Warhammer 40K Tabletop Thread XLIII: "This Is A New LoW For Us All"

[Wraith]

Can an Apothecary bring back Calgar's Victrix Guard?

I would argue yes.

The rules for the Leader keyword, taken from the App: "While a Bodyguard unit contains a Leader, it is known as an Attached unit and, with the exception of rules which are triggered when a unit is destroyed, is treated as a single unit for all rules purpose".

Apothecaries can explicitly join a unit that has also been joined by a Chapter Master, which Calgar is. "Sternguard (for example) + Apothecary + Calgar & Victrix Guard" are therefore one unit, and the Apothecary can revive any non-character member of the unit; Victrix Guard are part of the unit, and do not have the Character keyword.

It sounds weird because very few other characters in the game are also a small squad in and of themselves, so 'a squad' joining another squad feels less than instinctive, but it seems to check out.

[Cheesegear]

but the Firestorm detachment gives Assault AND +1 strength - you don't need to already have Assault to benefit right?

...It does say that.
Umm.
Okay that's amazing. Now I have to spend a while going back over some things.

Victrix Guard are part of the unit, and do not have the Character keyword.

I guess the formatting on the Datacard is bad and I did a reading comprehension fail. There has to be a better way for that card to be formatted.


TL;DR: In my opinion. It's early days. I'm willing to have my mind changed. I'm also trying to be relatively Detachment-agnostic, since the whole point of the new Detachment system is that you're supposed to be able to PUG with any Detachment you feel like:

Spoiler: Tournament Tier

Show

Infiltrator Squad - singular.

Scout Squads
Bladeguard Veterans
Sternguard Veterans
Aggressor Squads
Terminator Assault Squads

Inceptor Squads

Hellblaster Squads
Eliminator Squads

Gladiator Lancers

Land Raider variants (all)

Spoiler: I Want to Play with My Friends; But Also I Don't Like Losing Games and/or Wasting Money on Actual Trash Tier

Show

Marneus Calgar, Chief Librarian Tigurius, Uriel Ventris
Vulkan He'stan, Adrax Agatone

Heavy Intercessors

Terminator Squads
Dreadnoughts & Ballistus Dreadnoughts
Redemptor Dreadnoughts (Gatlings only)

Storm Speeder Thunderstrike (singular) & Hammerstrikes (take as many as you want)

Eradicator Squads
Desolation Squad - singular
Devastator Squads

Whirlwind - singular
Gladiator Valiants & Reapers
Predator Annihilators
Vindicators
Repulsors / Executioners

Impulsors

[LeSwordfish]

Some additional marine comments:

• The Stormlance is pretty heavy on Mounted stuff but does have some good **** for everyone else - I think if you're playing a chapter that wants to get in to combat quickly like Wolves or Templars it's worth a look. The Mounted benefits are all stratagems and enhancements so you can run them with only a single bike unit or just not take them.
• Don't miss that the Firestorm Assault Force has a strat that gives Torrent weapons Devastating Wounds, which really perks up an infernus unit, let me tell you.
• I think sadly you're right that all the new Jump Pack stuff is a bit rubbish.
• Combi-weapon lieutenant also has Lone Operative and so is a great backfield objective holder. I'm planning to run one quite often.
• I don't see anything preventing the Victrix Guard thing.
• Judiciar doesn't need to get to work to be strong, he just gives Fights First to something and laughs all the way to the bank.
• I think you're undervaluing the Battleshock effects of the Infernus and Reivers - it's much harder to block now, and turning off stratagems can sometimes be really good.
• I think the reason you'd take terminators is Deep Strike, and an Invulnerable Save. Unless you're shelling out for a Repulsor or Land Raider those aggressors are getting to combat the slow way.
• I think you're overvaluing the Devastating Wounds assault cannon. With six shots it will land probably not even one Devastating Wound... with one damage. And the rest of the shots are mid strength and no AP, so won't hurt anything worth mortalling.
• Jesus. is the Ballistus only 5 points more? Don't miss that it's missile launcher is higher strength too.
• Str9 is nothing these days, thunderstrike rules, hammerstrike drools.
• Eradicators also drool IMO. Oh i re-roll to wound? On three shots at 5+? giving me an expectation value of like... one and a half hits? wonderful. so glad it's turn three and these guys are only just in range.
• oh wow re-roll the devastating wounds on an assault cannon? now you might do two! two damage total, that is!
• The redeemer's 14 capacity is honestly probably enough - that's ten guys and two heroes, or six gravis guys and a hero. Are there any units that can get bigger than that? I guess six aggressors, calgar, and pals? I know I prefer the Redeemer by a long way.
• Pretend the executioner isn't a transport. Capacity of six is ****ing nothing. What are you moving with that, three aggressors without a character? Six bladeguard without a character?... five hellblasters and an apothecary?
• Same thing applies to the Impulsor but at least it's cheap. The Hellblasters inside can shoot out, damaging their ride to do so.

One of the reasons I rate Sword Brethren so highly is that they come in units of five, so can be carried with a Character in an Impulsor. Their +1 attack/+1 damage also passes to their buddy, which can be a handy few extra Mortal Wounds the turn your captain pops his Finest Hour or whatever it's called, or can turn a "blender" melee profile into something surprisingly strong. I'm very much looking forward to informing my opponent that the Emperor's Champion will be making ten Sustained Hits attacks at Damage 2.

[Cheesegear]

• The Stormlance is pretty heavy on Mounted stuff but does have some good **** for everyone else - I think if you're playing a chapter that wants to get in to combat quickly like Wolves or Templars it's worth a look. The Mounted benefits are all stratagems and enhancements so you can run them with only a single bike unit or just not take them.
• Don't miss that the Firestorm Assault Force has a strat that gives Torrent weapons Devastating Wounds, which really perks up an infernus unit, let me tell you.
• I think sadly you're right that all the new Jump Pack stuff is a bit rubbish.
• Combi-weapon lieutenant also has Lone Operative and so is a great backfield objective holder. I'm planning to run one quite often.
• I don't see anything preventing the Victrix Guard thing.

- I feel like if you run the Stormlance and don't have a core of Mounted units, you could be running anything else, and be better off. It shares a lot of similarities with the Firestorm, and the Firestorm is waaay better.
- Yeah, yeah. Saw that. As I said previously; Trying just to get a handle on what the better stuff is without Detachments. That way when you go through the Detachments, you find the stuff that benefits the stuff that's already good. Vulkan and 10 Infernus Marines is 270 Points. Cool. There's still 1730 Points left, and I know you didn't take the Detachment just so you could do a gimmick with Infernus Marines. There's more to it than that.
- As I said previously, this Space Marine release hasn't got me...Hyped. Everything new seems relatively tame.
- He sure does.
- Yep. Sorted. I'll probably end up running Calgar & Apothecary.

• Judiciar doesn't need to get to work to be strong, he just gives Fights First to something and laughs all the way to the bank.
• I think you're undervaluing the Battleshock effects of the Infernus and Reivers - it's much harder to block now, and turning off stratagems can sometimes be really good.
• I think the reason you'd take terminators is Deep Strike, and an Invulnerable Save. Unless you're shelling out for a Repulsor or Land Raider those aggressors are getting to combat the slow way.
• I think you're overvaluing the Devastating Wounds assault cannon. With six shots it will land probably not even one Devastating Wound... with one damage. And the rest of the shots are mid strength and no AP, so won't hurt anything worth mortalling.
• Jesus. is the Ballistus only 5 points more? Don't miss that it's missile launcher is higher strength too.

- Partial disagree.
- "Much" harder feels like a stretch. Again. Partial disagree.
- Again we agree. But just because a unit can do something, it doesn't really mean that that something, is worth doing (see; Reivers). Also Uriel Ventris teleport. It's really good.
- At this point I'm highly rating anything that does Devastating Wounds. Since it was buffed and nerfed to not deal Mortal Wounds, it means that anything that blocks Mortal Wounds, no longer blocks Devastating Wounds. Which is an incredibly odd way to rule on that. But I'll take it where I can get it.
- Yep.

• Str9 is nothing these days, thunderstrike rules, hammerstrike drools.
• Eradicators also drool IMO. Oh i re-roll to wound? On three shots at 5+? giving me an expectation value of like... one and a half hits? wonderful. so glad it's turn three and these guys are only just in range.
• oh wow re-roll the devastating wounds on an assault cannon? now you might do two! two damage total, that is!
• The redeemer's 14 capacity is honestly probably enough - that's ten guys and two heroes, or six gravis guys and a hero. Are there any units that can get bigger than that? I guess six aggressors, calgar, and pals? I know I prefer the Redeemer by a long way.
• Pretend the executioner isn't a transport. Capacity of six is ****ing nothing. What are you moving with that, three aggressors without a character? Six bladeguard without a character?... five hellblasters and an apothecary?
• Same thing applies to the Impulsor but at least it's cheap. The Hellblasters inside can shoot out, damaging their ride to do so.

- Partial agree.
- I don't disagree?
- Partial agree.
- The Executioner runs the best [Heavy] weapon. It doesn't move. However you can put a unit of maybe Assault Intercessors in it? Something cheap that you can spew out when the opponent gets too close. Hell. Maybe even Scouts?
- Impulsors are...Neat. Am I going to go out and buy six? **** no. But someone might, and what does their army look like when they do? Someone is going to say that they're gonna run six Impulsors with Invulnerable saves and they're gonna do a thing.

I don't see any Battleline units worth running four-to-six-of. I feel like a ball was dropped regarding what Battleline is even supposed to do this edition. It definitely makes a difference in Combat Patrol. But who even seriously plays that format? ...That format only exists for new kids to have something to do as they build their collection, which is weird, 'cause the instant that they actually do grow their collection, they can't play Combat Patrol anymore. Why the **** did they put Combat Patrol into the Codex? Just to inflate the price?

...Uhh...So anyway...I can totally make a case for Scouts in Razorbacks, but that caps out at three, not six.

Six Impulsors though, turns my smooth brain wrinkly. There's...A number of possibilities. Even if I were to put Incursors in Impulsors, it would only be two, maybe three. Definitely not four or more. In case I'm not clear; one Impulsor is terrible. However, they get better the more you have.

[LeSwordfish]

I don't mean to devalue Devastating Wounds but I think for them to be really good it needs to be either on a weapon with an absolute ****load of hits (a bunch of outriders with a chaplain? The Redemptor build you're talking about? A full block of ten infernus marines?) Or on something that you'd be shooting at that target anyway, where the Devastating Wounds are a bonus rather than the requirement to be good (for example Railguns, where if you don't get that critical wound, you've still got a 50/50 shot they'll fail their invuln.)

An assault cannon just isn't either of those to me. Assuming Oath Of Moment is up, you're hitting with probably five or six shots - seven, perhaps, if you have Sustained Hits? - and have an expectation value of 0.8-1.2ish devastating wounds. Maybe two? But either those other shots are wounding on 4s or 5s and then allowing full saves... or who cares if you have devastating wounds up? Oh wow, my special rule killed half of one intercessor and the rest of the gun finished him off. wonderful.

I'm not sure I wouldn't take an Assault Cannon on terminators, mind, but that's mainly because I don't rate either the flamer or missile launcher tremendously highly either. On a dreadnought, as compared to a lascannon? Nah.

[Cheesegear]

Spoiler: Tournament Tier

Show

Infiltrator Squad - singular.

Scout Squads
Bladeguard Veterans
Sternguard Veterans
Aggressor Squads
Terminator Assault Squads

Inceptor Squads

Hellblaster Squads
Eliminator Squads

Gladiator Lancers

Land Raider variants (all)

Spoiler: I Want to Play with My Friends; But Also I Don't Like Losing Games and/or Wasting Money on Actual Trash Tier

Show

Marneus Calgar, Chief Librarian Tigurius, Uriel Ventris
Vulkan He'stan, Adrax Agatone

Heavy Intercessors

Terminator Squads
Dreadnoughts & Ballistus Dreadnoughts
Redemptor Dreadnoughts (Gatlings only)

Storm Speeder Thunderstrike (singular)

Desolation Squad - singular
Devastator Squads

Whirlwind - singular
Gladiator Valiants & Reapers
Predator Annihilators
Vindicators
Repulsors / Executioners

Impulsors

Not being able to Ctrl+F a Codex makes them so much harder to read.

In any case, let's add some units to the list.
Captains let you use a Battle Tactic an extra time. Once for free. The "goodness" of a Battle Tactic is halfway determined by what units benefit from a Captain.
Not really counting other Leaders, since as far as I'm concerned they're just unit upgrades this edition.

Spoiler: Gladius Strike Force

Show

Oath of Moment:
Advance and Shoot: Fast-moving units that also shoot good.
+ All other Vehicles. Bearing in mind that the already-good Vehicles gain the same benefit, making them even better. Except for Lancers.
+ Outriders
+ Suppressors are an odd unit that have super movement, but also have [Heavy] weapons...See; Lancers.

Advance and Charge: Fast-moving units that also Charge.
+ Assault Intercessors- and Vanguard Veterans- with Jump Packs
+ ...Outriders?

Honour the Chapter. Your unit's Melee weapons have [Lance]. Vanguard Veterans- and Assault Intercessors- with Jump Packs. Add a Captain to do it for free.

Spoiler: Anvil Siege Force

Show

Shield of the Imperium: ...Buffs [Heavy] weapons, which already include most of the good units that already exist. This is list-building on easy-mode. Just take everything you were already going to and job's a good'un.

Spoiler: Ironstorm Spearhead

Show

Armoured Wrath: In an extremely odd way, this buffs single-shot weapons. Usually more powerful, these are the attacks that you need to hit, wound or do actual Damage. Also, it gets around [Hazardous] tags on all your Plasma Pistols, which you are taking now. Also, the Detachment massively favours all Vehicles.

+ Plasma Pistols!!!
+ Hunter-Killer Missiles!!!
+ Almost any Vehicle you want. Bearing in mind that all the good Vehicles still get the same benefits and get even better.

Spoiler: Firestorm Assault Force

Show

Close-Range Eradication: Your weapons gain the [Assault] tag...You can Advance and Shoot. Same as the Gladius.
+ All other Vehicles. Bearing in mind that the already-good Vehicles gain the same benefit, making them even better. Except for Lancers.
+ Outriders
+ Suppressors are an odd unit that have super movement, but also have [Heavy] weapons...See; Lancers.

Immolation Protocols. Massively boost [Torrent] weapons; Infernus Marines are on the menu! Which is actually handy because it would be a shame if all those "Starter Sets" Marines were effectively unusable. As a Battle Tactic you can potentially use it twice. So no more than two sets of Infernus Marines (also they're competing with Aggressors...No shot)

Spoiler: Stormlance Task Force

Show

Lightning Assault: Fall Back/Advance and Charge. Doing a hybrid Tactical/Assault Doctrine. Same units:
+ Assault Intercessors- and Vanguard Veterans- with Jump Packs
+ ...Outriders Kind of insultingly; If you want to run 3 whole units of Outriders +/- ATVs, you're actually better off with the Gladius.

Blitzing Fusilade. Weapons gain [Assault], if they already have it, they gain [Sustained Hits]. Take a Captain to use it for free.
+ Intercessors
+ Incursors

Spoiler: Vanguard Spearhead

Show

Shadow Masters: Your opponent gains -1 to Hit if your models are more than 12" away, and you gain Cover...Nearly everything good in the Roster has ranged attacks which is where you want to be. Another easy-build Detachment. Mostly just do what you're gonna do anyway.

Surgical Strikes. The unit's Melee weapons gain [Precision]. Great. Your Detachment doesn't really want to be in Melee and has no bonuses to make sure you get there. D'oh!

Strike from the Shadows. If your unit is more than 12" from its target; Ranged attacks gain +1 to Hit and AP and forces a Battle-Shock Test...So...Everything you were already taking. Nothing new here.

Spoiler: 1st Company Task Force

Show

Extremis-Level Threat: For a whole round, you gain re-rolls to Wound against your Oath of Moment target. So...You want to stack [Devastating Wounds]? ...Everything that does [Devastating Wounds] is automatically in the "good" tier. So like...Just do more of that.

[Renegade Paladin]

Vanguard Spearhead
Shadow Masters: Your opponent gains -1 to Hit if your models are more than 12" away, and you gain Cover...Nearly everything good in the Roster has ranged attacks which is where you want to be. Another easy-build Detachment. Mostly just do what you're gonna do anyway.

Surgical Strikes. The unit's Melee weapons gain [Precision]. Great. Your Detachment doesn't really want to be in Melee and has no bonuses to make sure you get there. D'oh!

This is just me spitballing here, but I can see an argument that since you gain such a massive buff for being over 12" away, your opponent is incentivized to come to you, so this lets you punish them for doing that.

[LeSwordfish]

I wonder how the maths on Flamestorm Aggressors with D6+1 twin-linked attacks works as compared to infernus marines with d6 attacks, when you're fishing for Devastating Wounds? A back-of-the-envelope calculation says about double the mortal wounds for 25 points more, and they have half as many wounds again with T6.

[Cheesegear]

I wonder how the maths on Flamestorm Aggressors with D6+1 twin-linked attacks works as compared to infernus marines with d6 attacks, when you're fishing for Devastating Wounds?

Aggressors (x6):
6 * 4.5 * 1 * (.17+[.83*.17]) = ~8.4 | 220 Points = ~26 Points per Devastating Wound vs. T10+

Infernus Marines (x10):
10 * 3.5 * 1 * .17 = 5.95 | 170 Points = ~28 Points per Devastating Wound vs. T10+

Turns out they're about equal at the top end of the meta. What matters is defense. In which case Aggressors win by a lot.
However, Infernus Marines can be joined by He'stan or Adrax, and Aggressors can't.

Why not both?

Captain [Gravis] & Agressors (x6)
Adrax or He'stan & Infernus Marines (x10)

Captain has Rites of Battle and Immolation Protocols is a Battle Tactic.

[Gwynchan'rGwyll]

6 Aggressors and a Captain rocking up in a Land Raider Redeemer is choice in Firestorm. Redeemers are also great for solid Overwatch threat. I also prefer Flame Aggressors to Infernus because after they absolutely melt one unit, they can aim for a charge at a vehicle - with twin-linked, power fists aren't bad against any target (equivalent to slightly better than a 4+ to wound with high AP, high damage, and a solid number of attacks).

Vanguard is great for Infiltrating Terminators. Dark Angels Infiltrating Deathwing Knights are a real threat.

Hilariously, Vanguard is a massive miss of a detachment in terms of what they were trying to accomplish; the intention was to encourage you to be taking lots of Phobos, but really it's amazing with heavy brick units whose normal weakness is lack of mobility.

[9mm]

6 Aggressors and a Captain rocking up in a Land Raider Redeemer is choice in Firestorm. Redeemers are also great for solid Overwatch threat. I also prefer Flame Aggressors to Infernus because after they absolutely melt one unit, they can aim for a charge at a vehicle - with twin-linked, power fists aren't bad against any target (equivalent to slightly better than a 4+ to wound with high AP, high damage, and a solid number of attacks).

Vanguard is great for Infiltrating Terminators. Dark Angels Infiltrating Deathwing Knights are a real threat.

Hilariously, Vanguard is a massive miss of a detachment in terms of what they were trying to accomplish; the intention was to encourage you to be taking lots of Phobos, but really it's amazing with heavy brick units whose normal weakness is lack of mobility.

I love when the FAQ for Azreel being able to join Company Champions didn't come, Art of War switched to Ultramarines for EVEN MOAR deepstrike shenanigans.

[Cheesegear]

So this week I've bought my first GW models in...Three (?) years?

I've also been trying an exercise with the Space Marine Codex where I can make ~1900 Points of units that make a good list for all Detachments. 1900 Points to leave room for an extra unit or two and Enhancements. ...Unfortunately, I don't think it can be done. I haven't looked at the Tyranids' Codex like...At all...(and no-one around me plays Tyranids either - go figure)...But I don't think it's possible to "Swap and Change" your Detachments whenever you feel like it.

...You can get like...Two/three Detachments before your list becomes a bloated mess, and that's only because some Detachments overlap in their abilities:

Agressive Glass Cannons: Gladius / Firestorm / Stormlance / 1st Company
Defensive Bricks: Anvil / Vanguard / Ironstorm

Seems to be how the Detachments shake out. It's not possible to make a [Heavy] unit aggressive, and if you make Inceptors a defensive unit...You're kidding, right?

Feels like what I tell my players in D&D: The new Detachment rules allow you to do anything you want. But that doesn't mean you can do everything you want.

[Cheesegear]

How do people feel about the differences between:

Kill Team,
Combat Patrol,
and 500 Point Games

Local store is trying to get all the new people interested in the hobby to agree and/or vote on where everyone wants to start. Since it's much easier to build a community (especially a local one) when everyone is one the same page. It would also help a lot if some of older guys (e.g; Me) could also be on that page. But, since I'm not a new player, and I already have pre-existing collection that dates back over 25 years; I have no idea what the new player experience is like, and I'm currently not affected by the upfront expense of being brand new an expensive hobby in a post-inflation world.

[LeSwordfish]

I think there's no point trying to get 500pt games going. That's just combat patrol but with the potential for someone to rock up with two redemptors and ruin everyone's day. Combat patrol is at least theoretically designed to work at that scale.

Kill Team is good but I honestly don't know if I rate it as an entry point into 40k. You get your kill team and you learn the rules, but when you want to jump off to the full game you have to forget all the KT rules you know, and you only have one unit.

If I were a store owner trying to get people to be new 40k players I would go for Combat Patrol 100%.

[Eldan]

Kill team is the best out of those options if you want to have a fun game. But then you're having a game of Kill Team, not a game of 40k.

[Cheesegear]

I think there's no point trying to get 500pt games going. That's just combat patrol but with the potential for someone to rock up with two redemptors and ruin everyone's day. Combat patrol is at least theoretically designed to work at that scale.

...Theoretically. It's pretty clear that the balance in Combat Patrol is b0rked. The problem is that once you figure out that the format is b0rked, you can't change anything because the whole format is fixed - and also solved, IMO.

If I were a store owner trying to get people to be new 40k players I would go for Combat Patrol 100%.

It's more a case of new 40K players already exist; How do you get them a) Into the store, and b) Playing games. More importantly; How do you get old players to play with the new players.

If you were building a community; Would you build it around Kill Team, Combat Patrol, or 500 Point games?

Kill team is the best out of those options if you want to have a fun game. But then you're having a game of Kill Team, not a game of 40k.

...That is both the Pro and Con of Kill Team. Yes.

[Brookshw]

How do people feel about the differences between:

Kill Team,
Combat Patrol,
and 500 Point Games

*Glances up from Necromunda* Uh, yeah, sure.

[9mm]

If you were building a community; Would you build it around Kill Team, Combat Patrol, or 500 Point games?

kill team. its a self contained game that is being actively supported and is the fastest from box buy to playing. 500pt 40k doesn't work and combat patrol has all the issues you mentioned. From there I do Boarding Actions for the on-ramp to full 40k. Even if its not an actively suppported thing.

[Forum Explorer]

I'll say Kill Team. The models can be used in 40K so it isn't a sunk cost for new players, and old players can use whatever they have in their collection. Furthermore, I just like it better than combat patrol.

[Renegade Paladin]

How do people feel about the differences between:

Kill Team,
Combat Patrol,
and 500 Point Games

Local store is trying to get all the new people interested in the hobby to agree and/or vote on where everyone wants to start. Since it's much easier to build a community (especially a local one) when everyone is one the same page. It would also help a lot if some of older guys (e.g; Me) could also be on that page. But, since I'm not a new player, and I already have pre-existing collection that dates back over 25 years; I have no idea what the new player experience is like, and I'm currently not affected by the upfront expense of being brand new an expensive hobby in a post-inflation world.

A consortium of regional game shops here developed a 500 point format designed to balance the game for that points level (no HQs above 140 points, missions designed to punish the "two Redemptors" scenario by barring Monsters and Vehicles from scoring, and sticky objectives in all missions) in 9th. The primary shop coordinating the effort quit doing it because 2k point events were bringing in more people, though. It was fun while it lasted, and I'm considering updating it for 10th myself.

Unfortunately the person coordinating the experiment has deleted all the documentation from his Google drive and the testing channel from the Discord server, but I have the mission packs saved; the only thing that's missing is the listbuilding restrictions. The first link is my own introduction to a Combat Patrol tournament using this format and the second and third are the last mission packs developed. I include the former because a lot of the stipulations were communicated directly to players rather than printed in the distributed mission packs.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JKY...ew?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j7W...ew?usp=sharing

[Caellath]

Even for someone who really just plays the RPG, it's always neat to read about the TT game and sometimes read battle reports. Though even if I did want to make an army, I'd be better off buying a car due to the particulars of Brazil's taxation system (though I've been considering getting into VTT 40k at least).

I am curious though, how are the Thousand Sons and the Scarab Occult faring in the current meta? How about Imperial Knights?

[Cheesegear]

I am curious though, how are the Thousand Sons and the Scarab Occult faring in the current meta?

Thousand Sons currently sit in "upper middle class." They're not the best, but they're not bad and certainly not even average. If you want to win games without facerolling your opponent, Thousand Sons are that tier; I like playing with my friends, but also I don't like losing games.

How about Imperial Knights?

Knights - Imperial and Chaos - are the Noobsmasher lists.

The meta currently runs on high Toughness and good saves.
So like...You're saying run all Knights, all the time?
No. Not literally...Wait...You've already bought Knights, haven't you?

Knights are really good since they are the meta; High Toughness, good saves. You'll smash a bunch of casuals who don't really understand how the game works. [Insert "Knights are so broken" discussion, here]. However, if you know that high Toughness and good saves are the meta, wouldn't it behoove you to run high Strength and Devastating Wounds...Like that's obvious, no? That's a really cool Knight you've got there. Have you heard of Rapid Ingress'ing Assault Terminators?

So Knights are really, really, really good - yes, even with the nerf. But anyone who even remotely plays to the meta is already hard-countering them.

[Corsair14]

We did a 500 point league a while back and it had restrictions that at least curtailed the WAAC try hards and kept the theme of "Its a combat patrol". This is an off the top of my head update for 10th from what I remember of those rules.
No named characters
No 2+ and no better than 5++ saves
No toughness 9 or better unless it's a dedicated transport
must include at least one Battleline unit.
Aside from battle line and dedicated transports, no more than one unit of any given datasheet.
The last part represents the original limitation of 1 hq, 0-1 heavy or fast, and 0-2 elite. troops were unlimited.

[bluntpencil]

This is just me spitballing here, but I can see an argument that since you gain such a massive buff for being over 12" away, your opponent is incentivized to come to you, so this lets you punish them for doing that.

Agree 100% on this.

Especially good on Assault Terminators and similar.

[Hootman]

If you were building a community; Would you build it around Kill Team, Combat Patrol, or 500 Point games?

If I were also trying to get the lifetime players involved, I'd actually go with Poorhammer's Horde Mode. (Link goes the the Youtube episode about what they made, links directly to the rules are in the description.) We've been playing it at my local shop, and it's pretty fun.

For those who are unfamiliar, a summary:

Spoiler: Summary

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Gather 2-4 people with 40k models. Ideally, at least one of those people will have an army of at least 2000pts, if not more, and they will be The Horde. The others only need a 500pt force, and together, they are The Allies.

Set up a normal 6'x4' table, with a normal amount of terrain in No Man's Land, and no terrain in the Deployment Zones. One side of the table is shared by everyone with a 500pt army. The other side belongs to the one with a full army. The Horde gets one spawning location in their DZ for every 500pts arrayed against them.

Each round, for each spawning location, The Horde randomly generates units from a list by rolling 2d6 and choosing a unit from the section they get. So, if you roll an 8, you spawn a unit from the 7-9 section for that army. You can create nested tables if you like to speed up the process based on your collection. ("I rolled an 8, so the 7-9 section on the big table. Now there are 12 units on it that I have the models for, so I'll roll a d12...4. That's a squad of 10 Nobz. Time ta krump!")

After the Horde spawns, they take a turn using a simplified set of rules to play like an AI. This was designed so that players could actually play without a dedicated Horde player, removing decision-making as much as possible. For ease of knowing what each Horde unit's datasheet does, I'd recommend that the most experienced player act as a GameMaster for the rest of the group and run the Horde (still following the AI script, but being able to also gobble the scenery while doing it).

The Allied Players need to work together to fend off the Horde, while also holding Objectives to generate RP (a resource that lets them do cool things like gain CP, summon reinforcements, or air-strike terrain features) and contending with randomly drawn Secondary Missions (which grant big bonuses if you succeed, and big penalties if you don't), Misery Cards (all downsides, usually only drawn from Turn 3 onward), and their own Secret Objectives, which are the way each player individually claims victory. Whether you need to stockpile CP, get into or out of a specific zone, or try to get one of your allies' Warlords killed, the Secret Objectives add spice and can force players to get out of their army's comfort zone ([Heavy] Marines hate drawing "Get out of your DZ", for instance, but they still have to do it if they want to win in the end.)

Like I said, it's fun, AND it lets you have more than 2 people at each table. Heck, it even saves on terrain pieces, allowing you to have a few more boards going at the same time if your shop's terrain stores are limited. Assuming you can get enough people, obviously, but marketing is your problem.

It also, probably most importantly, turns the game from competitive to cooperative, which means the players that are lifelong casuals, or are just inexperienced, don't get smashed into the ground by those of a more hardcore tournament mindset. You could even turn it into a secret training exercise, where the better players on the team gently encourage the newbies to play better by showing them moves they didn't see. ("If you scoot to the other side of the building instead, only that group of Boyz will be able to see you, so you won't get shot by the Lootas in mid-board, and if you bait the Horde AI in with your Devilfish, the Orks won't even be able to charge your Firewarriors and you'll get to shoot them twice before they reach you.") Instead of it being your opponent obviously letting you give them a bloody nose before crushing you anyways, it's your teammate giving you advice so you can all defeat the dastardly Horde together, which is much better.

My local shop is trying to set up some kind of event where all of the...not best...most reliable players (who also have at least one big collection) will act as GMs and run The Horde for the many other players who have smaller collections, less experience, and/or are too silly to be put in charge of an official event. We're hoping it'll be cool. It should be. All of our games trying to test out the mode have gone really well, to the point where we've homebrewed rules to make it harder as we get better. Big recommend.

[Renegade Paladin]

All six of my Baneblade chassis vehicles hit the table together for the first time today in our annual Apocalypse game. The Shadowsword is much less reliable now with its lower volume of fire and the Stormblade is just bad, but we still pulled out an Imperial victory.

[Caellath]

STUFF

Thanks for the reply! It's interesting and something to keep in mind since I was gonna poke around Tabletop Sim 40k and it seems I'm lucky at least part of the units I think are Cool Stuff™ seem good in general.

[Tyndmyr]

*Glances up from Necromunda* Uh, yeah, sure.

This is me, I love the ol' Necromunda stuff. Does anyone around me play it these days? Unfortunately, no.

I used to play W40k fairly hardcore back in...uh, 4th edition? Forever ago, at this point. Still have armies of most stuff, but genuinely no idea what the rules are, and ever since the local Bunker closed down, and the big tabletop FLGS after it...there's just no cohesive center for the community anymore. People still play, but mostly at home, or, rarely, at local stores within their friend group, and when they do, it's almost invariably fairly standard 40k matches.

I'm kind of curious about what the game's like now, though, even if my local environment isn't what it used to be. Are folks still rocking Necromunda games out there? What other crazy variants have become popular?

[Brookshw]

I'm kind of curious about what the game's like now, though, even if my local environment isn't what it used to be. Are folks still rocking Necromunda games out there? What other crazy variants have become popular?

We have a small following in this area, had a campaign last summer, currently it's mostly skirmishes, might get something going again in a few months. It's still a thing, definitely. Kinda split between ash wastes campaigns (mad max) and normal underhive. You can do all sorts of crazy things, genestealer infected judge dread police forces, etc. There's an active reddit community, and Yaktribe has plenty of discussions. Many of the locals played when it first came out and returned when they relaunched it. I like to recommend it as it's a tiny fraction of the cost an army will run you ($70 for the core rulebook, $100 for your gang & codex, about an extra $100 if you want to expand, terrain can be the real killer).

[JNAProductions]

I made a 30k list, of DA plus DG, on a Google Doc.
Would appreciate eyes on it.