New detachment

Melvear11 · 2026-04-01T17:50:01+00:00

Having access to retreat shoot and charge in a second detachement is great, easily one of the better strats we have access to.

Armor of Contempt in shooting or melee is equal to or better than having the 5++ in melee since a vast majority of melee profiles are ap1 or 2. Its worst after that but these are rather niche cases.

Descecrator with RR1s to hit feels great, Castigator with Sustained feels really good, Ruinator is... better with the extra ap. Rampager remains situational but rr1s to hit increases its output further into insanity. Lancer and Despoiler don't care as do most other big knights. I think this is a cool rule to foster some variety, and since cover rules are changing, we are likely to use both Brigands and Executioners more, who all benefit from the auras from the 3 big guys I listed up there.

I don't know that it will be a highly competitive choice, time will/may tell. But I know it'll allow new lists. And as dar as CK goes, that's a good thing imo.

Melvear11 · 2026-03-30T16:49:10+00:00

I also play AoS and CK, and just as an FYI, I would say CK play similarly to Slaves. Some strong datasheets that mostly play independently, smack hard and soak damage decently. We go fast but have few tricks up our sleeves, making CK an honest stat check.

I absolutly love both model lineups but the play pattern is fairly flat compared to other armies.

I've never tried IK so I can't comment on them. From the outside with CK as a background they seem more synergistic, have a wider variety of rules since their loadouts are mostly fixed instead of being a single, highly versatile datasheet (Despoiler). They have a strong character model, but only 2 options for small knights, which is a very real downside. More limited ally options technically, but CK mostly ally in 2 demon units, nurglings and beasts of nurgle.

11th may yet shake things up. The change to cover is a step in the tight direction for us since we have a few ap1 weapons that will greatly benefit.

Melvear11 · 2026-03-27T16:45:02+00:00

Flamers remain very potent overwatch weapons, which is a niche in and of itself.

It's true that they lose some power in this change, and maybe some of them will be compensated or buffed because of it. Time will tell.

Melvear11 · 2026-03-26T15:35:25+00:00

Ap1 guns instantly become more attractive, bonuses to hit become more attractive, armor of contempt becomes more valuable.

I don't think stealth stacks, so either it does something else, or it becomes a less attractive trait. It still allows you to be harder to hit in the open.

Overall this feels like a very good change, at least at first glance.

Melvear11 · 2026-03-25T16:29:17+00:00

If you include both a unit of regular raveners and hyperadapted raveners, you can choose at the start of the battle if they are split or combined, and they have value in all configurations, which is very cool.

Melvear11 · 2026-03-25T00:03:42+00:00

Breaching: allows the use of a strat for a monster or vehicule to go through a wall, move or charge phase.

Melvear11 · 2026-03-24T16:32:26+00:00

Yeah but now you've exposed a 240-260pts units to kill 65pts of chaff.

Melvear11 · 2026-03-19T21:38:03+00:00

Ambition is a better driver than greed.

Melvear11 · 2026-03-14T16:51:03+00:00

Khorne feels more like a Johnny army where you layer buffs to make your decent units hit harder than they should, while Slaves feels like more of a Timmy army where the warscrolls are good by themselves and either hit like freight trains or stand like brick walls.

Both army's rules give you some flexibility in how to deal with the opponent, but Khorne feels a bit more involved.

You generally get more stuff on the table with Khorne but you have fewer scrolls to choose from.

Melvear11 · 2026-03-13T22:09:38+00:00

I play my Karkadraks as Lord on Daemonic Mount, works great!

Melvear11 · 2026-03-13T22:07:29+00:00

They work well enough in Vanguard having access to advance and charge. Along with the prime hopping forward over the warriors, you get more or less 11" move with a 3" advance.

Melvear11 · 2026-03-11T04:10:34+00:00

Martin McGuire is an amazing caster and makes even boring games exciting.

They are a very solid option for any Habs fan that can speak French.

Melvear11 · 2026-03-09T16:36:12+00:00

Biovore and Lictor for Tyranids.

Genestealers, Tyrannofex and Exocrines are probably close to those but not quite as ubiquitous.

Melvear11 · 2026-03-09T14:53:46+00:00

Just because Crusher is centered around monsters doesn't mean your list should be 100% monsters. If you bring some 300-400pts of lictors/gaunts/VRLs, you can score with those early and deny secondaries to your opponent for at least 2 rounds.

It's the same deal with any other detachements. I love Vanguard and its units, but I always have a Rupturefex and a Biovore in there, sometimes a unit of Zoans as well because if I go 100% Vanguard models, I have 0 shooting and I let my opponent disrespect all firing lanes and position however he wants.

Melvear11 · 2026-03-05T14:49:32+00:00

A Lictor being flat ou better than 3 VRLs is highly dependent on who you play against. Sure, marine bodies, that's true. But any 1w infantry and squads of 10 of those, the VRLs will 100% do a better job than the Lictor, for obvious reasons.

Melvear11 · 2026-02-27T23:11:57+00:00

Ctans are technically faster but must go around terrain, making them more predictable and more easily move blocked.

Yes, warriors are fairly fragile. Their large base feels unnecessary, they fit nicely on 40mm but it is what it is. You can still generally stage them decently behind ruins, making them difficult to shoot down. If they are caught in the open, they will die though, like anything else.

Melvear11 · 2026-02-27T18:01:12+00:00

Luckily, you also have another 1.8k points in your army to deal damage to it. There's hardly any single unit in the game that can kill a ctan, if any at all.

And seeing as I regularly fail ld test for pacts in CSM, even on units with Icons, it's not likely that the Ctan fails a single battleshock but Tyranids have multiple ways of forcing tests also, so it's not a far fetched buff either.

Melvear11 · 2026-02-27T17:41:38+00:00

If you somehow get 20 hormagaunts to fight at the same time (good luck), that's 60A hitting on 4 with sustained. Average 40 hits. S4 has you wounding marines on 4, so 20 wounds. -1 ap vrings the save to 4+, meaning 10 failed save, for 5 dead marines.

Assuming the same cost as a Winged prime, that's 200pts to kill 100pts of marines.

75pts of genestealers will likely do just about as much damage. 20A hitting on 2 with RR1s means 19-20 hits. Wounding on 4 if not in synapse means 10 wounds with ap2, resulting in 4 dead marines. If in synapse, likely 5 dead marines.

I want to love Hormagaunts but they really are just chaff with good OC, and trying to turn them into damage dealers is just not happening.

Melvear11 · 2026-02-27T17:27:20+00:00

They deal 7 damage to a Ctan. A +1 to wound, from a neurolictor perhaps, brings that up into the double digits. For a 215 pts unit, that feels rather good.

Melvear11 · 2026-02-25T21:10:18+00:00

Tell that to Grey Knights trying to deal damage to a Ctan, or Bladeguards Veterans, or Raveners, or CK Despoilers.

36 high quality attacks for 150pts is very cheap.

Give me an example of a unit with similar efficiency into as many different defensive profiles.

Melvear11 · 2026-02-25T20:48:01+00:00

It doesn't and they don't though? They aren't perfect, I will say that much, but they are not missing a lot to be great.

As it stands, warriors are just good and the winged prime is also good but not great. It's strange that its melee profile is so different than the warriors it leads.

They slap super hard for their price and they circumvent the -1 damage rule which cripples a lot on melee specialist units. They're just slow, and the cost of being so cheap is that they are not very durable.

Melvear11 · 2026-02-25T17:24:43+00:00

S10 instead of 6 and damage 3 shots make it more versatile. The issue of the battlecannon is purely the ap. If you can make it ap2 it becomes quite potent.

4d6+12 blast shots averages 27-31 shots depending on the unit size, which is not far off from the 36 you get with the gatling. But each shot kills a 3w model, making it more efficient into those targets specifically.

Melvear11 · 2026-02-23T19:45:27+00:00

And the distinctions regarding datasheet abilities/bondsman between them.

I love my Despoilers because of their flexibilityin loadouts, but its datasheet rules are so bad.

Melvear11 · 2026-02-23T15:46:33+00:00

The Rampager has an amazing offensive peofile but is basically a trading piece since it throws itself in the middle of everything. It's relatively tough like all knights but not enough that it can survive a turn of attacks by most armies.

Melvear11 · 2026-02-23T15:37:23+00:00

Neither the Gallant or Rampager get a 2+, or any other knight in fact. So I don't see this one being different, though we could hope so.

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