A TDC Blog: strategies , unit analysis, batreps, observations, tactics

It's an interesting list and the shooting phase certainly wouldn't take long! Only 5 models with any sort of ranged attack in the entire army.

3 x 5 chosen inc champion - 4 plasma + power axe and melta bombs - 510

Cypher - 190

Huron - 160

2 x 6 chaos bikes inc champion with 2 plasma guns and power axe + melta bombs - 360

2 x heldrake with baleflamers - 340

3 x 16 chaos cultists with flame, autoguns - 285

Total - 1850

Its not better (hopefully sums done right) but I proxied (dark eldar cultists anyone) it against white scars t'other day and went first. Rapid firing plasma storm ripped a gaping hole in his army first turn from which he never recovered

EDITED for correct squad numbers

Edit: Dragontree posted while i was working on this...great minds think alike...plasma

I came up with this list pretty quickly as I knew the theme I wanted to abuse...plasma! Fitting of cypher and his awesome plasma gun is a list that has plasma virtually everywhere. Its full of risk because well...PLASMA!!!  Here is the list:

Cypher (duh)

Yarrick
Pask (2x Executioner with plasma side sponsons)
2x Priests (plasma guns)
2x Psykers (lvl 2)

Platoon (PCS (lascannon), 3 squads (lascannon, plasmagun, krak nades for all!, power axe))
2x Veterans (3 meltaguns) in Chimera

the suprise inclusion:
3 Armored Sentinals (with plasmacannons of course!)

=1845pts


So yea...plasma is everywhere. One of the key weaknesses of plasma though is T8+ models and AV14 so I made sure to include some extra hitting power with melta guns and 4 lascannons.  The idea is fairly simple with the list as a whole. The blob which includes all the characters runs forward and with all its goodies can handle anything...infantry, MCs, tanks etc. Cypher allows them to hit and run out of combat when needed to lay down a fusillade of plasma and lasgun. Heck even the priests have plasma guns! Furthermore he can infiltrate the blob...and all its power forward (if you allow that sort of thing). Also as a bonus, if your priests die, cypher gives the blob ATSKNF!  It gets even better though! Pask is in an executioner which allows him a special large blast plasma shot with the blind special rule. You can do serious work with a little luck and the blob assaulting into WS1 targets. The vets support heavy duty AT and can hold objectives when needed. The sentinels stalk around and let loose at targets of convenience that stray too far from where they should be.

If anything this list should be a ton of fun because PLASMA DEATH EVERYWHERE...while you risk losing your tanks and a chunk of your infantry to gets hot

Yes, I am mad.

dragontree wrote:

16 chaos cultists with flame, autoguns and shotgun - 285

???? this is not right -

Ah yes, there were more than one of those squads and no shotguns... - edited the original post now. Should be correct... Hopefully... meh not likely

Alright here's my list, never made a chaos list before so here goes. (It's fitting because before I chose DE I was going to do a fallen army with cypher)

HQ

Daemon Prince-Nurgle-Wings-Power armor-220
Daemon Prince-Nurgle-Wings-Power armor-220

-Cypher-190

Troops

10x CSM +rhino 175
10x CSM +rhino 175
10x CSM +rhino 175

Elite

3x Mutilators 165

Fast Attack

Heldrake with baleflamer 170
Raptors-Mark of Khornflakes-Icon of Wrath 120

Heavy

Vindicator 120
Vindicator 120

1850

So here's what I would do. This army, as you can tell, is a in your face spirit fingers type of army (wooooOOOOoo look at me!!!) You have a lot to worry about and quickly. From my understanding Cypher pops up where people need him. So my concept of the army is to have an elite fast strike force that would call the attention of Cypher for a hand. These are the guys that are doing something important out in the field, alone and hidden. Why waste Cypher on a blob of zombies? (  )

Cypher will infiltrate with those Mutilators and hopefully draw some nice fire power from the opposing army first turn. It is also essential that they get infiltrated as closely as possibly obviously to offset their slowness. Thus calling on the rage that are Daemon Princes and Raptors. Who are you going to be targeting the first couple of turns? (HINT: not the troops)
At least one if not a few of my units will get into CC with you, personally I don't even care if they get into CC with you that's a lot of wounds coming your way and it will take you a long time to get them down. This allows my marines to get the objectives and be where they need to be. So we have 3 wings of the army: a fast shield wall, a solid troop selection and a very nice support/firepower area. They all do their job pretty devastatingly, hopefully.


I feel like the sheer pressure right off the bat will be pretty good. The whole army is highly mobile. I have a pretty large shield and quite a few troops to play around with, nothing is really out of place. But who knows I don't play CSM lol.

Its_Rumble, Dragontreee, Ligolski and Egorey, I have your submissions and am the judge of this contest.

I just want to make certain I didn't miss anyones submission. Egorey says they're all in.

Okay after much pondering, I have to say, the Cypher lists were pretty interesting.  

I used two criterion for determining the winner:
1.  Which list I thought made the best USE of Cypher himself and
2.   How well would the army stand up to the army lists I ACTUALLY play or regularly play against.

I think that allows me to look at these tactically rather than saying "hmm, this one has three of the codex's best units...must be the best list".  We know that kind of thinking is false.  Spamming "good units" is the Stelek way, not the winners way.

I'll be honest, the time frame and lack of time to play test probably affected some of these lists.  There was at least one example in each list of where I had to think "now why did they do THAT" and so instead of criticizing it I really THOUGHT about how I could make the choices you made work.  That also took me time.

Dragontree's list was really interesting and kind of caught my eye first.  He made use of the Cypher special formation, which obviously met one of my criterion how well did he use Cypher himself.  I did the math and that force brings a LOT of pain like a tidal wave in round one and then KEEPS bringing it as the Heldrakes and bikes (who by the way cant be affected by Huron just FYI) make it awfully tough to get to those all important Chaos Cultists who are going to take objectives, possibly from reserve.  I liked the idea a lot.  Weak points:  an army that can reserve effectively can limit the amount and importance of the alpha strike and then leave the exceptionally small (or in some cases fragile) units to their unfortunate fate.  a return volley of equal measure might well exceed this army's capacity to take damage.  this army does ride a fine line between massive damage output (which is endangered slightly by Gets hot as well) and its own abiliy to sustain damage.  An army of Daemons for example that have invulnerable saves might be able to overwhelm this force just because it is fast and can silence the guns.  the cultists aren't enough to hold any such threat back because this force relies on being close, ensuring that to be more effective against those forces, you lose the usefulness of Cypher and are kind of put into plan B mode.  Now Plan B mode, to outflank the units when faced wit hthat kind of force is not a terrible idea.  I thought about that too.  If you were to heavily outflank an enemy so you can pick and choose targets, would it work?  My conclusion was that the Cultists would become targets pretty lickety split and unlike their Chaos Masters, they can't take a beating.  So if i was to criticize it, I think I would do so strictly on the issue of plan B not being as strong with this army.  Possible improvements might include an Aegis line with Comms relay to held better ensure plan B and protect the Cultists when B becomes necessary.  Nonetheless, i found that this list used Cypher the most completely of any of the lists.

Egorey's list is the most annoying of the lists.  He is quite literally trying to corner you with it and simply deny you his half of the board.  When cornered, it makes it increasingly hard to handle the Heldrakes and he's got not one but TWO of them.  The fact that one of them is a hades AutoCannon doesn't change anything because the Hades kills people and planes alike and DaemonForge makes it good against the toughest foes.  At first I thought the obliterators would go in the Bastion, but he lists the Plague Zombies.  I thought about that and realized that they and the characters Huron and Cypher could deploy centrally and perhaps go to the side they are needed most on as the game unfolds, or he could infiltrate or outflank with the Zombie units to speed their effrots along, OR just Deep Strike Typhus even on his own, as he is plenty tough enough to handle some back yard stuff.  Its pretty adaptable in what it can do.  My biggest concern with the list was that a counter infiltration unit by the enemy could push the zombies way back and nullify a lot of their infiltration ability.  I also thought about them coming from reserves from all sides and thought "Man that comms relay would be a really obvious target if there were not enough zombies ON TABLE to make me want to fir at it...  and if the Zombies come late to the party, while not disastrous, it certainly does take away both the enemies time to kill them (good) but depending on the number of objectives, it could be utterly debilitating.  Still, this force is QUITE good and would more often than not be able to corner its prey and engage them endlessly while the central unit waits patiently for its opportunity to deliver the coup de Gras by taking the back breaker objective.  As far as killing power, this army does it a LOT slower than some of the other more jarring approaches.  the Heldrakes may have troubles meneuvering with so many Zombies and enemy things around would be an interesting challenge.  Great list, great durability, great punch in melee and the possibility of dropping Typhus in a MoN bodyguard of Nurgelators really appealed to me.

And speaking of Bodyguards, Its_Rumble uses a similar concept in his list.  He uses Mutilators (3 instead of 2 obliterators) to escort the beat stick to the front door and provide even more beatty sticky goodness.  This is a subtle list.  You look at it, at first, and think "Man once those Princes are grounded, its going to be dog meat".  I had to think through what this list was really trying to do.  The more I thought the more I liked it.  Its actually a LOT like Egorey's (DuckofDoom's) list in a way.  It throws things up at you and says "attack me, attack me! or you'll be sorry!, nd obliges the enemy to send a lot of Firepower at the Daemon Princes OR the better hidden Mutilators+Cypher that sneaks up on ya'.  Neither one goes down easy.  The Raptors provide a Red herring as well.  They are dangerous ENOUGH that you would not be very wise to ignore their approach but inexpensive enough not to cost him much.  He's hoping you'll split away some of that firepower on them as well to preserve the other three units that are pressing in and in a hurry.  His Rhinos though i dont know if he actually planned it this way, are excellent for running forward and moving flat out to provide them cover and though they might be easy First blood, the added ablation to enemy firepower will more than make up for it in the end.  And in the first two wrounds while the enemy is firmly entrenched on their own side of the board just like in Egorey's list, Its_Rumbles list then brings BOTH tweo Vindicators AND a Heldrake in.  That is no joke.  and because it comes in behind much smaller units, they can be very meneuverable.  And this second wave of attack isn't even the endgame.  the Endgame is to bring those very large and hard to kill chaos Space marines on from reserves in mamny cases and casually saunter to the objectives, gunning down any break throughs with bolter fire.  Many highly disposable units in this list whose goal in life is to show you the hand but hide the the knife.  I feel that in Kill point missions, this army could struggle, as it is built upon disposable heroes.  However, that is highly matchup dependent.  Not everyone CAN take on some of those threats he's got.  I feel the best defense against this type of list is making as much progress as possible upfield and challenging it uop front and personal.  Staying back plays too much into its hands and even if you take some extra casualties gettign to midfield and beyond, I think movement would be a critical tool in overcoming the strengths of this army.  Its bite is pretty good but lets face it, if a Daemon Prince like this one gets in melee with ANYTHING serious, its going down so it might even be worthwhile to move insteadof shooting them given they CAN only hurt you in melee and by doing this yuo threaten the oncoming armor with both ranged and melee options as well as get free movement to ultimately move on to the marines.  This army does rely on Red herring overload and tricking you into thinking you need to do things that you really DONT need to do.  

Finally, Ligolski's list.  Dragontree, eat your heart out.  You thought you had Plasma covered?  Ligolski is DRIVING the Plasma bus.  His list has so much plasma that it makes me want to weep.  

He's basically shoving a huge mob with massive protection spells at you and making any kind of attemopt at melta on his tanks nigh impossible via bubble wrapping and then just whalloping people with plasm.  His Sintinels were lkisted as one unit so thats how I took it and add to the storm.  sicne they are easier to kill, he's hoping you fire down on them before firing on the tanks and I'm sure that's what many will do, but that just lets the ferocity of his firepower continue unabated for the most part.  As the army is largely mobile and can move forward (and would most likely do so in round 1), he's not real worried about range and the Lascannons that can be brought to bear will be doing WORK amidst all that thanks to orders and Psyker powers.  I saw nothing in the list to deal DIRECTLY with flyers though and perhaps more importantly, MOST of the weapons the army fires cant hurt a flyer since they are blasts.  So I saw that as a real weakness of the list.  Cyphers ability to bring the uber blob RIGHT to your door and then crush your face with it, largely protecting it from shooting (I assume his strategy is to go second and not first) is cool.  A blob packed with that much hurt can sweep away nearlyu anything and very probably TWO anythings.  Yarrick, Cypher and the Sergeants can collectively dispatch most anyone.  The Veterans in the Chimare could also benefit from the charactrs being added there if he felt that the blob was enough on its own against the opponent he draws.

After carefully considering all of this, I have concluded that the army I feel met the two requirements was its_Rumble.  And I have to say I was torn.  One thing that swayed me is that some lists relied a lot on other characters as much as they relied on Cypher as a centerpiece and this was after all to be a Cypher list exercize.  This wasn't a death dealing blow but it was at least consideration worthy.  Otherwise why call it a Cypher list?  But the efficacy of the lists on Plan B mode was another consideration.  What dos the list DO when its main shinanigan fails?  Is it able to recover?  I felt that Its_Rumble had a strong Plan A as did the others and really it came down to Plan B and whether that was also good.  and in the case of Its_Rumbles list, I thought his the best able to cope with his plan being somewhat derailed as well as using Cypheer as his modis operandi.

Congratz.

Congrats Rumble! I really like all the submissions and I'm glad UO got to judge as he did an excellent job doing list analysis! I really entered a truly silly list but it was a fun time!

Now as this week closes, we look forward to 7th edition. I've already preordered my book and both sets of cards (never had the psychic cards before!). Luckily I'm traveling next weekend and will be able to play with my friends IG that I play fairly often! As much as I would love to play my DE, I will not be able to simply because I sent most of my models back to my parents house as I get ready to move for a new job (yay done with school!).  So all I have left is my vast Space Marine collection...though none of the new goodies I obtained from christmas and other acquisitions...they weren't even put together yet anyways.  

So my friend and I plan to try out 7th edition the weekend of its release! So ultimately I want to play an army that will allow me to see how some of the mechanics have changed...with only knowing the WD info and other leaks out there. So things I definately want to try: psychic powers, ally ICs in transports, vehicles being slightly tougher, etc.  While I initially thought I would use my imperial knight, i decided not to in order to see how a 'normal' list would work.  Since I am sure we will play the new mission types, I'm thinking my list needs to be able be fairly flexible in its abilities. Marines offer this in spades pretty easily as a generality.

Being flexible is making me think mechanized MSU...whoa sounds like 5th edition right? Seems reasonable to think that mobility, heavy firepower, and toughness will all be useful. Now since I sent my newer things home (thunderfires, centurions, stormraven) I am left with what was essentially my collection up to 5th edition...and a storm talon that I bought assembled from a friend and still have on hand.

So here is my thought at the list I am going to test 7th with:

Quote :

Primary: Red Scorpians
Loth

5 man TH/SS Termy Squad with Land Raider Redeemer

2x 5 man tactical squad (meltagun) in rhino
2x 5 man tactical squad (plasma cannon) in razorback (heavy bolters)

Stormtalon

Whirlwind
2x Predator (autocannon, heavy bolter sponsons)

Allies: Ultramarines
Tiggy

7 man sternguard in rhino

5x scouts (snipers, camo cloaks, melta bomb)

This is an 2000 point list (1998 exactly)

So tiggy and loth can choose to join either the termies or the sternguard as powers rolled see fit as well as what I feel i need to deal with. Either could be become very powerful. Plasma cannons stay back and let loose and the razorbacks provide support fire. Predators do the same. Whirlwind hides in the back and snipes characters or hits blobs. Scouts can infiltrate to objectives to get points early. I have some mobility to try and get other objectives as well.

I'm ultimately limited by my collection for a truly solid list, but I think this will show me how things have changed quite nicely.  Thoughts?

Congrats to its_rumble - you need to PM me your address.

Ligs - if 7ed have secured objectives for troops - you are too troop light in your list. I get the feeling that troops will be important - hence using FoC unbound might be a bad idea with penalties and less troops. If yu are playing a regular FoC then okay. Also I would want to see how allies work now. It's possible that yopu cannot join allied ICs to primary detachments anymore. Once I've seen the new codex I will comment more fully. But 15 scouts does not cut it for me.

I have 5 troop choices, 20 tacticals and 5 scouts...I really think that's pretty adequate for a FoC list (we aren't playing unbound). Furthermore all the tacticals are mechanized. Honestly this list is just something that will quickly highlight some of the changes and how they pan out.

Honestly while secured objectives is a viable list building strategy I think it's gonna be best as an all or nothing approach.. say 60 raven guard in boxes. The alternative is what I will be focusing on, and one which I feel xenos armies will excel at.. absolute min troops + killyness. Warriors get replaced with splinterborn/grots/beasts etc. Same or more skimmers but with nastier contents. Obviously marines will shine at the first strategy but DE I believe will prefer the latter.

Anyway ligs I will interested to hear your experiences with that list because I feel it falls in between the two extremes (now if dedicated transports also gain objective secured its a whole other story.. shudder).

On that note I'll be playing some games with the new rules as soon as the book arrives.. I'll be bringing my DE/elder with min/maxed approach as stated above. I'll be using Irillyth until I'm forced to include psychic defense. I'm anticipating a rise in units like tau pathfinders and really just elites and FA in general.. basically any unit which can mimic troops scoring now but with better rules and superior deployment movement and weapon options. To me this approach is very close to a 'legal unbound' that doesn't require permission.

Interesting theory Brom and I can certainly see it going that way but ultimately depends on how the new objectives work out I suppose. Otherwise I am curious to see how your foray into the new edition goes! Please let us know! I'm hoping in general my list will just show me the changes quickly across a variety of units and abilities. This will also be my friends first try at the new IG codex so that will also be a factor to take into account. We shall see though!

I agree there's still some variables yet to bediscovered although many specifics are floating around the web in scans.
Hopefully gw gets those books out early like they have been known to do!

Just for a laugh I quickly worked out a 2k Daemon army using what we know of the 7e rules thus far.

Fateweaver (ML4)

Lord of Change (ML3)

6 x 12 Pink Horrors (ML2 each)

3 x Daemon Prince (ML2)

Battle-forged, 25 Mastery Levels, 6 scoring units, 5 FMCs and the ability to pretty much guarantee summoning 4 more scoring units per turn which can then be sacrificed to summon 4 Lords of Change who can summon more Horrors and so on, and so forth.

Only ~£300 for that army but then you'd also need another few hundred quid for all the summoned daemons! Youd' probably need to drop a few horrors or a Prince in order to get the rewards that you want but it's still a pretty decent army!

I'm already working on what will become one of the better armies in 7ed

Coteaz 100
Mordrak 200
5 Ghost Knights, 1 Hammer 200

2x Soladins, deamonhammer 110
Soladin, mc daemonhammer 60

Vindicare 145

2x 5 Warrior Acolytes, 5 storm bolter,  razorback, psybolt 170
8 Warrior Acolytes, 6 storm bolters, melta 60 (in stormraven)

Stromraven, assault cannon, multimelta,  paybolt 225

2 Dreadknights, incinerator, teleporter 470

Imperial Bastion, icarus lascannon 110

Everything scores. Lots of warp charge to spend. Vindicare might actually take out a flyer. It has incredible mobility. Razors got better. What is not to like ... I three troops with objective secured, two scoring razors but only 35 models on the table. I do have a lot of scoring units (even the razors score as dedicated troop transports). Coteaz is buffed up to the hilt as well with warp charges and buried in the ghost knights.

37 models is low.  Even for Space Marines.  To get away with it you MUST pressure the enemy early.  This army does do that.  a lot.  in order for the pressure to matter, the pressure has to come with sURVIVABLE platforms.  this one does.  In order for that survival to matter, you need to be able to assault or otherwise inflict a massive amount of damage, as your own attrition will be high so early in the game, so close to so much rapid firing and in range of most single shot deadly weapons.  This is where I worry on this list Egorey.

Now i do know your Mordrak and other Shenanigans will help.  Literally no one likes seeing two DreakKnights up front and personal.  However, in an exchange battle, this list has just 10 units, so anyone with 15ish units will be at an advantage.

So I think as long as the enemy has pretty much the same numebr of units as you do, you can do well.  But against a force with many more KP's to give, I think they will feed and whittle.

I almost think the army works better if you DON'T alpha strike.  This list is kind of a dichotomy because on one hand its spent a LOT of points to be able to; but on the other hand...  Maybe that's not even a goal really.  Just looking at it one ASSUMES you would come right after the enemy.  but i think this list could be very sneaky if it times its "Alpha" strike at the end and just avoided giving the enemy targets til them.  there would never be time to Exchange you to death and of course the units are tough ENOUGH to stand their ground and handle the few 48"+ potshots.  

But if that WAS to be your plan A, the Interceptors, while cool, are out of place.  I think it's good.  work on it and tell me what the plan A and B are?

Well indeed there are few models - but my GK lists have this problem so ... in the end I can deal with it as I have since I began GK. I also get with Mordrak - stealth and either counter attack, reroll 1s to wound or scout. I have psychic communion if I choose to hold a unit in reserve as well. So the key is indeed flexibility. I can certainly play defensive and then shunt and charge, I can alpha strike, I can control mid table or play refuse flank.

The assumption that I must alpha strike is erroneous. I have the mobility and options to play the list many ways and we know I'm going to do what is needed depending on foe and missions.

I will take your advice and cut down on the the interceptors (they have a wicked shunt move that I've found useful and now score as well). They can also be brought in from reserve. But I like soladins too. So .. meh.

So that is how I would play it.

I just think you're paying a premium for the shunt that you dont in fact need IF you're playing the end game and not the alpha strike. Thats what i meant there. i like interceptors.

Quote :

Just for a laugh I quickly worked out a 2k Daemon army using what we know of the 7e rules thus far.

Fateweaver (ML4)

Lord of Change (ML3)

6 x 12 Pink Horrors (ML2 each)

3 x Daemon Prince (ML2)

Battle-forged, 25 Mastery Levels, 6 scoring units, 5 FMCs and the ability to pretty much guarantee summoning 4 more scoring units per turn which can then be sacrificed to summon 4 Lords of Change who can summon more Horrors and so on, and so forth.

Only ~£300 for that army but then you'd also need another few hundred quid for all the summoned daemons! Youd' probably need to drop a few horrors or a Prince in order to get the rewards that you want but it's still a pretty decent army!

Cmon now everyone knows the new psychic phase is just a hype and nothing to worry about, in fact I heard it was nerfed. Pretty confident my d6 defense dice will handle that just fine.

Only joking of course.. thats a nasty nasty list. Heres one from 3++:

Quote :

This is my bound list.

Deployment - 16 heralds m2 on discs and 80 horrors.

First turn. 280 horrors and 16 heralds.

Second turn. 580 horrors and 16 heralds.

Third turn. 1030 horrors and 16 heralds.

Fourth turn. 1705 horrors and 16 heralds

Fifth turn. 2720 or so horrors and 16 heralds.

You know, not counting casualties. Assuming half the heralds fail to cast, and only using one of the mastery levels per herald. 860 or so models fill a deployment zone 12 by 72

Back on track again how about revisiting the Shadow Council for something a bit more tame:

urien
5 spiritseers- 1 spiritstones of anathlan, 1 shard, 1 phoenix gem
6 grotesques, Str 6, aberration- flesh gauntlet

Nowhere near as many dice as the above but it does have some tricks via artefacts as well as access to the rest of codex DE and Eldar.

Haha a grot bomb! We tried this out
but the key is to get it to be mobile which requires that quickening (name?) to get the extra movement...not sure how this works in 7th but we shall see. If it doesn't it will have to foot it and it will be slow.

I agree its too slow. The main idea is a resilient bunker from which to summon up hordes of daemons and greater daemons. Im thinking a beast pack accomplishes that better though.

Well Unorthodoxy corectly pointed out the weakness in my list. If troops and dedicated transports can score with objective secured, I think despite the fragility of rhinos we will see rhino rush armies like Ravenguard reemerge strong and BA with LRs as dedicated transports also come back. So I will wait and see what the codex has to offer. But there are a lot of armies capable of fielding fast and relatively cheap MSU troops ... can your list take down 18-20 scoring units with half objective secured. This will be an issue in 7ed.
As for summoning ... it comes with risks and the summoned units 'may' be able to score but they cannot now so I imagine they will not have objective secured ... we are entering murky waters discussing these ideas pre-release

By now we have all heard what daemions are doing. Spamming horrors and heralds like nobody's business.

So here is the quick and dirty on the new casting percentages.

Warp Charges        WC1          WC2         WC3           Perils
1D6                      50%          0%           0%             0%
2D6                      75%          25%         0%            2.78%
3D6                      87.50%      50%        12.50%       7.41%
4D6                      93.75%      68.75%    31.25%     13.19%
5D6                      96.88%      81.25%    50%         19.62%
6D6                      98.44%      89.06%    65.63%     26.32%
7D6                      99.22%      93.75%    77.34%     33.02%
8D6                      99.61%      96.48%    85.55%     39.53%
9D6                      99.80%      98.05%    91.02%     45.73%
10D6                    99.90%      98.93%    94.53%     51.55%

Daemons and Nids will have a huge pool of die (can be 30+) to try and cast their chosen power so Daemons in particular will be breaking psychic powers badly. Expect a 1000 points of free units and invisibility every turn.

To deny the witch you will need up to double the number of die to stop the power ( psyhic hoods, BoP, etc., will lower that percentage slightly).

So I may run a list like this as an example ....

GK 7ed Mordrak Bomb
Coteaz 100
Mordrak 200
5 Ghost Knights, 1 daemonhammer 200

2x 5 Strike Marines, psycannon, deamonhammer 120
3x 3 Henchmen Warband, 5 warrior acolytes, 1 psyker, razorback, psybolt 240

Stormraven, assault cannon, multimelta,  paybolt 225
10 Interceptors, 2 psycannons, mc deamonhammer 290

2 Dreadknights, incinerator, teleporter 470

Warp Charge 16 + D6  


Trust me when I say that with this much psychic defense I'm  going to slow down horror spamming a bit. Focused fire, banishment, mindstrikes, etc., will help me here but I'll have to choose my powers carefully against a list with grimoire and inviisibilty. I have altered my list to refelct 7ed with the edition of psykers and rhinos. Why not? I have a units that can secure objectives now. My vehicles have sanctuary and banishment - woot to that.

So what do DE do to counter this. Heldrakes can even flame troops in open topped vehicles! DE will be sledding tough against heavy psychic lists for sure.

Do to sum it up - deathstars are still very much alive and invisibility is way OP. Malefic table is clearly broken and who wants to spend an hour a turn rolling die?

Next up walkers and IKs and MCs. We have problems here as well ... trust me. You do not want to face IKs now. They will be a pita to remove.

It's not all that well suited to your list, but if you're worried about horror spam a couple of Null Rod Herectus Inquisitors might be a good option. Immuntiy to 90% of Daemon shooting is pretty good in a squad that can take them in CC (like a big Pally unit, or a kitted guard Blob). Mindstrikes took a bit of a hit as they now only cause a wound 2/3 of time (assuming a passed Ld check). With the changes to casting and the (possible) resurgence of mass psykers I've been playing around with putting Malys back into my beast lists. It's less of an issue that I can't buff her squad (a lot of the time my stuff will get denied against armies with plenty of dice to burn), and her redeploy got a lot better if you win the roll (since now you can deploy, let them deploy, re-deploy, then decide if you want first).

I played my double beasts against a double Seer Council the other day since my buddy wanted to try out lots of psychic stuff. Eldard, 3 farseer, 19ish warlocks, 4 x 3 GJBs, he had 32 + D6 WC to spend (with the added annoyance of getting to ignore perils by burning a WC). From what I saw that game it's a lot harder to rely on powers now, and perils is pretty rough for most non-Brotherhood/Farseers (one of his protect Warlocks punked himself, and he was timid with his other Warlock powers after that). And even with his huge pile of Deny dice I was still able to get powers off, I got Guide, 4++, and Invisibility, and would usually start off with throwing 1 dice each at guide/4++, then all the rest at invis. He probably denied about 50% of my casts (which weren't always sucessful)

Psykers can definitely be powerful, but I'm interested to see how all the currently useless anti-psyker stuff gets FAQed (Shadows/Aegis/etc.) before getting too worried.