Vs the Triumvirate

I had my first game today against the New Celestine.

Gawd almighty that girl can take a pounding. The 'all or nothing' nature of attacking her became readily apparent, and by turn three (at which point she was fresh again, with L'il Bit and and Short Round all fresh, too) I finally got around to axing her. It took the combined firepower of four venoms, a Wraithseer, and a squad of Fire Dragons to put her down. (And even then she got back up and charged the Wraithseer, who managed to put her down for good.)

How are people handing the three new Imperium models?

What are her rules? I haven't played against her yet...

We'll have your own triumvirate to face them. I wonder in a 3v3 who would win. (with 1-2 sacrificial unit nearby to boost our PfD)

CptMetal wrote:

What are her rules? I haven't played against her yet...

If she's in a unit she's all but immortal. You roll to hit, roll to wound (against majority toughness), then she gets to Look out, Sir!, then anything that gets past has to beat her 2+/4++ save and any wounds that are actually suffered come off her Geminae buddies instead, who have 2 wounds each.

Oh, and she can resurrect one of them each turn on full Wounds.

And when she dies (eventually) for the first time she comes back on a Ld test (Ld10) on full Wounds and can resurrect one of her buddies on full wounds.

Offensively she's not too shabby, although only AP3 so she won't be killing a real combat monster anytime soon.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Offensively she's not too shabby, although only AP3 so she won't be killing a real combat monster anytime soon.

Except ours, because, you know, DE aren't allowed to have good armour saves.

Good Lord that's survivable.

What're the rules for the Visarch's sword again? Could we conceivably force her Ld test down to the lowest in the unit she's in?

Either that or a couple of Warp Hunters...

Ynneadwraith wrote:

Good Lord that's survivable.

What're the rules for the Visarch's sword again? Could we conceivably force her Ld test down to the lowest in the unit she's in?

Either that or a couple of Warp Hunters...

That could work. The test is taken when she is removed as a casualty. At that point she is technically still part of the unit as she is not allowed to leave while either she or the unit is locked in combat. Strangely, her dying doesn't seem to matter but the rest of the unit dying does.

LD negatives will also help.

I do wonder how the Geminae interact with focused Witchfires.

Jimsolo wrote:

LD negatives will also help.

I do wonder how the Geminae interact with focused Witchfires.

I don't think it makes any difference. You pick Celestine as your target and if it manifests with the necessary number of warp charges, hits, wounds, she fails any Lo,S and saves, she still doesn't take the bloody wound!

So Psychic Superfriends Freakshow her to death?

Grotesqurie blob (for majority toughness 5) with Haemi with WWP (for transport), Armour of Misery on a Corsair Prince, Shadowseer with Mask of Secrets, a Farseer or two, Visarch and maybe a Void Dreamer for mobility after you've dropped.

Jump in. Use battle focus to split the two Farseers. Shriek the heavens down with 2 IC Farseers and the Shadowseer at -4Ld (feel like I'm missing one here*) using the lowest ld of the unit she's in, which also neuters her totallynotreanimationprotocols. After that, you've still got your T5 5++/5+++ (shimmershield Prince) potentially invisible, re-roll from Guide/Prescience, Veil of Tears melee/psychic blob with a Fleshbane/Armourbane Shadowseer/2xFarseers, a Void Sabre Prince and a Haemi with Scissorhands and Sump (because why not, it's cheap?) that gets tougher to kill nearly each turn it's still alive because of PfP...

Massive overkill, but it's fun to think of the nastiest least efficient freakshow deathstar you can think of

*Ooh, what about Spiritseers as well on the off chance you roll Horrify for a -3Ld debuff.

Here's a question. What happens when you reduce a unit's Ld to 0...

I thought at some point, in some iteration of the rules it said units die if they ever have leadership reduced to 0. But I might be mistaken. In any case, I don't think you can roll a test on an attribute you have 0 in, so at the very least you'd probably auto-fail leadership tests.

Many of the things we're talking about don't ACTUALLY reduce someone's leadership though. They just give it a penalty vs. certain kinds of rolls.

Ah i see. Either way it makes Psychic Shrieks very very nasty indeed...

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

I thought at some point, in some iteration of the rules it said units die if they ever have leadership reduced to 0. But I might be mistaken.

For some reason, I was under this impression too, but it's only if a unit's Strength, Toughness or Wounds are reduced to 0 that they're removed from play, not Leadership.

Ynneadwraith wrote:

Here's a question. What happens when you reduce a unit's Ld to 0...

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

In any case, I don't think you can roll a test on an attribute you have 0 in, so at the very least you'd probably auto-fail leadership tests.

Unless something specifies that it's an auto success/failure, a unit still takes a test regardless. In the case of a Leadership value of 0, it can still pass on a double 1:
"When rolling dice to take a Leadership test [...] a dice roll of 2 (a double 1) is always a success, regardless of any other modifiers that apply.".

The two that made me wonder are mirror of minds and executioner.

Erebus wrote:

"When rolling dice to take a Leadership test [...] a dice roll of 2 (a double 1) is always a success, regardless of any other modifiers that apply.".

I'm actually familiar with this line. I just don't know that they'd be entitled to a test with a leadership of zero.

So I actually went ahead and looked this up in the BRB. It actually says "If a model has a characteristic of "-" or 0, it automatically fails the test." No roll is needed.

So, while a double 1 WOULD be a success at 1 leadership, despite not being under their leadership score, at 0 leadership, a unit isn't entitled to a test to begin with, and so they automatically fail.

That said, the book also says that MODIFIERS cannot reduce an attribute below 1, so the only way a model could get to leadership zero would be if something somehow permanently reduced their attribute, like caused damage to their leadership or something.

Killing Cawl has proven to be a sisyphean task. Shard of Anaris prince in a challenge can do it but it's a race against time since you really need a rend and for them to miss their 5++. One wound get's through that and he's dead, but when you're shadowfield dissipates, and it will, you're definitely dead next turn. Wraithguard don't work. Warp spiders don't work. If he is left with even 1 wound you've done absolutely no damage.

To clarify my earlier, brief statement:

Mirror of Minds is a focussed witchfire where the target model and the psyker roll a d6 and add their ld. If the target wins, the power ends. Otherwise, the target suffers a wound and you roll again. This repeats until the target wins or the target model dies.

So if you use this power on Celestine and successfully target her, any wounds will fall to the Geminae. If you kill one of Celly's girl scouts, does the power end? Or does it keep going until she's dead?

Executioner is a similar complexity. You inflict 3 Fleshbane hits. If the target is removed from play, another model in the unit suffers 2 Fleshbane hits. (And if that one is removed, a third target takes 1.)

Basically, if Celestine is the intial target, will her wound shuffling onto the Geminae make them 'the target?' If yes, then the death of a Geminae would end Mirror Minds, but would trigger another round of Executioner. If no, then their death will NOT stop Mirror of Minds, but on the other hand Executioner could kill one (or both) of them and not trigger any additional wound rolls.

My personal inclination is 'no,' but I'm curious what other people think.

Mirror of Minds: Whole unit wipes because it doesn't stop until the actual target is dead.

Executioner: If Celestine herself doesn't die, which is unlikely, there is no sprawl. Can the bodyguards themselves be the target of witchfires

I'm consistent with your no result before I read your no result per the structure of the rules as written.

You COULD intentionally target the bodyguards with a Focussed Witchfire, but there's little point in doing so. (Actually, there might be in some cases, since their saves are worse than Celly's.)

Nevertheless, it's also possible with a focussed witchfire since choosing the target requires you to manifest a bonus warp charge. If you manifest the required number dead on, the target is determined randomly.