How do you use your command points?

Hi denizens,

I got my first game in a while in the other day, and found that during the mid-game to late-game, I struggled to find a good use for my command points.

No doubt I’m a bit rusty, but I wanted to check in and ask - how do you like to spend your CP? Have you got favourite stratagems for early, mid and late-game? Or is it rerolls all the way?

Re-rolls are pretty handy for those risky situations. Otherwise, I typically find myself spending it on healing my talos, the flayed skull stratagem, and lightning fast reflexes

Lightning-Fast Reactions and re-rolls suck up the majority of my command points in most games. Torment Grenades are also very good if you have any Phantasm Grenade Launchers in your list.

Handy, thanks. I’ll have to give lightning fast reactions a try - I admit the 2CP put me off a bit at first blush.

Any other good ones?

Cruel deception is also extremely potent and becomes useful later in the game too once stuff is in melee. Enhanced aethersails is always one to remember if you are playing maelstrom. I would add haywire grenades too (it's torment grenades for wyches what's not to love)

Agents of Vect is no1 priority for me... I usualy play 2 battalion and an air wing so out of the 14 cp, the 8 are definitely reserved for 2 vect when i need them and the rest go for lightning reflexes, rerolls and sometimes fire and fade which is godly at the right situation and which people keep forgetting...

Agent of vect and rerolls, mostly

Depend for the  enemy , some armies are very dependent on stratagems , in this case Agents for vect.
later in order:
1-Alliance of Agony: in all battles.

2-Lightning fast reactions: The main defensive tool.

3-Fire and Fade: Very useful to take objectives-positions or leave line of sight.

4-Cruel Deception: mon-keigs they hate her.

5-ARCHITECTS OF PAIN: in  some games to charge in turn 1 or to hit with 2s in turn 2s.

6-The torture craft: Currently with experimental creations it is not so necessary, but to ensure a death is very useful.

7-Fleshcraft: Sometimes if there are plenty of points and the enemy left a talos in 1 wound, nothing better than to brighten the day by healing a 1d3.

Wow, I have to admit I kinda forgot about using Alliance of Agony. It's kind of just a given that I use it in nearly every game.

I've kind of dropped Alliance now that Drazhar's so good. Hatred Eternal on him actually trumps three other warlord traits, in my opinion.

My main uses are for redeploying with Hundred Swords Of Vaul / Phantasm, Prismatic Blur on Skyweavers, buying the Solitaire a Cegorach's Rose, and occasionally using Torments Of The Fiery Pit if he takes a wound in overwatch on the way in, rerolling a key roll such as a Dark Lance damage result or psychic test, and Fire & Fade.

Lightning Fast is still good but with so many of the new Marine hotness rerolling all die rolls, not just failed die rolls, I don't find it as useful as I used to.

Agents of Vect is still very strong for controlling the tempo of a game, but personally I find it harder and harder to justify taking a detachment of Black Heart to unlock it, especially with the Disintegrator (read:Ravager) Nerf and being enticed by new Obsession combos.

I'm in line with what said above. A strat that I use almost everygame is Enanched Aethersails.

Lightning fast is probably my number one strat, I'd say I use that for the first three turns in a typical game. My other top contenders rely somewhat on my unit selection, but I tend to use architects of pain/tortures craft if I have a big talos unit that's going to punch a tough target turn 2, torment grenades I use constantly if I have PGLs, cruel deception quite often when I want to redirect a melee unit into a new target, and enhanced aethersails if I really need to grab a far off objective. I constantly forget about fire&fade, I feel like I should be using that more. Especially on a big talos unit, more than once it would have made a big difference to fire&fade turn 1 to get into charge range for turn 2.

For tournaments, mostly:

Lightning fast on a venom after it is picked to be shot at. Make them waste their shots.

Flayed skull +1 to hit a unit with fly. amazing against shining spears, flyers and the new marine hover tank.

And the most used depending on the opponent and what they have on the table screaming jets.

Personally I never really think venoms are worth lightning fast on. Already -1 to hit, only 6 wounds so only a few shots need to get through to kill them, and I take a bunch in my lists so having 1 go down isn't a big deal. I'd rather save lightning fast for something more important and more expensive, like a razorwing.

I do like masters of shadowed skies a lot, some games it gets no use at all but others man it's handy.

Fire and Fade, every game.

Webway Raiders most games.

Failure is not an Option when the time is right.

Torment Grenade, against the right target.

Hyperstimm Backlash on the rarest of occasions. Usually when i have to kill some mob of Cultists, or something.

I use Fire and Fade, and Lightning Fast Reactions every game. The others all have their uses, but are more situational for me.

I usually Webway a blob of wyches.

I often spend one on a relic.

Some lists can use alliance of agony

The only two I use pretty much every game are Command Re-roll and Lightning Fast Reactions. If I've got Ynnari, Inevitable Fate.

Lately i've been using blobs of Obsidian rose Kabalites for the following:

-Webway portal into cover.
-Fire and Fade on Archon to get the aura on the Kabalites
-Hunt From the Shadows to protect the Kabalites, if needed.
-Failure is not an Option, when casualties pile up.

I run two Battalions. It is hard to spend all the CPs.

please delete for double post.

I generally spend CPs before the game even begins buying extra artefacts and/or Warlord traits - typically for reasons of flavour/theme rather than effectiveness.

Since I rarely have more than a single Battalion, I don't usually start the game with that many CPs (typically 6-.

The main thing I use them for is rerolling damage for Blasters against hard targets.

In spite of playing tons of games with Poison Tongue, I rarely ever found myself using Insidious Misdirection. I think the kicker was the inability to use it on any unit other than Poison Tongue - which (being either Ravagers or units in Venoms/Raiders) were generally fast enough to redeploy on the fly anyway. if I need to redeploy something, it's usually going to be a slower unit (Covens or allies).

I used to use Screaming Jets on either a Raider or Ravager but I haven't bothered with that tactic in a while. I've used Lightning Fast Reactions from time to time to try and protect a Ravager or such, but in my experience it rarely made any significant difference.

If I'm using Ynnari I'll save a couple of CPs to use Back from the Brink, for no other reason than my own amusement.

Anyway, there are a few Stratagems that I probably should use more often but always forget about - most notably the 2 Grenade stratagems that can deal Mortal Wounds, and also Fire and Fade. With the former, I don't take PGLs that often, and frankly i tend to forget Plasma Grenades even still exist.

To be honest, I think one of the issues I tend to come across is that a lot of Stratagems are based around buffing/protecting a single unit in some manner. However, I generally try to design my army such that it has no big 'keystone' units. It means that there's generally no obvious target for my opponent to shoot, but it also means that single-target Stratagems tend to be rather lacklustre (especially if they cost 2CPs to use).

Black Cornucopians. The face of your opponent when that nasty squad of Wracks is finally almost dead, and then suddenly at full starting strength teleports to the back of the playing field to attack from behind is simply gold.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Anyway, there are a few Stratagems that I probably should use more often but always forget about - most notably the 2 Grenade stratagems that can deal Mortal Wounds, and also Fire and Fade. With the former, I don't take PGLs that often, and frankly i tend to forget Plasma Grenades even still exist.

You clearly don't play Wych Cult! Plasma Grenades are for the Wych Weapon users who don't have Splinter Pistols, anyway. Handy on Succubi, too. Those grenade Strats can be make or break sometimes when you don't have enough AT left.

Quote :

To be honest, I think one of the issues I tend to come across is that a lot of Stratagems are based around buffing/protecting a single unit in some manner. However, I generally try to design my army such that it has no big 'keystone' units. It means that there's generally no obvious target for my opponent to shoot, but it also means that single-target Stratagems tend to be rather lacklustre (especially if they cost 2CPs to use).

This is a big problem for Venom based armies. No large units to buff, no standout units to protect, or even induce panic from the enemy. At the same time, you are limited by how often you can use Command Reroll. That is one of the reasons that Black Heart does so well. You don't feel bad using Agents of Vect, because you don't really have that much to spend those CPs.

False Son wrote:

You clearly don't play Wych Cult!  Plasma Grenades are for the Wych Weapon users who don't have Splinter Pistols, anyway.  Handy on Succubi, too.  Those grenade Strats can be make or break sometimes when you don't have enough AT left.

Ah. Typically the only Wych Cult units I use are Reavers.

False Son wrote:

This is a big problem for Venom based armies.  No large units to buff, no standout units to protect, or even induce panic from the enemy.  At the same time, you are limited by how often you can use Command Reroll.  That is one of the reasons that Black Heart does so well.  You don't feel bad using Agents of Vect, because you don't really have that much to spend those CPs.

Hmm, that's a good point. I hadn't looked at Agents of Vect in that light before.

False Son wrote:

You clearly don't play Wych Cult!  Plasma Grenades are for the Wych Weapon users who don't have Splinter Pistols, anyway.  Handy on Succubi, too.  Those grenade Strats can be make or break sometimes when you don't have enough AT left.

They are, in fact, NOT useful on a succubus because she doesn't have them. She gives up plasma grenades when she earns her super terrible glaive, I guess...