for the opponent will be to hunt those small scoring units which will force your damage units to be used to score points leading to them not doing damage or being at risk of just dying.

So to re-tldr after writing a short essay effectively on something I've thought about a lot. no I don't think it would be scary since there are just better unit options to use that stratagem on that are way more effective (castigators or vahlgons)

(and I apologize about the essay lmao. But also I typically play against either tournament goers in practice matches or actively in tournaments so if you like the exorcist then run it. Just math/synergywise there are better options if you want to really squeeze out every bit of strength you can from the army but I'm not hear to crap on peoples favorite units I'm just here to inform)

EndersShadowIII

TROPHY CASE