Custom Obsessions Combinations

Courtesy of Burnage and the video reviews floating around, we now have all the Phoenix Rising Obsessions to start playing around with.

Burnage wrote:

Kabal Obsessions
-
Dark Mirth - subtract 1 from LD of nearby enemy units. Add 1 to LD of all units with this obsession the first time an enemy flees.
Deadly Deceivers - Can charge in turn when they fell back. When enemy charges a unit with this obsession, roll a D6 and on a 6 they take a mortal wound.
Disdain for Lesser Beings - For units with this obsession, no more than 1 model can flee from failed morale tests.
Meticulous Flayers - Always benefit from the Eager to Flay bonus from Power From Pain. Against a non-vehicle or non-titanic unit, a melee hit roll of 6 automatically hits and wounds.
Mobile Raiders - +3 move to units with Fly.
Soul Bound - vehicles get 6+++, reroll FNPs of 1
Toxin Crafters - poison weaponry adds 1 to damage characteristic on an unmodified wound roll of 6
Webway Raiders - +1 usage to Webway Portals per detachment with this obsession

Cult Obsessions
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Acrobatic Display - +1 to invulnerable save when near enemy units. Can't take a second trait.
Art of Pain - when near enemy units, treat the current round as being one higher than it actually is for Power From Pain.
Berserk Fugue - when charging or being charged, hit roll of 6 scores additional hits. Cannot be taken with Precise Killers (wtf?)
Precise Killers - unmodified melee wound rolls of 6 improves AP by 1. Cannot be taken with Berserk Fugue.
Slashing Impact - after charging, roll a D6 - on a 5+ nearby unit takes a mortal wound.
Stimulant Innovators - Hyperstim Backlash costs 1 CP.
Test of Skill - +1 to wound against monsters or vehicles with >10 wounds
Trophy Takers - morale tests taken after melee attacks from units with this obsession roll 2D6 and discard the lowest


Covens Obsessions
-
Artists of Flesh - -1 to damage characteristics of any incoming attacks. Cannot take second trait.
Dark Harvest - After charge, roll a D6 - on a 5+ nearby unit takes a mortal wound.
Dark Technomancers - enhance shooting attacks, +1 to wound and +1 to damage. Wound rolls of 1 cause 1 mortal wound to firing unit.
Experimental Creations - add 1 to strength, poison adds +1 to wound rolls against lower toughness.
Hungry for Flesh - when charging, add 1 to the result
Masters of Mutagens - when resolving an attack made with a poison weapon against organic targets, an unmodified hit roll of 6 automatically hits and wounds.
Master Torturers - Torturer's Craft costs 1 CP, not 2.
Obsessive Collectors - when an enemy unit is destroyed as a result of an attack made with a melee weapon, select a model - it regains D3 lost wounds. Wracks instead restore D3 lost models (HOLY crap).

So what combinations are you all thinking of using from a tactics standpoint? Dark Technomancers/Experimental Creations has already been mentioned as a strong option for venoms to make them have incredibly powerful splinter shots. Definitely not the only winner for coven obsessions though, I also like Obsessive Collectors and Hungry for Flesh. I do think without a doubt though, I'll be using Dark Technomancers or Experimental Creations for the buff to poison shots.

For Wych cults, pretty good mix of melee buffs. I am definetly leaning towards precise killers for my first choice, wyches don't have great ap so that little extra boost will be nice, and big attack pool means more chances for the extra ap. As for the second trait I'm not sure yet, maybe test of skill. That's another odd one that it's a rather good buff for shooting units. Acrobatic display is also pretty cool, though I don't love giving up a second trait.

Kabal does seem to be the loser in terms of traits, I think for the most part you are going to be better off with Black Heart/Flayed Skull. GW still hasn't figured out that Kabal has no melee units besides a single character. That being said you can essentially make a better Black Heart trait by taking Soul Bound and combining that with something else. Toxin Crafters is cool, but really loses out to Dark Technomancy. The one thing I do like is if you actually want to try putting some kabalite warriors on the table, webway raiders and disdain for lesser beings is a good way to do that, drop big blocks of 20 out of the webway that way. May not even need webway raiders if you want to drop say 2 units of 20, you could then take disdain for lesser beings and something else.

I'm almost certainly planning to use Soul Bound and Toxin Crafters. I like Poisoned Tongue at the moment, and these speak to me nicely.

That sounds like a good improvement of essentially running a Poisoned Tongue themed kabal, but with a stronger trait.

That being said, boy Toxin Crafters seems so underwhelming compared to Dark Technomancy. Course you can't get that trait on kabalite warrior's splinter weapons, but venoms can benefit from that.

You've really hit on all the obviously strong combinations.

Soul Bound and Mobile Raiders is, I think, an interesting defensive version of Flayed Skull. You won't hit quite as often with your splinter fire, opponents in cover will be harder to deal with, but in exchange you get a ton of added durability. Webway Raiders/Disdain for Lesser Beings is also a good combo if you want to run footdar lists. Unfortunately the rules writers seem to think that Kabals didn't need any boosts to their ranged weaponry, so most of these feel more fluffy than actually useful.

I'm disappointed with the full list of Wych Cult traits. The two that seemed most promising as a combo in the reveal (Berserk Fugure/Precise Killers) have been explicitly prevented from working each other, and there's no increase to ranged durability or general offense that could pair easily with Test of Skill. Ultimately I don't think there's anything here that's worth giving up the natural Cult bonuses for.

Covens is definitely the clear winner. I'd be interested to see the math about what actual combination leads to the highest potential damage - Dark Technomancy/Experimental Creations seems obviously very good but it might be that swapping one of them out for Masters of Mutagens is even stronger. We're definitely going to see an uptick in Coven Venom spam on the back of this.

On the whole I'd need to think pretty hard about how to slot these into lists in practice. Our characters rely very strongly on warlord traits and relics to be even marginally useful, for instance, and you're giving those up if you run purely custom obsessions. On the flip side it might also make pure Kabal, Cult or Coven armies a bit more feasible.

Soul Bound/Mobile Raider seems like the safe choice if you really want to make your own kabal and stick with the standard kabalites in venoms/raiders build. Only thing to consider is, do you really want your transports to be kabal when they could be coven for dark technomancy? What I think I would be leaning towards is coven venoms, kabal raiders. Dark technomany does help dissie cannon raiders, but the higher wound count and lower movement gains a more milage out of soul bound/mobile raiders than venoms do.

I may give webway raiders/disdain a try just because it would be nice to not play as the usual standard way with kabalites in transports. Competitively, probably not the best choice though.

I think the cult traits are alright. No huge winners that would make you want to definetly drop the standard obsessions, but some decent combinations.

Agree on coven, I'm fairly certain I'm leaving PoF behind for one of the new coven combinations which seem more interesting to me than PoF. I could see the case for Master of Mutagens/Experimental creations if you say didn't want to worry about causing mortal wounds on your venoms, though not sure it's worth giving up the extra damage.

Thing is about our subfaction system, you don't have to take purely custom obsessions. If you want to say keep the blood glaive as an option, keep your wych cults as red grief, but then you could take say a custom coven. It will limit options a lot if you go purely custom obsessions, but it will also encourage people to use traits that are rarely used now. Covens for instance have some pretty nice warlord traits that I never use because I always take soothsayer, but I'll be happy to try out different options now.

What a huge pile of unmitigated garbage for Cults and Kabals.

I was really hoping they would split up the existing obsessions into their constituent parts so you can combine rules for some interesting combos. As it stands, all of these are absolute trash compared to the existing ones. Test of Skill would be nice on flyers if it remains able to be used on ranged weapons, but that remains to be seen.

Berserk Fugue seems to work with Power from Pain, so you could combine that with Slashing Impact  to maximize output, but I don't think that compares with the ability to have all your Wyches be S4/A4 and immune to morale with Cursed Blade.

I had high hopes for one of the obsessions to be advance and charge, which could then be combined with slashing impact. I would spam Reavers with that combo just for the mortal wound shenanigans.

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Kabal has nothing of note at all. Someone on facebook suggested combining disdain with webway raiders so you can drop 80 warriors who don't care about morale into the enemy's face. That seems more silly than anything, though.

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The two Coven ones open up some interesting shooting builds for coven, where you spam Venoms and Ravagers and Talos. For a melee Grotesque build, though, you still want Urien and a vexator mask.

So I guess we got one new decent build for Coven, and a potentially new way to play flyers.

I also heard the Ynnari stuff got huge point decreases, so they are much more likely to feature in my armies as tertiary HQs instead of ever more ineffectual archons. If Visarch is 80 points, Drazhar needs to be 80 points too.

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I am frankly surprised they didn't mess with the original ones in any way, because I fully expected Ataloic to get the Raven Guard treatment.

++ Battalion Detachment +5CP (Aeldari - Drukhari) ++

+ HQ +
Haemonculus: Electrocorrosive whip, Hexrifle
Haemonculus: Electrocorrosive whip, Hexrifle

+ Troops +
5x5 Wracks
. Acothyst: Electrocorrosive whip, Hexrifle
. Wrack with special weapon (up to 1 for 5 models): Ossefactor
. 3x Wracks

+ Heavy Support +
Reaper
Reaper
2x Talos with flails, scalpel and haywire blasters
2x Talos with flails, scalpel and haywire blasters

+ Dedicated Transport +
5x Venom: Splinter Cannon, Splinter Cannon

++ Vanguard Detachment +1CP (Aeldari - Drukhari) ++

Detachment Attribute
. Kabal of the Black Heart

Archon - Warlord: Labyrinthine Cunning, Splinter pistol, Venom Blade, Writ of the Living Muse
3x Ravagers with disintegrators


Pew pew pew!

Wait a second does the artists of flesh trait for coven (first one) have a minimum? Or is it just flat -1? Woudl that make us immune to d1 weapons?

Sarcron wrote:

Wait a second does the artists of flesh trait for coven (first one) have a minimum? Or is it just flat -1? Woudl that make us immune to d1 weapons?

I'd be highly surprised by that. I can't recall an instance of a similar rule where that would be the intended effect.

Another good stuff is Artists of the Flesh for veichles, expecially the Tantalus.
Anyway -1 Damage is silghtly better than 4++ on Talos and Grotesques, where of course is bad for Wracks.

I like the +1 to charge too. Deepstriking Grotesques now is reliable enought (you're Eager to Flay when you come: an 8" charge with reroll is nice). And you still have a second Obsession to choose.


About Wychcult, I need to test out Test of Skills even on other units more than flyers. Reavers can charge and wound Flyers at 4+ which is not bad, for example. And their blasters are more reliable on wounding which is nice.
And again, a second Obsession can be taken.
And even the +1 to Invuln save it's interesting being honest. Wyches can be very anying as tarping units, Shardnet and 3+ are a nasty combo. It's not about doing damage but I think they can really be pretty good on "silencing" some enemy units while you're shredding the rest.
Plus, we need to fill those Tecnomancers+Creations's Venoms with something, so...



About Kabals...eh....fall back and charge is good. I'm one of those players that learned that charging with your veichles is a winning tip. So doing it all the turns...charging, fall back, shoot, charging again, let block your opponent from shooting or just deny his charges forcing him to fall back.
But even if nice, will I exchange this and -let say- +3" move or the fnp6+, for Flayed Skull or Black Heart veichles? I'm....not sure.
Yeah even I can't find something really usefull for Kabals.

withershadow wrote:

++ Battalion Detachment +5CP (Aeldari - Drukhari) ++

+ HQ +
Haemonculus: Electrocorrosive whip, Hexrifle
Haemonculus: Electrocorrosive whip, Hexrifle

+ Troops +
5x5 Wracks
. Acothyst: Electrocorrosive whip, Hexrifle
. Wrack with special weapon (up to 1 for 5 models): Ossefactor
. 3x Wracks

+ Heavy Support +
Reaper
Reaper
2x Talos with flails, scalpel and haywire blasters
2x Talos with flails, scalpel and haywire blasters

+ Dedicated Transport +
5x Venom: Splinter Cannon, Splinter Cannon

++ Vanguard Detachment +1CP (Aeldari - Drukhari) ++

Detachment Attribute
. Kabal of the Black Heart

Archon - Warlord: Labyrinthine Cunning, Splinter pistol, Venom Blade, Writ of the Living Muse
3x Ravagers with disintegrators


Pew pew pew!

You can....mm..I'm even considering Liquefator Guns now. S3, but +1 to wound, ApD3 and damage 2.
They're quite good honestly. 5 Wracks can take 2 of them, making the Venoms even more threathening. And I was thinking about Talos....so I can exchange the chains for 2 Liquegun at Talos...

not sure about the price tho. But it can be cool.

My initial thoughts:

Kabal: No real standouts IMO. The closest would probably be the +3" with the 6+++, for a sort of part Flayed Skull, part Black Heart combination. The thing is, Black Heart also brings the best artefact, stratagem and Warlord Trait, whilst Flayed Skull brings rerolls to hit and (more importantly) Ignores Cover.

I like the idea of Deadly Deceivers and Meticulous Flayers, but there just aren't enough Kabal units that can actually benefit from them. Kabalites aren't resilient enough to survive in combat, nor do they have enough attacks to make Meticulous Flayers worthwhile. So that leave you with a couple of Archons and all of 4 Court models that might get any use out of these traits - and even then it's pretty dubious.

I don't know, Kabal seem to have been really shafted in the custom Obsessions department.


Cult: IMO the best thing here is Test of Skill in an Airwing. Probably not what GW had in mind.  

Otherwise, their traits seem a bit of a mess. Two of them aren't allowed to be taken together (not entirely sure why), another has to be taken on its own, and Stimulant Innovations is quite possibly the worst army rule ever printed.

Slashing Impact is perhaps the most interesting (assuming I'm reading it correctly and it's per-model not per-unit), as Wyches are fairly cheap and a squad of 10 averaging 3 mortal wounds when it charges seems pretty decent. Not sure what I'd combine it with though.

All in all, I think the Wych traits are at least better than the Kabal ones (if only because they actually synergise with what Wyches are supposed to do), but still nothing spectacular.


If I was being really cynical, I'd wonder whether GW was desperate not to overshadow the Ynnari rule with Kabal/Coven. And since the Ynnari rule is so crap they were left with very little to work with (no, of course they couldn't just fix the Ynnari rule, don't be silly!   ).  


Coven: Oh, so this is where the good Obsessions have been hiding.

I'm not going to comment on Experimental Creations (as I have a feeling it will be FAQd to melee only), but Artisans of Flesh, Dark Technomancers and Obsessive Collectors all seem very solid.

I think I'd be very tempted to combine the latter two, as Technomancers gives Coven ranged support (something it's been severely lacking in), whilst Obsessive Collectors gives them some staying power when they actually reach combat as well as potentially recovering wounds inflicted by Technomancers.


Overall, I can definitely see myself using the new Coven Obsessions, but even in casual games I struggle to see myself ever bothering with the Kabal or Cult ones.

Ok another list

Spearhead BlackHeart
Archon warlord
3 Ravager Dissies

Battalion Artists of the Flesh
2 Homo
4x5 Wracks (for objectives)
Tantalus
Tantalus
Tantalus




....IronHands who?

3 Tantalus T8 (haemonculus), -1 damage when targeting them. Good luck killing them down. Of course they shoot a lot.

But the fun stuff is that they can charge 3-5/6 units pretty easy, so let spam some.mortal wounds in addition to the normal shots.

The tantalus is just silly with the new coven traits. If you really want to deal with iron hands, dark technomancers is brutal. You'll counteract their -1 damage strat, and wound those executioners on 3s.
I don't agree that the wych cult obsessions are bad. Sure if we're talking a tournament setting, you'll still stick with cursed blade. But I think they do have some fun and interesting combinations.

If they FAQ Experimental Creations to be melee only then Dark Technomancers and Artists of Flesh still make Venoms, Raiders, and Talos very threatening in shooting while also being surprisingly resilient against dmg2 and dmgd3 weapons. In combination with a BH Spearhead or Airwing, I think Mech Coven could legitimately give PoF a run for its money in terms of how competitive it is.

Edit: just remembered you can’t take another obsession with Artists of Flesh. In that case, if Experimental Creations only works in melee, Obsessive Collector might be a good option for the durability we lose out on from PoF.

I actually do want to try a different take on my usual Red Grief outrider. Instead of just hoping for flyby stratagem opportunities, take several squads of say 6 reavers with heat lances, grav talons and for the obsessions Test of Skill and Slashing Impact. So they can hunt vehicles and monsters, or just finally use their guns against infantry followed by a charge dealing mortals from talons and slashing impact.

The succubus is left without a decent relic or trait to take, but you can just make her a cheap impaler&shardnet distraction.

For the Succubus you can try something weird with tryptich whip+ precision blow: take +1A, roll 8 attacks against a 10W veichle/monster, and wound at 5+ adding mortal wound at the same time.
Plus the single mw on charge.

withershadow wrote:

Someone on facebook suggested combining disdain with webway raiders so you can drop 80 warriors who don't care about morale into the enemy's face. That seems more silly than anything, though.

I might have to try that just once to see how it goes.

Having 80 kabalities dropping in 12 is the dream of every aggressors heavy marine army (90% or marine armies nowadays).

If you wanted to go for pure melee, slashing impact whyches with dark harvest grotesques with drazher and incubi sounds pretty terrifying now? With Slashing impact Reaver bikes, you can fly over infantry with a 10 bike unit, activate eviscerating flyby stratagem, then charge same squad for extra mortal wounds

@Gherma: I guess they can Auspex just once, so you're losing only 20 Kabal.
Other 60 still a quite nice beta strike

Cerve wrote:

For the Succubus you can try something weird with tryptich whip+ precision blow: take +1A, roll 8 attacks against a 10W veichle/monster, and wound at 5+ adding mortal wound at the same time.
Plus the single mw on charge.

I wouldnt take the 1MW on the charge for wych units, when you need 3 units to deal 1 MW on average.... thats a TERRIBLE trait.

Cerve wrote:

@Gherma: I guess they can Auspex just once, so you're losing only 20 Kabal.
Other 60 still a quite nice beta strike

If you consider 8 dead primaris a nice beta strike yes, but you are investing 360/400 points an 3 command points for this... and they will all die the next turn.

amishprn86 wrote:

Cerve wrote:

For the Succubus you can try something weird with tryptich whip+ precision blow: take +1A, roll 8 attacks against a 10W veichle/monster, and wound at 5+ adding mortal wound at the same time.
Plus the single mw on charge.

I wouldnt take the 1MW on the charge for wych units, when you need 3 units to deal 1 MW on average.... thats a TERRIBLE trait.

Slashing Impact is per model that finishes a charge, not per unit. That's got the potential to be incredible against some armies.

amishprn86 wrote:

Cerve wrote:

For the Succubus you can try something weird with tryptich whip+ precision blow: take +1A, roll 8 attacks against a 10W veichle/monster, and wound at 5+ adding mortal wound at the same time.
Plus the single mw on charge.

I wouldnt take the 1MW on the charge for wych units, when you need 3 units to deal 1 MW on average.... thats a TERRIBLE trait.

I don't get it, it is MW on 5+ per model, not per unit