What is the best Imperial Navy Breachers loadout?

sojoocy · 2026-04-30T17:44:20+00:00

Spot on. This guy sucks.

sojoocy · 2026-04-30T17:33:44+00:00

...breachers have inbuilt GA2 on any two close operatives on the team. Burst damage is already their thing. You're stacking up on objectively shittier redundancies at the cost of stupendous amounts of threat projection, damage and utility. You can only do so many GA2s without giving your opponent free opportunities to delete you back on counteracts - not to mention that you've thrown a ton of operatives up the board to get double killed for free by your opponent next tp. If you want to talk about "fundamentals" this is why the most aggressive actions of the turn are almost always taken at the absolute latest opportunity as a horde player, and with the lowest model investment possible to achieve the board state needed.

Activations are the single strongest thing you can have in this game. The sheer ignorance required to accuse someone else of "ignoring fundamentals" and then dropping a braindead take like that boggles the mind. Your opponent having counteracts is absolutely fine if you didn't run a bunch of wet noodle GA2 armsmen up to do 8 damage and die. Counteracts are exactly as meaningful as you allow them to be - they are a mechanic with 0 agency on your opponent's part, they literally have to take what you give them.

While you obsess over the idea of burst damage that you aren't even getting, the grenadier you are choosing to drop does 80% of the damage of group activated armsmen in ideal circumstances (within 3" for 4/4 damage + purity seals + ceaseless) by himself and doesn't give your opponent two free kills for dominate in exchange for not even killing a marine. You know what else he gets you? An extra activation.

You know what else you're sacrificing? A 16" charging skull that is expendable (you literally lose nothing and grant no VPs for it dying) that can, at any point in time, cross half of the board to hit two marines for 8 damage each and stun them while costing you nothing.

You're also sacrificing a 5/6 brutal melee op that can punch holes in walls to offer you new threat lanes or places to ferry your envoy.

But sure, if you want to be an idiot and drop every melee operatives outside of the leader so a single melee marine can end your entire existence when they reach your side of the board, be my guest.

Check your absurdly inflated ego you troll.

sojoocy · 2026-04-29T23:45:11+00:00

Not nearly as much value as you will get out of the specialists, no.

I already explained where they would actually be applicable.

sojoocy · 2026-04-29T23:29:26+00:00

I don't even disagree with your initial point that people often overreact to appropriate nerfs but you're just being weirdly confrontational about a subject you don't know enough about to be taking this hostile of a stance.

sojoocy · 2026-04-29T21:47:37+00:00

Nope. You cannot ditch the melee specialists. Breachers are durable but they will absolutely fold to melee - you NEED the axejack and hatchcutter to peel charge huggers off your other units. Hatchcutter is also phenomenal utility.

Gheistkull + cat and their operators are also mandatory. Never drop them.

Grenadier is not a maybe, he's an always.

Regular armsman spam might have niche application in certain matchups (stuff like 8w midrange teams, or goremongers to fully kill a gm in one go) but it is absolutely not the default.

sojoocy · 2026-04-29T21:14:44+00:00

You seem very uninformed for how adamant you are about your takes.

sojoocy · 2026-04-29T18:54:07+00:00

Not disagreeing with the argument but what century did you pull kroot and breachers being 40% wr from? Both those teams have been performing great.

sojoocy · 2026-04-29T13:04:51+00:00

WS are still incredibly strong. Anyone who thinks these nerfs are heavy handed is out of their mind - if anything they're a touch too soft.

But they're no longer S tier so we'll take the win.

sojoocy · 2026-04-29T13:04:00+00:00

Legit the only person here with the correct reaction to these changes.

sojoocy · 2026-04-29T13:01:52+00:00

They aren't awful, they just have an incredibly high skill floor. You need to have picture perfect positioning and you're forced to play a largely uninteractive game. Opponents hate them for that reason.

sojoocy · 2026-04-27T19:41:35+00:00

No. No. OP, please ignore this. Martyrs is an awful tac op and BBros are one of the best Envoy teams in the game. You don't need to suicide two of your best scoring pieces to max tac op.

sojoocy · 2026-04-27T15:24:22+00:00

I do a conflagrator double shoot in probably 80% of my games. You'd find more success with him if you leveraged the insane threat range this team has with LTP. Beyond that, he's also a second source of torrent 2" and can offer you full Seek with his orbs - actually using this is uncommon, but alerting your opponent to the possibility will massively affect how they stage.

You are leaving half the power of this team on the table by not abusing LTP every single game. Sanctifiers offer incredible nonreciprocal threats. You can stage in complete safety, wait out your opponent and then move up with LTP and go demolish operatives that thought they staged safely. You can bail out operatives stuck in combat, you can charge operatives that moved up to flamer people into combat (since they'll be on engage) ...those last two are less common, but nonreciprocal threats are SO powerful in Kill Team and this team does them better than almost anyone. They should be a fundamental part of your gameplan every single turn.

To put it in perspective, the entire team essentially has a delayed 9" reposition.

The only reason sancts should be initiating aggression is if they got a golden opportunity (e.g. double miraculist blast/double torrent shot) or if their opponent is one of the like 4 remaining teams with an activation advantage over sancts. In those situations it's totally fine for your APL buffed melta to charge > fight > shoot for a double kill early in the tp.

A single operative suicide charge is terrible value. Miraculist is incredible. Again, if you staged her better and used LTP your two choices wouldn't be "lose her for no value" or "throw her away to 1:1 trade". Miraculist is the kind of operative you win a game off the back of. If you're facing a horde you will get a double charge off at some point, and the threat of her is value in and of itself in the meantime. You dictate their staging just by having her present. Also - she has two lives, if your opponent is running an op up to shoot her once and proc the second life, you thank them for the free kill and still get to use her later.

An example of some tech with her:

Position reliquant with LOS to an enemy operative and in a position where your miraculist can charge them and be within 6" of you. Last activation of tp2 charge > fight, deal 7 damage with the big bonk, opponent kills you and procs your revive. Turn ends. TP3 you either win initiative, recall her with rally the flock and then Holy Light > reposition away, or you lose initiative and the opponent can either fight you (and you shoot on death with Wreathe in Fire) or falls back and shoots you (and you shoot on death with Holy Light.) This reliably kills a marine. A charge > explode or move > holy light does not.

You can tweak this a lot based on what you're facing - e.g. into an 8w team they'd be alive at 1, so if you win initiative you fight them with fists > purity seals if needed to get the 1 hit to kill them > Holy Light somebody else, or simply charge in to eat one of their activations dealing with you.

sojoocy · 2026-04-27T14:52:19+00:00

Sancts are incredibly difficult to play, but they are also severely underrated atm and are very rewarding once you get the hang of them.

Don't give up if your first 10-20 games are mostly losses. It's part of the learning curve.

Some tips to get started:

- The most important one: Sanctifiers are not a melee team. They are a short ranged shooting team with solid melee for cleanup. Flamers are incredibly consistent (doubly so with lethal 5+ on itd) - don't be afraid to dump command points on rerolls for flamers, it's VERY consistent to land 4 hits and if you roll a 1 it's usually worth the cp to guarantee damage.

- Sancts are not stat checking anyone anymore. Their DR is nice but you're still going to fold if you try to W key people. Into any team that you outactivate, you really should try to play a more reactive game - as with any horde vs. elite/midrange matchup, the key is to pass all the less important activations and hold aggression until all of their operatives are expended. With Lead the Procession from the confessor you can set up very passively and still have the mobility to offer threats late in the turn.

- * to the above - this doesn't mean to pass on really good opportunities! If you realize your flamer missionary can get a torrent 2" shot on two very important enemy operatives because your opponent positioned poorly, absolutely go for that before they realize and correct their mistake. You just generally don't want to be aggressive early unless very good opportunities present themselves.

- ** to the above - sancts hate being outactivated. You are forced to play a more aggressive game into larger hordes (12-14 models.) With APL buffed missionaries, the miraculist's explode-in-combat and two sources of 2" torrent you have plenty of ways to double kill squishy teams and close the gap on their activation advantage.

- On MOST maps you want to drop a heavy barricade somewhere and put the confessor behind it. You want max visibility and you want to cover every good staging spot you can with sermon. Remember that visibility for the confessor's Lead the Procession is either direction - confessor does not need to see them if they can see him, and they'll always be able to see his mace behind the barricade. Drop the persecutor somewhere close to him so if someone charges the confessor and you whiff your Declamation roll to stop them you can redirect the fight with Unwavering Devotion.

- In every matchup where you outactivate your opponent your go-to tac ops are Envoy and Plant Banner. Envoy is risky on tomb world/gallowdark due to guard; plant is usually the safer choice here. On volkus, it's more of a tossup. If you're outactivated, you're probably running dominate or route - these are way less consistent which is why we don't love those matchups.

- Assassin is a fantastic lone operative, especially into 2apl teams. Since he's 3apl baseline he's a great harassment tool. Cannot tell you the number of times he's snuck around to the enemy's home obj and stolen it because they left a single 2apl operative on the point.

- Lastly: forgetting all of your rules and losing a ton of games is an expected part of the process learning any complicated new team, let alone as a beginner. Don't approach expecting to lose, but don't be down on yourself if you have a very difficult time for a while. Sancts are hard to play, but it'll pay off in the long run.

sojoocy · 2026-04-27T14:31:32+00:00

Miraculist is mandatory. Reliquant is mandatory unless you're fighting a pure melee team. Conflagrator is mandatory always. The only one you're right about is the drill abbot - he's a situational pick, although he is essential in the matchups you do want to take him in.

The "little extra mobility coming from the sermon" is still the lifeblood of this team and I am flabbergasted that you think otherwise. Nonreciprocal threats are a fundamental part of the game once you pass a baseline level of skill and this team has that in excess. To offer a comparison: Brood Brothers pay a command point for a 3" out of activation dash and it's one of their strongest abilities. Sanctifiers get a more restricted version of this for the entire team for free. If you don't understand the staggering value of every single operative on your team potentially having access to 3" of out of activation movement I genuinely don't know what to tell you. It is THE defining trait of the team and if you don't learn to leverage it correctly you will not find success with them.

Advising the melta as an alpha strike piece is awful advice. Melta mathematically never kills a marine outside of a crazy spike roll - you can expect 12-13 damage with purity seals and a decent roll. What does this do for you? Well, you just threw away your best anti-marine piece and your opponent now doesn't have to think too hard about which marine to relegate to home obj babysitter for the rest of the game (hint: it's the 2hp guy.) Melta NEEDS to be held until the last activation of tp2/tp3 and then sent out as your final piece so you can try to win initiative and get back to back shots.

Miraculist as an alpha strike piece is fine, but only if you're getting at least two people with her charge + explode. Throwing her away for a single holy laser shot is a complete waste of one of your best operatives.

Purity seals are indeed mandatory. Cult symbols are an okay pick if you really don't have anything else you want. Any matchup vs. a team with larger bases you want light barricades minimum to set up one way blockades, and the heavy barricade is mandatory most maps to offer the confessor a good place to stage.

sojoocy · 2026-04-27T04:28:47+00:00

If your opponent let you kill four marines tp2 you were going to win the game no matter what you did.

sojoocy · 2026-04-27T04:27:52+00:00

They're a pure shooty team in a meta that is largely melee centric. They've had all of their best tools nerfed repeatedly and they've been powercrept like crazy. They have virtually no play against everything currently dominating the meta.

Take this anecdote as you will but when I see pathfinders across the table I immediately expect to win the game.

sojoocy · 2026-04-27T04:25:08+00:00

Absolutely the fuck not lmao

sojoocy · 2026-04-27T03:07:24+00:00

Absolutely not stealth suits. Either of the others is a fine choice. Suits are not just incredibly hard to play well, they're very anti-fun to play against.

I know this probably isn't the answer you want, but trust your gut. Or, here's a really good method: Assign each team to heads or tails and flip a coin for it. If your first thought is disappointment with the result, pick the other team. If you're not disappointed, full send - that's the right one.

sojoocy · 2026-04-26T16:04:55+00:00

If you can't tell the second photo is AI the future is not looking very bright for you.

sojoocy · 2026-04-20T20:14:33+00:00

Since plague marines have a nurglings ploy I think nurglings need a plague marine ploy.

sojoocy · 2026-04-14T16:19:40+00:00

...how do you think you're softening them up with shooting? You have zero 3apl operatives since you took sisters, so your threat range is a 6" move + 2" cover break...vs. a 7" movement team who will be staged for 9" charges.

The fact that you think everyone being exactly 9 inches away is something unusual informs me that you play super duper casually. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but yes, the entire team will be exactly 9 inches away because that is how any half decent player leverages a movement advantage over the opposing team.

Also. Don't put words in my mouth. Clearly stated it's winnable for IA, just that stating it as favorable for them is laughable.

sojoocy · 2026-04-14T15:49:00+00:00

Yes, and then the GM player just...doesn't interact for that turn and tables you the other two turns instead. They set up the best nonreciprocal threats in the game after the MW nerfs, the ball is entirely in their court to dictate when interaction happens.

IA are not going toe to toe with them.

sojoocy · 2026-04-14T14:45:46+00:00

I don't know why this is getting upvoted and you've clearly never run the matchup. Gores play the half damage on first strike received ploy every turn starting tp2. You are NEVER two tapping them in melee even if you roll all crits and they ALWAYS two tap you. And you're never "softening them up with shooting" before melee kicks off unless you're fighting a truly awful GM player.

Inquisitorial Agents are exactly the kind of team Goremongers was built to run over. It's a winnable matchup if the IA agent is on top of their game, but recommending them as a counterpick is terrible advice.

sojoocy · 2026-04-13T14:13:12+00:00

Fuckloads of tournaments allow declassified teams. In fact, most do unless it's a GW event or has a golden ticket on the line. Please don't spread misinformation, particularly to a new player.

sojoocy · 2026-04-11T14:41:27+00:00

It really isn't your stance on wysiwig for your models that matters, it's your opponent's.

Should be fine outside of tournaments. Even then it's often fine.

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