Warhammer and Such

[jaunty dawn]

just found out about this one World Eaters warband called the Skulltakers who before joining the WE were a chapter called the Berzerkers of Kharadon when they were loyalist

[pastel rampart]

Finally got a chaos dragon.

Scanned from the original 5e WHFB model, friend printed it.

[floral herald]

I love those noodly guys

[pastel rampart]

Same.

Looking back too it's a little shocking that as iconic as a chaos lord on chaos dragon is, there was only like...this model and Galrauch. Not counting the Forgeworld one anyway.

https://whfb.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/d/de/Galrauch_M01.jpg And Galrauch is, uh. Very foward heavy.

https://whfb.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/d/d3/Chaos_Dragon_FW_M01.jpg The FW one was cool but like with Galrauch, not exactly practical or easy to put a lord on top.

[sour sequoia]

This is the most anxiety inducing sculpt I have ever seen

[upper bluff]

The dragon itself aged so well

[pastel rampart]

And it originally came in metal.

[sour sequoia]

Slim I’m gonna cry at work

[pastel rampart]

Great model but yeah unworkable back in 6th ed WHFB.

[pale narwhal]

That fw dragon fucks immensely

[valid brook]

Classic chaos dragon was a diabolical sculpt, heavy gauge pinning mandatory for survival during regular use

[past sphinx]

One of those models that shaped warhammer for me

I think I'm done with this one

Just needs some sand for the base

[pale narwhal]

Oooh that’s sick

[little bay]

looks cool

[pastel rampart]

https://i.redd.it/3j9tg4fx94121.jpg

[paper bluff]

And that's how a lone goblin saved us from the end times

[upper canopy]

The funniest thing about the underway wars is that you have Clan Eshin rats who have trained in secret ninjutsu from the far east getting stabbed in the back by night goblins

who are just ded sneaky

[runic swallow]

Look, some people are just born with an instinctive knowledge of shanking dudes in dark alleys

[deft crest]

My first and regrettably only matched was against aquilans and they took flank and I took dominate it worked out in my favor

One by one point

Won*

[runic swallow]

Now, I kinda would have expected the rat men to also have that instinctual knowledge, but you learn something new every day

[pastel rampart]

Skaven spend an inordinate amount of time trying to backstab each other, night goblins backstab anyone within stabbin' distance.

MUCH more experience there.

[runic swallow]

ABS: Always Be Stabbin’

Skaven clearly waste too much time scheming to have the same stabbing fundamentals

[charred bridge]

Who thought it was a good idea to teach murder rats to murder better

[sour sequoia]

Pak Mei is somewhere in the world laughing his ass off for teaching the five point palm heart exploding technique to that one rat with the scratchy name

[bright dove]

Other murder rats

[rocky shale]

Just got obliterated by blood angels lol

Diagonal deployments against melee armies are rough

[sour sequoia]

What was mission/layout?

[rocky shale]

Take and hold, GW layout 4

Against angelic inheritors, so they had access to an 18" loneop strat

[upper canopy]

That is always rough yeah

[rocky shale]

oop not that deployment tho

this one

[upper canopy]

oh

[rocky shale]

But yeah when 75% of the army has 12" move and rr charge its brutal

[floral herald]

Diagonals are hard since there's no that much space to hang back in your DZ

[rocky shale]

Im also getting used to the elf nerfs

I dont play the detachments that got hit directly but the points drops are rough

[thin ibex]

beat my WE opponent as brandfast oath votann

ultimately my guns just tore em up

he was playing hte jackhal detach tho, which may have advantaged me

[sour sequoia]

There’s a reason thats not a combination in the tournament companion tbh

Crucible is not kind to take and hold

[rocky shale]

Oh is it not lmaooo

I should really use the reccomended ones

Most of our group just does rng for deployment/map/obj

[sour sequoia]

Those are the only crucible maps you’ll see any tournaments worth a damn using

Diagonal deployment plays really weirdly with 90% of their layouts and requires very specific ones to work—layout 4 is recommended for em at least, but its also just one of my less enjoyed ones

Absolutely batshit that this is recommended, most of this terrain does fuckall.

This is playable on like, tipping point and search&destroy

[rocky shale]

Yeah he was just on every middle objective turn 1

The lines of sight are wack

[mental birch]

Mpdelling idea

Grimghast boz

Box

In the hollow i form a ball

And stick mechadendrites out

Or same idea but bladegheist

[past sphinx]

finally played against some modern guard

boy are dorns cringe

didnt help the lancer did jack squat

[viral crest]

Iron Warriors when-

[past sphinx]

i think its called akratos

[sour sequoia]

Did the T12 tank with a damage blank get your ass

[past sphinx]

it didnt actually do much it just had a dozen meltas

[sour sequoia]

Yeah thats really the kick in the pants part of their shooting—it’s scariest in Hammer of the Emperor where its threat on melta range ends up being like 22” and moving thru walls

[past sphinx]

it perfectly fills the roll of "bigger than a leman smaller than a baneblade"

without the charm of the leman and the spectacle of a baneblade

[sour sequoia]

Yeah. Our main guard guy goes crazy parade ready and kitbashing and converting everything so he has very pretty Dorns but they’re pretty much just. A Tank

[past sphinx]

like its namesake its solid and dependable as a design but bland as cornflakes

[wintry mist]

I cant like I think I've only ever seen this unnamed and thought it was a leman russ variant

I bear a deep dislike of guard vehicles though

[wintry mist]

nevermind this thing is hyooge

also brilliant youtube thumbnail

[past sphinx]

you may not like it but this is what peak preformance looks like

[finite compass]

I love guard vehicles, but not the bug standard russ

Like this is full-on Interwar Tank Design in Space insanity and I am here for it.

IDK

I'm also a fan of the design philosophy where it's like

"You take a standard 40s-looking WWII-ish tank chassis and just bolt a crazy scifi weapon to it"

[wintry mist]

my problem is that a lot of em aren't ww2 tanks

I wish they were

they have the giant ww1 tank tracks

[finite compass]

Still

Also I know this is Konflikt '47 and not Warhammer but

This sort of design

[vital barn]

the dorn feels somehow more tonka truck than the usual guard tanks

it's fine, but I think I like the Russ more

[finite compass]

The dorn is a lot more...

Idk

Rounded?

Than your typical Guard vehicle

[floral herald]

It's a modern trend with a lot of IG vehicles

The new Sentinels are kind of the same

[sour sequoia]

Still disappointed my buddy didn’t actually place high enough to earn a goonhammer writeup when he ran 6 of them

[vital barn]

My favourite ones are the Solar Auxilia russes with the big trim

unfortunately they cost seven gazillion British dollars

[sour sequoia]

I could buy you this in like 72 hours I already got people at the LGS makin me buy shit for them at British prices

[vital barn]

they probably cost even more in American money honestly, and I have no use for them, they're just neat

[rocky shale]

Are you in the UK getting used as an importer rn?

[sour sequoia]

I work for an airline in the middle of nowhere and fly free so currently I’m sitting in Denver International waiting to go bother Misc for a few days, yeah

[vital barn]

plastic crack mule

I do like getting UK prices for this stuff, eagerly awaiting having significant disposable income again so I can just palm slam an entire Mechanicum army

it has a surprisingly good points to pounds ratio

[tired cairn]

Huh, I thought you were in the UK

[vital barn]

I am, and as such my warhammer is better priced than that of most of my friends because every other country pays export prices

[rocky shale]

Ahhh I see

[past sphinx]

the Defender is like peak 40k design for me

7 heavy bolters

a crew of 14

enough ammo on board to send it to the moon

[soft willow]

So played the current version of Kill Team for the first time today. What was GW thinking when they designed Sanctifiers?

[floral herald]

Oh they're a weird one

[soft willow]

They felt way too consistent for how much bullshit they can bring.

[floral herald]

Actually sort of related question, were you using all their errata?

They released turbobusted and a lot of their stuff has been nerfed

[sour sequoia]

Sanctifiers heavily errata’d

[floral herald]

So the printed cards for example are super out of date and super busted

[soft willow]

Are the PDFs in the GW app correct?

[floral herald]

They should be

[soft willow]

That’s the errata’d version?

https://tenor.com/view/what-why-huh-steve-harvey-confused-gif-2486632017667011481

What were they like on release?

[floral herald]

uh, about 2x as fast, piercing immunity bubble, lots of -1 damage taken

They were practically autowin since they just zerg rushed up 60% of the map TP1 and stuffed chainswords in everyone's faces

Now they're just a weird skew team

[soft willow]

The overlapping buff bubbles provide some very good synergy.

I assume at a competitive level people know how to pull it apart?

[vital barn]

every so often I remember this image exists

[floral herald]

Yeah

What was the matchup?

Sanctifiers are weird because they kind of need to blob up and their long range shooting is poor (I think they have like 2 long ranged guns?)

But they're really overbearing at close range with The Blob

If you can kill the Confessor early it's always worth

And stuns are good into them

[soft willow]

Vs Angels of Death, and yeah I just kinda blobbed all over my opponent.

I also got a pretty clutch big flamer shot that caught like 3 marines in the torrent.

[floral herald]

oh jeez yeah

I think what AoD mostly wants to do is mix it up in melee with them?

I'm not sure anymore

They probably have a lot of plays

But you def shouldn't give them 3 shot flamer opportunities

[soft willow]

Spread out and melee up seems solid for a plan.

[floral herald]

yeah

AoD can also be sort of weird since they benefit from being able to take... most of their very large list of roster options

So sometimes people have bad matchups because they don't have random assault intercessors or whatever

[spice flicker]

Apparently I am aligned with the Ordo Hereticus.

[valid brook]

Diabolical blunt rotation

[pale narwhal]

It’s not a massive list of options tbf. Main things are 1 specialist each for assault and regular ints, one sergeant option each + captain, eliminator/heavy bolter, and then the grunt options

[wintry mist]

rip queen liz you would have loved warhammer 40,000 kill team

[wintry mist]

where is this from

found it mb

what are you trying to tell me, random quiz on idrlabs

[vital barn]

(very much enjoyed those two books)

[desert jay]

You’d love Catholicism, obviously

[pastel rampart]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/408452338622267401/1449943177057276077/ktvqjivhrys91.webp?ex=6940bc50&is=693f6ad0&hm=3a1255405b729471c626c0c7a1e2b99e5e3b1a1289236940c4ec6e86d307c9a7&

[past sphinx]

as i have made it once more round the end post ive spent a little more money than usual

soon a good replusor shall be mine

[paper bluff]

Basically finished my telemons

[sonic hare]

oh those are gorgeous

[little bay]

looks cool

[paper bluff]

The purple is a little bit of a pain in the ass, but I like how it comes out

[finite compass]

https://tenor.com/view/dont-do-it-again-now-dont-do-it-again-life-of-brian-romanes-eunt-domus-do-it-again-gif-27454517

[still warren]

Silent ones for AoS?

[junior robin]

finally, Perissodactyla primaris lieutenant

[still warren]

Tyranids ate a company of primaris marines. Get ready for primaris tyranids

[charred bridge]

Ultratyranids

[floral herald]

Isn’t that kinda hive guard or am I getting mixed up?

[jaunty dawn]

Doesnt look tyranid to me

Too fleshy

Secundus gene stealers maybe

[floral herald]

I was thinking ash wastes bug

But I don’t really have evidence for that

[still warren]

Think it's one of these

[past sphinx]

Still the size of a barn but I kinda dig it

[broken dew]

Is this a redemptor conversion

[past sphinx]

Conversion kit sold by ikaruspattern

[misty violet]

Wow that's so much better than the regular Ballistus

[jaunty dawn]

Ikarus pattern ate great

I still really wanna get a wb land raider

[pastel rampart]

I wish he'd sell the STLs.

[rose hill]

random thing i'm looking back at

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/OUUCYSVP/the-tithes-episode-3-where-does-the-tithe-go/

that's some Proper Imperiuming

[tired cairn]

Do you think Munitorum worlds go up in a giant explosion if you shoot them just the right way?

[rose hill]

probably

[junior summit]

Rogue Trader had the Tithe Storage Planet because the Maw was impassable

[tired cairn]

I am surprised they destroy the cargo. That seems like it would be a breach of the Lex too

[runic swallow]

Absolutely, no way they don’t

You think the Imperium has directives on safe storage and stand-off for munitions?
I mean, probably some places do, but it also probably caused a internal schism between the “we should put the ammunition in bunkers a certain distance away from the other things on base” and the people calling those guys cowards who doubt the safety of the Imperium’s armaments

Also, mild tangent, but I worked at a historic site with a lighthouse recently, and learned that the US government government had similar rules about lamp fuel storage as they do about the storage of a,munition and explosives. It wasn’t in a bunker, but it was in a metal shed a prescribed distance from the lighthouse so that if it went up in an accident it might not burn down the lighthouse or other USLHE buildings

[junior summit]

Writer dependent

Sometimes the base magazine is stored at a safe distance, when it needs to explode dramatically it usually isn't

[floral herald]

Yes and they ALWAYS do them

No ammo for you, it’s a foot too close

[misty violet]

I am reminded of this

The guideline I always go with for Imperial practices is "cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable"

It's inefficient when you need something and it's efficient when it's hurting you

[bright dove]

So it's only safely stored when it's a pain in the ass, because you must properly commune with the Machine Spirit overseeing entry.

[misty violet]

Yeah, any time you need to rush to the armory to equip yourselves in a tense situation in the Imperium you discover it's been locked and the key was lost five centuries ago

Except when, instead, you can be crushed under the weight of toppling munitions piled hapzardly at the corner of the room when the building gets hit by enemy fire

[charred bridge]

Then the munitions pile explode

[past sphinx]

ive had a good time with Baneblade

i think it gets the tank as a land submarine

and theres a capital imperialis witch is always nice

[pastel rampart]

https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/game/titanic-church-delivery-system I may do something unwise.

47 inches tall

[deft crest]

KT update today

Only relevant thing as far as i can tell is Smoke reducing peirce 2 to 1 unless in 2"

[floral herald]

That’s not new but it is big

(It’s from the November errata)

Ooh the new campaign rules look cool though

[jaunty dawn]

Campaign rules? In my kt 24?

[floral herald]

It’s kinda like kill team planetary empires

There’s a hex map and you make camps and try to loot treasures

[jaunty dawn]

Nice

[tired cairn]

Is this something I could hypothetically get, or will it be a limited run release that sells out immediately?

[floral herald]

In hardcopy it sold out already

I’m not sure it was sold outside of the Dead Silence box

Which there was like, 0 copies of

[tired cairn]

Classic GW

[floral herald]

It might come out standalone

[rocky shale]

Excuse me, the lion has a 3++ invuln?

[tired cairn]

It's very annoying

I don't think he's considered particularly good? Or at least wasn't for awhile

[rocky shale]

I think he is now

[floral herald]

He’s been decent for a while

Big melee beat stick who is his own delivery device

[rocky shale]

I'm playing into wrath of the rock and oh boy does that look painful

[floral herald]

3++ is pretty standard for storm shields

But that’s a big ass storm shield guy

[rocky shale]

4++ is storm shields for everything else

At least in 10th

[tired cairn]

Right, he got the Emperor's shield despite being the super-duelist lol

[rocky shale]

The only other 3++ I think is the solitaire?

[tired cairn]

Archons get a 2++ until they take damage iirc. Which is hilarious

[floral herald]

Oh yeah weird they made them +1 wound a while ago

I remember 5e assault termies too fondly apparently

[tired cairn]

It would have been extremely funny if they gave the Lion 11 wounds

[vital barn]

Makari has a 2++, which is very funny

level 1 goblin (immortal)

[tired cairn]

It also ends when he takes damage

[floral herald]

True

[vital barn]

Sicaran Ruststalkers have a fun interaction with that because they have global precision attacks but only the sarge does mortals

so the first thing you have to do is order your princeps to stab that goddamn goblin to death now despite the fact he will not drop good items

[tired cairn]

lmao

[vital barn]

otherwise he tanks like half a squad way better than ghaz can

(on average, he can always immediately beans it)

Makari is also T6 to match Ghaz, he's one hell of a grot

[broken dew]

Makari the GOAT

[vital barn]

Solitaire appears to have a 4++ now

[rocky shale]

Oh yeah

Tragic

[sour sequoia]

GW has gotten really picky with invulns compared to previous eds because it turns out the 2 or 3++ with rerolls sucks ass to play into

Honestly even the current rate of 4++ is kind of absurd

[tired cairn]

They can feel really bad, yeah

[rocky shale]

These deathwing knights are absurd

2+/4++ -1 damage and -1 to wound if S>T from wrath of the rock

Plus armor of contempt

I think my best weapon into them is just S7 AP1 warlock flamers

Banshees lose half their damage

[vital barn]

I admit I've only recently started looking properly at 10th. It it does seem like they've expanded the band of who gets 4++ on both ends

because even my chump Skitarii have 5++, 4++ near crabtank

and as such the genuinely tanky units have 4++ and like fifty other rules, like DWK and Wardens

[tired cairn]

Skitarii were 6++ at the start of the edition. But then got buffed

(imo cybernetics should be higher toughness because it is weird it lets you shrug off a lascannon hit)

[vital barn]

in 7th they were 4+ w/ 6+ FNP, which represented it quite well because high strength shooting doubled them out

but back then they were way better shots and weren't the lynchpin of half the army

[floral herald]

I don’t disagree but it’s a very old tradition in the rules now

[vital barn]

eh, three editions, interweaved with HH 2.0 and HH 3.0 where cybernetics are either really high toughness (Legio Cybernetica, Thallax-Pattern heavy infantry) or Feel No Pain (Magi and Tech-Thralls)

high-quality Thallax get their invulns upgraded, so that could be either an abstract representation of better parts or outright installing bigger integrity field generators, fluff doesn't specify

[pastel rampart]

He had a long nap and had to shake off the rust.

[rocky shale]

I like how eldrad is T4 because he's turning into a crystal

[tired cairn]

I think I hear the death guard players crying

[jaunty dawn]

Bionics have been fnp since like at least 4th edition

In 3e it was more like necron rules

[tired cairn]

Amazing

[jaunty dawn]

The justification has always been that being hit in a bionic doesnt cause physical pain and therefore you have a decent chance of just carrying on rather than passing out or otherwise being in capacitated

[floral herald]

Shit you’re right

[tired cairn]

A FNP makes slightly more sense because then you probably aren't shrugging off a lascannon hit, ha

[jaunty dawn]

But then in 8e they turned a bunch of them into invulns for some reason

[tired cairn]

Though maybe not in 4e. Was that before multiple damage?

[vital barn]

without wanting to sound like I have powerscaling brain, sometimes they do

a Myrmidon in Wolfsbane takes a lascannon to the chest and walks it off after a bit of field repair from the local enginseer

[jaunty dawn]

Lascannons would cause instant death on anything T4 or lower and thus disable a feel no pain

[vital barn]

although admittedly the local enginseer was Belisarius Cawl in his undergraduate years

[tired cairn]

Tbf, a fnp on single wound models is horrible to deal gameplay wise if they get targeted by multiple damage attacks

[jaunty dawn]

But in 3e that wasnt part of the rule so

[vital barn]

yeah, 7e FNP made the most sense because you could get doubled out

[tired cairn]

That's fair. I'm thinking of skitarii in this context of "probably shouldn't shrug off a lascannon hit", ha

[vital barn]

in 10e you get the annoying feature of rolling multi-FNP on 1W guys, in HH3.0 it's just Invuln 2

so you roll once against a D3 hit and take all 3 at once if you fail

it is also a lot rarer

I can think of only one model in the game with better than a 5+ FNP and it's highly situational

[jaunty dawn]

Venerable dreads always got a fnp cause they were so old

Just refused to die

[vital barn]

they have a tendency to zombie sometimes

a skittle who loses his legs is probably trying to shoot you from the ground with reasonable efficiency

but that's about it

[tired cairn]

All their pain sensors might be broken too

[vital barn]

the Tau apparently hate fighting Skitarii because while their guns do kill them fine, the reverse is also true and after a big fight there are just horrible little tinmen crawling around with fatal injuries refusing to surrender

(and also because they are walking warcrimes with that rad-aura, but they can outrange that)

[jaunty dawn]

When I first used a combi-weapon I thought it meant the combi half got one shot per round while the bolter got “as many shot as you want” and then my dad had to explain to me how that worked

[vital barn]

well, you were right in ratio, just not quite in magnitude

[tired cairn]

It's funny how skitarii are depicted as these hyper-loyal or fearless near-automatons but then the game gave them average leadership scores

[vital barn]

it is really easy to make Marines book it relative to lore, too

[jaunty dawn]

The data tethers used to be morale based

[tired cairn]

I guess dearh korps get a similar treatment

The broad spectrum ones still are

[vital barn]

I choose to believe battleshock can also represent "shit this was a bad place to stand, fall back in a real hurry"

[tired cairn]

Yeah, battleshock represents disorganized in addition to being afraid now. Among other stuff

[jaunty dawn]

That was the thing about atsknf is that you could always force marines to give ground they just stayed in good order when they did

[vital barn]

since otherwise my HH3.0 rad bombardment can make every Primarch drop his gun in fear and run away, and I don't think that's quite how that's playing out no matter how much I dislike them

[tired cairn]

It was really cool. Though I understand why you can't really represent it with the modern system (and why they changed it)

[vital barn]

although HH does have a variety of statuses - routing tests Ld, pinning/suppression/stun test Cool, and as such Mechanicum troops are effectively immune to pinning fire but not from running away

you can order Thallax to walk into a hail of artillery fire and they don't care, but they break when they take enough casualties

(the only strange thing here is that they're scared of flamers but not, say, radioactive hellfire)

[tired cairn]

Hmm, conceptually the distinction seems a bit weird. At least in that direction

[vital barn]

it makes more sense the other way around - militia can have really high Ld but really low Cl

[tired cairn]

Yeah

[vital barn]

so they'll be brave and stay in the fight for king and country but they don't have the training or discipline to be effective under artillery fire

[tired cairn]

Oh, actually, that would be really good for orcs, ha

[vital barn]

I do think it's a good way to give Mechanicum some vulnerabilities in the status department while still allowing them to do the "aha, I am robit, I cannot be suppressed" thing

[jaunty dawn]

I was reading the army list for another game and there were these transdimensional aliens in metal bodies who have a really high chance to pass morale tests but as soon as theyve taken one casualty if they fail that test theyre outta there which I thought was a cool dynamic

[tired cairn]

Also "I'll stick around for King and Country but I'm not going to get my squishy head shot off with dumb heroics"

[jaunty dawn]

While theres also other units more likely to be demoralised but they fight to the last man

[vital barn]

(most prominently, Magi are not immune to statuses even if the bots they're leading are, and the whole unit withdraws with its leader - unled cybernetica are dumb and slow in comparison but totally immune to all morale rules)

[floral herald]

AT43?

[tired cairn]

Yeah, it makes sense as a gameplay space

[vital barn]

also primarchs can actually be suppressed now

which is fun

it was a bit odd to see Gulliman just charging across an open field while you killed whole squads out from around him, even if it's in character for some primarchs

[jaunty dawn]

Armoured clash sultanate

[tired cairn]

(it is very funny to me that AT43 stands for "Alternate Timeline 43")

[vital barn]

I suppose on the other mechadendrite Angron probably wouldn't care about artillery fire

[floral herald]

Oh I don’t know that one

[vital barn]

but meh, you have to abstract something and I prefer the choice that makes primarch units vaguely interactable for things other than their peers and my highly silly demon sniper combo

[jaunty dawn]

Some of my locals play it and its kinda interesting. Same universe as dystopian wars the naval game

[tired cairn]

Oh. Is this the same universe as that boat game? That has Antartica as one of the factions?

Yes, ha

[jaunty dawn]

Yeah a bunch of boffins found the war of the worlds tripods in antartica and used it to become a global power

[tired cairn]

I liked the aesthetic of some of the factions (notably antarctica)

The Americans were very American

[vital barn]

ATSKNF was kind of the Armour of Contempt/Transhuman Physiology of its day

it was on so many armies for free that you basically had to do all listbuilding assuming it was always in effect for your opponent

this made Night Lords, among other armies, really sad

[jaunty dawn]

Morale is weird in general

Like before 5e imperial guard was about jumping through hoops to have high leadership on everything and it was like…why though

[vital barn]

you can't do "realistic" morale in 40k because 66% of the armies wouldn't give a flying fuck and the rest would break instantly all the time, so I think the compromise is OK

[floral herald]

Consolidate moves?

It was easy to wipe a lot of guardsmen from beating them in melee

[jaunty dawn]

Mm fair

It was also that we didnt totally understand the rules haha

[vital barn]

HH1e Militia were a total clown show here because they could get fearless on everything stupidly easily, so you just totally ignored those stats

[jaunty dawn]

Or remember to us them

[vital barn]

made them very fun tarpits

but wasn't a great balancing factor

[jaunty dawn]

HH3 seems fun though

[floral herald]

Mostly it was the odds units which lost in melee would be entirely wiped yeah

[vital barn]

3e is a strange mix of legacy mechanic that should be changed and legacy mechanic that should be kept at all costs

but in general it's very good

I've been enjoying myself

it's definitely the best combat of any of the editions I can remember, deployment and mission objectives might need a little work

[jaunty dawn]

But even then it wasnt really saving a unit that massively lost combat to have ld10 instead of ld8

Iirc

[floral herald]

Commissars were your melee anchors and gave LD9 with immunity to penalties

[jaunty dawn]

That does help a lot

[vital barn]

back in 7e you just assumed every unit that lost combat and didn't have either ATSKNF, Stubborn, Fearless or Eldar init would instant die

[floral herald]

Which was pretty good odds

[vital barn]

unfortunately that was like two units

because it turns out most people had a commissar, were space marines or were eldar

[floral herald]

As an Ork player at the time I could basically trash guard infantry if they didn’t have a commissar but would often bog vs commissar blocs

[vital barn]

I forget, was 7th one of the editions where Mob Rule was Ld=number of boyz in squad?

that was kind of fun honestly

[jaunty dawn]

But also that would only be the commisar unit and not everything in the radio network

[vital barn]

the rest of 7e orks weren't, though, I have rarely seen a sadder army

[floral herald]

I dont think so, but I didn’t play 7e

[vital barn]

they were so bad, it was painful

[floral herald]

There wasn’t really a radio network back then (4e)

[jaunty dawn]

There was thoughh

[floral herald]

No orders were added in 5e

[vital barn]

HH3e has brought back the vox network actually

[jaunty dawn]

It let you use an officer leadership

Thats my entire point haha

[floral herald]

I think they may have had some LD bubbles but it was sort of who cares

[jaunty dawn]

From further away

[vital barn]

squads with voxes, of all factions, can be ordered to rally start of turn rather than end by an unsuppressed officer

[floral herald]

You just used iron discipline anyway

[jaunty dawn]

Yeah thats what im saying

[vital barn]

so "does it have a vox guy" is actually a major unit balancing factor

[jaunty dawn]

And then 5e added orders which were much cooler

[vital barn]

elite termies are hard to rout but it's relatively hard to get them to unfuck themselves once they do

whereas generic line squads with voxes are easier to control

[floral herald]

Oh right I remember what the old vox was for now

Target priority

[jaunty dawn]

Oh true

[junior summit]

Realistic morale in 40k is also weird because its a pastiche of the entire human history of combat and there are multiple very different versions of morale in there

[floral herald]

I think that was it’s only really substantial use but it was very important for your gunline

[vital barn]

I would like to shout out Iron Hands Morlocks here for being amazing primarch escorts purely because they're the only squad of elite megatermies that remember to give one guy a radio

which is hilarious

[tired cairn]

My idle thought is it could be neat if each faction had their own failed leadership effect instead of different leadership values

[junior summit]

Mordian napoleonic line is not the same thing as orkish waaagh is not the same thing as cybernetica not giving a shit is not the same thing as guilliman taking cover from arty

[vital barn]

you can also start the squad at 3 rather than 5 and it turns out that lets you fit them in a land raider, which is very points efficient

[junior summit]

Yeah the BTs charging on taking casualties was always really cool imo

[vital barn]

HH3e world eaters still have that

as do certain frenzied blackshields and militia cultists

not Siggy + Templar Brethren though

[floral herald]

I guess they were Normal back then

[vital barn]

traitor Emperor's Children can also get high from battle damage or the flashy lights of suppressive fire, which makes them ignore morale but also preoccupies them too much to react to changing circumstances

also FNP6+, neat rule in general

[junior summit]

would be an interesting way to slow down the game imo

Pinned units get some kind of damage resistance to represent going to ground but can't do certain actions etc

[tired cairn]

Did it autopass it, or was it necessary because it was infeasible to have a leader with every unit?

[vital barn]

that was the old 7e pin, but it didn't really help

[floral herald]

Gave better ld to pass the tests

[vital barn]

partly because everyone had ATSKNF/fearless/stubborn, partially because Go To Ground was a really bad trade back then

[tired cairn]

GW probably doesn't want to slow the game down

[jaunty dawn]

My least favourite part of hh3 is that destroyers and ashen circle are a different unit type

I dont really understand that

[vital barn]

ashen circle are farenheit 451, destroyers are more about the killpeopleism

[junior summit]

Destroyers aren't just fire

Also rad and vortex weapons iirc

[vital barn]

or do you literally mean the slot they go in

[jaunty dawn]

Like the ashen circle are specialised destroyers

[vital barn]

because yeah no idea there

[jaunty dawn]

Mechanically the slot yeah

[vital barn]

sometimes that's a bit odd, you can get a stationary turret in the recon slot

[jaunty dawn]

Like destroyers share with termie squads

Ashen circle with ummmm

[junior summit]

This one is funny because the 2++ T6 iirc gave makari a winning matchup into a number of space marine characters back in the day

[jaunty dawn]

I actually dont know what else goes in fast attack jetbikes and landspeeders I guess

Maybe?

[junior summit]

Because saves are exponential and a 2++ is twice as good as a 3++

[vital barn]

all the old planes

storm eagle and xiphon still relevant

and fire raptor

but they're less good this edition if you don't have specific taxi or suppression jobs for them

[junior summit]

I think theres a niche for a game thats less rocket tag-y but that would need to be smaller and is also just kill team

But I want to be able to field a tank

[vital barn]

also totally unrelated lore I found: a Titan Legion at full strength is 200-300 titans, which seems high for what we generally see

thanks, AT rulebook, I really had no idea there because you see titans in totally as-the-plot-demands numbers

[junior summit]

Huh

Oh wait the entire legion

[tired cairn]

So more people (in the Titans) than a space marine chapter :V

[vital barn]

this is for the great Legion wars of the Horus Heresy, which tended to result in two titan legions fighting for long enough to totally level the area they both wanted to claim and then leaving

not a productive form of war

possibly they are smaller in M41

[floral herald]

Titans have pretty small crews iirc

[vital barn]

even for those, 200+ titans per side is a gigantic, very rare size of battle, so I think they're about as split up as the Space Marine Legions are

[tired cairn]

Unproductive forms of war anywhere in my 40k? Inconceivable!

[floral herald]

It’s like 1-2 for a warhound

I think 3-5 for a warlord?

[junior summit]

It depends

[floral herald]

Emperors are big because of the garrison

[tired cairn]

Oh, so around the same as a chapter (since both exclude support elements)

[floral herald]

Roughly yeah

[junior summit]

in one of the books an emperor titan has an entire internal crew population like a ship

[tired cairn]

Probably if only because they are less likely to ever be full-strength

[vital barn]

warhounds have full crews of at least 4 + a couple of servitors

princeps, 2x moderatus, enginseer and their chumps

[junior summit]

Imperator Wrath of the Omnissiah

[vital barn]

Imperators are going full space battleship yamato and have these huge bridges with a dozen or two dozen guys on them

pretty good novel, I liked that one

[tired cairn]

Kind of surprising Knights don't have another person in there somewhere

[junior summit]

Theres the command crew, a whole pile of maintenance people, the garrison, a bunch of garrison auxiliaries, etc

[vital barn]

especially the bit where an inquisitor shows up and goes "gimme titan" and they go "no fuck off" and throw him in a box

real 41st millennium politics hours

[junior summit]

That inquisitor was kinda stupid

[floral herald]

The warlord in Titan: God Machine has iirc 4 on the bridge (princeps and 3 moderati) and a roaming enginseer

[vital barn]

yeah, not the brightest =][= in the ordo

[floral herald]

And like 4 dozen emplaced servitors but they don’t count

[vital barn]

I think that's about right for bridge crew but they have a few more support lads these days

[floral herald]

The engineseer may have had an apprentice it’s been a while

[vital barn]

since "extra servitor clades" is a warlord wargear option and that's a few dozen servitors and a few adepts on top of your normal complement to increase servitor count by 33%

[floral herald]

Titan God Machine is pretty old

[junior summit]

Zayth being a planet of eternal war where everyone has forgotten what the point was is deeply funny in its implausibility

[vital barn]

I am fond of Titanicus

not the book, the game

[junior summit]

Presumably they're fighting over immediate resources and such so there is a reason for conflict

[vital barn]

since it actually tries to sketch out a vaguely plausible world of giant mech faux-naval battles that barely ever happen

the legios are wild but also internally consistent by 40k standards

[tired cairn]

What if the eternal war is like the Korea DMZ most of the time?

[junior summit]

Yeah but thats the boring answer for 40k

[vital barn]

also it's very fun when a cruiser tries to blow your titans up and you respond by elevating volcano cannon and having a gun duel against the ship in orbit

you need half a dozen battle titans to do that but it is possible

[junior summit]

"There is only war involves surprisingly little actual war" does balance the numbers a good deal but its boooring

[tired cairn]

It could be like "we need to take this resource area supply the war effort" so even if the immediate conflicts make sense the overall reason for them doesn't

[vital barn]

Titanicus also has inverse warp missiles

they're not vortex warheads, they're normal warheads but they launch into the warp and portal out inside the target

which is immensely stylish and almost worth replacing your carapace mounts with 1 shot weapons to do

[junior summit]

Yeah its explainable but that is also kinda me solving the authors problen for them

[tired cairn]

That sounds like an Aeldari weapon

[junior summit]

Its basically a shokk attak gun

[vital barn]

shokk attack gun but with deathstrikes

you can put vortex warheads on them but those are mentioned to be the real irreplaceable archaeotech stuff because the two warp engines interfere with each other

[tired cairn]

Oh fair. Yeah. Though in 40k I think "yeah, planet is at war so long people forgot why" is like, something that is the right level of dumb to not need an explanation lol

[vital barn]

they break them out for the siege of terra and even the other titan legions are shocked they did that rather than die with the missiles left in the base to preserve their glory points

since they're even less replaceable than titans

("not", rather than "it'll take a decade")

[tired cairn]

Siege of Terra seems an appropriate time to use your irreplaceable super weapons if there ever was a time

[charred bridge]

Orks have a surprising amount of like teleport a guy into you weaponry in the game

[junior summit]

Ork teleport tech being weirdly good was a bit I'm a little sad they gave up because I thought it gave them texture

[charred bridge]

Not something I usually associate with an ork the teleportation tech but there was the Nobel I get confused whether cunningly brutal or brutally cunning where an ork on a jeep just happens to teleport past a titan voidshields next to a princips

[runic swallow]

It fits their kinda ACME-ass tech they have going on tbh

[charred bridge]

I did like how you could just friendly fire explode a guy with a grot by accident

[runic swallow]

The teleport gun was very funny

[vital barn]

Did they ditch that? I was under the impression they still teleported a lot

[junior summit]

Its emphasized less

[tired cairn]

I think the most notable one is Da Jump? Which is technically not teleport tech

[junior summit]

Iirc the last time was the shokk dragster

[jaunty dawn]

They had a teleport strat previously I think

To deep strike an arbitrary unit

Also wait they got a new big mek who teleports this edition :P

It would be a fun concept for a detachment though

Shokk-boosta

[vital barn]

did not realise quite how big Cawl's ship was until someone pointed out that as a dozens-of-miles-long ovoid blob covered in shipyards and guns it's basically a LOGH fortress

loading up my Ark Mechanicus

[thin ibex]

so, do i understand right that Orks occassionally out tech even the aeldar, admech, and necrons, its just not exactly a consistent thing?

just fungoid neurons connecting in the right way to let orks build a door to reach god occassionally

[vital barn]

yeah pretty much

Orks don't seem to stop scaling

so once they hit critical mass of green they can just break out some real nonsense

[pastel rampart]

Orks have, in a very distant and fractured way, access to Old Ones-level tech. It's just that they rarely and accidentally stumble into it and often blow themselves up using it.

[vital barn]

they're smarter than they look all the time but sometimes they can get nuts with it and teleport moons across the galaxy

[tired cairn]

High intelligence, very low wisdom

[vital barn]

Necrons can also do most of the stuff maxed-out orks can do, but in their case they have to battle through 60 mn years of entropy and three layers of robodementia to deploy any of it

[charred bridge]

High CHA but they have a feat to replace tech skills with CHA instead of INT from the Old Ones

[vital barn]

see: that guy in Twice-Dead King who has 200 monoliths in an extradimensional box but can't remember how to open it (or indeed remember much of anything) because he has too much robobrain damage

so at every meeting he goes "aha, we shall deploy THE MONOLITHS!" and everyone nods along politely so as not to upset him

[charred bridge]

Also Silent King did get rid or lock away the worst of Necron tech

Stuff Necrons have now is the safe stuff

[pastel rampart]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/382385142116909057/1450699415479259186/CEE30BC2-9BF0-40E8-BC6F-C6020E952B34.mov?ex=6944255d&is=6942d3dd&hm=d8d699919a92bc95eda994f46df0578b6cf778ab176c5a05864783dfc644054b&

[sour sequoia]

I’m pretty sure the tomb world awakening noise is continent-shaking dialup screeching

[pastel rampart]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/596197650332778498/1450994582782349412/recently-saw-this-in-a-random-discord-server-im-in-thoughts-v0-t0ilwotj0v6g1.png?ex=69448f82&is=69433e02&hm=d9f557700fd5f461366bbda9b949092032097e7e0cabf6bb33cfd35728aea958&

[runic swallow]

I think it would be so funny to make a battle map with roads and rivers and villages and whatnot, all with normal seeming detail and such, and only after someone has played on it reveal it’s based on the layout of that playmat everyone of several generations remembers playing on

Like, all normal looking stuff, be willing to change one or two of the roads into rivers or whatnot, but base the general layout on the playmat

[pale narwhal]

honestly that'd be kinda sick

[runic swallow]

Like, I’m saying it as a bit but I would actually love it

[little bay]

this is belesarius cawls ship?

[jaunty dawn]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer30k/comments/1ppqo6c/new_cataphractii_comparison_photos/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Big fan of these now that we have better photos

[broken dew]

I fucking love cataphracts

The power fist doesn't look great and it has those awkward floaty shoulders but overall it looks pretty good

[vital barn]

No, it's a fortress from Legend of the Galactic Heroes, but Cawl's ship is an Ark Mechanicus of the old breed and as such has similar volume. It's a giant red ovoid dozens of miles long bristling with dockyards, it fits.

[broken dew]

Ark Mechanicus sound rad

love me some moving space fortresses

[paper bluff]

And many times an arc mechanicus is from the dark age of technology and has weapons from that time. It's just the tech priests on board don't really know how to activate or use them.And there is also one hundred percent an AI apart of the ship's systems

[broken dew]

i do love AI

[marsh tree]

getting back to my goremongers conversion

Does anyone know of an STL that would work good for their unique legs?

[broken dew]

still thinking about space hulks

imagine clearing out a space hulk and flying that shit around

[pastel rampart]

I've been thinking of making a space hulk board/terrain.

[marsh tree]

ooh!

[pastel rampart]

THE POWER OF 3D PRINTING has made that so much more approachable.

[marsh tree]

I have considerd using Calico Critters/Sylvanian Families stuff as terrain. The scales are surprisingly close

[pastel rampart]

Nothing more metal than Calico Critters.

[marsh tree]

:3

[pastel rampart]

https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/game/necro-battle-area I do plan to do a 2'x3' board using these and then a bunch of sci-fi stuff on top like removable walls.

[vital barn]

The totally undetectable mega AI was only in that one as far as I know, but Cawl's one is still a world-ship and Dominion Genesis has another one of the old breed enforcing essentially an instant death radius against a giant Tyranid hive fleet because it has so many exotic guns

It's mentioned there that "Ark Mechanicus" is a grab bag and includes both the DAOT flying forge worlds, genuine modern superships and a range of slightly large, slightly nice battleships given the classification as a vanity title to feed the owner's prestige

Apparently the modern ones worthy of the name are 100-year construction projects because they're vast

[broken dew]

i'm still really happy with the idea i had for my chapter where they commandeered a Space Hulk, slapped ship parts on the outside to make it look like it's some big old human ship stuck in a bunch of bits of rock and claimed it as an ancient wreck

the idea mostly works on the premise that it's not a particularly enormous space hulk, a little bit larger than a star fortress at most, and the fact that my guys are specifically a chapter who would be very adept at clearing space hulks since they love terminators and actually make use of void hardened armor even though it's difficult to maintain and expensive and overall not super good

The idea of a space combat based chapter finding a space hulk that they could reasonably clear and do something with and saying "it's free real estate" is just enjoyable to me

[onyx elm]

WH video games do this thing where I don't know or care much about a certain faction and then after it's introduced in a cool way I'm all in. I didn't care that the Abarties were in Darktide, but after a sweet intro through Rogue Trader, I'm all about them in DT.

[rocky shale]

Arbetes are both cool and dumb at the same time

Like most warhammer stuff

[onyx elm]

Space cops who are more like space tax collectors. I love it.

[jaunty dawn]

If arbites are space fbi wheres the space x files novel series

[little bay]

nice doohickey in your pfp

[rocky shale]

That's the ordo xenos

[past sphinx]

The Inquisition war by ian watson

[broken dew]

lmaooooo

[charred bridge]

x files but

[broken dew]

Adeptus Ridiculous made a vid about that series

it was

it sure was

[charred bridge]

Out of everything theyve done riffing on 40k, that one required the least amount of memeing, they just quoted almost everything directly

They could not outdo Ian Watson

Let alone Ian Watson writing a Slaanesh story

[broken dew]

Ian Watson was truly channeling Slaanesh for that one

[jaunty dawn]

Ordo Xenos are the conspiracy hiding the information the arbiter is looking for

Like x files isnt a show about discovering aliens its about discovering conspiracies about aliens and other shit

X files would be finding out about the kryptman gambit and being like holy shit what

[charred bridge]

The Ordo Xenos' greatest enemy, the Ordo Xenos Inquisitors (Puritan vs radical)

The only thing stopping a radical inquisitor with exterminatus is a dogmatic inquisitor with exterminatus

[tired cairn]

The only thing stopping exterminatus is... wait, damn it

[jaunty dawn]

Like it would be about arbites having to solve problems that are alien or warp or other related while not being allowed to know any of the details of that shit cause its heresy

Above their paygrade

[tired cairn]

That would be pretty cool

[charred bridge]

They only need to know it's affecting the tithe

[jaunty dawn]

And then some random inquisitor makes secret contact to be like… ah yes in my youth I once encountered a rak’gul…

[desert jay]

On a different note, Paul IBAS doing "which faction could I beat the weakest memeber of in a fistfight, no weapons no armor" and I gotta say TSons has a pretty convincing case

[jaunty dawn]

Pffff

I mean yeah. Yeah

[desert jay]

Drukari was also like "well, I wouldn't die"

[jaunty dawn]

Eldar might involve just smashing a rock

But that rock might be able to cast glamours at you so

Idk

[strong owl]

(thing... progress.......)

[jaunty dawn]

Always impressed by your commitment to the bit

Omg the acid gunner names

[upper canopy]

Instantly showing this to Alfabusa and co. because this is exactly what he'd name a warband

[jaunty dawn]

Heat rays are like sci fi artists?

[strong owl]

yep! specifically biomechanical art

[jaunty dawn]

And flamespitters grills 😋

Awesomeee

[vital barn]

I think he was a bit mean to himself in some cases, I'd personally expect a normal human to beat up a servo-skull

[desert jay]

And I think he also forgot Nurglings exist

[jaunty dawn]

Its kinda about where you draw the boundaries on faction

[desert jay]

Would he win against a Nurgling? IDK but he'd have a better shot than some of the other ones he examined

[jaunty dawn]

Cause like space marine scout? Your fucked. Space marine pre adolescent chapter serf who lights the candles?

[desert jay]

It seems like he restricted it to tabletop units

Which would also rule out servo-skulls which really are more like accessories

[jaunty dawn]

Like thousands sons if you limit to the astartes members its a win but not if you include their cultists

[storm schooner]

I think beating up a grot would be fairly easy. It's like. their whole job is getting beat up

[jaunty dawn]

And kinda a similar thing with necrons probably cause what does no armour mean there

[storm schooner]

They're made of metal, that's their natural body now. You simply lose.
Even a scarab would self destruct and kill you

[vital barn]

Against a nurgling you probably draw, it gets punted and then you die of megacholera

[desert jay]

Damn and even normal cholera sucks to die from

[charred bridge]

Drukhari also was like "well, you wouldn't die either"

[bright dove]

"Enjoy your combat induced syphilis boyo!"

[charred bridge]

Maybe you could beat an unarmed Tau in a fistfight

[charred bridge]

If you pick parts of models, a squig on an ork

Like a targeting squig separated from the ork

[jaunty dawn]

I think a squig would be harder than a grot

Like a squig has raw animal aggression

Grots are kinda inclined to be beaten up

[charred bridge]

True but I imagine an unarmed human could take a very basic squig out

[thin ibex]

wait whats a tsons weakest unit?

i think a firewarrior is probably pretty beat up able in hand to hand combat

[vital barn]

Pretty famously that's the one thing they're worse at than normal humans

an earth caste maybe not, they're pretty jacked

although they do all have knives instead of wedding rings so I'd want a melee weapon

[charred bridge]

Air caste though

[vital barn]

Air caste are supremely rugby tackleable

[charred bridge]

If you can pick and choose parts off of a tabletop model then Manta would have air caste so fighting one in unarmed combat would be probably real easy

[vital barn]

and if I can't take any of them I can at least find an unarmed drone and beat it into a wall a few times

[charred bridge]

Especially in gravity

[vital barn]

Mechanicum is also a doddle because servo-automata repair bots mindlock to uselessness without a controller

[jaunty dawn]

I think the idea is that if you take a rubric marine to be the weakest tson unit, then removing their armour means youve already won

[vital barn]

so I just have to figure out how to do 2 wounds to T5 3+

which is probably quite hard, unarmed

kicking dustbin simulator

[junior summit]

Cultists

Possibly blue horrors

[junior summit]

Idk people keep putting guns in the skulls

[paper bluff]

Don't make fun of how khorne does armaments

[junior summit]

no thats skulls in the guns

[thin ibex]

i feel like beating up a cultist isn't actually all that easy, most people arent very good at fighting other people

and the cultist has zeal on their side

[jaunty dawn]

Yeah a cultist is like

Fighting a militant

The current models are swole as hell too

[thin ibex]

I think a gretchin is my vote. Itd be line fighting a vicious toddler with a very large head, sharp teeth, and both a bad pistol and bad knife.

Id probably get hurt but I could handle one

[tired cairn]

Chaos worship is basically the same as taking steroids

[vital barn]

Given this is a fistfight I think I could take a ratling

any other situation I get shot from nowhere

[viral crest]

I was under the assumption you were both unarmed

[thin ibex]

Oh yeah then I could handle a gretchin

I kinda assumed he had a shiv

I think i could fight a basic, unarmed and unarmored fire warrior too. Probably get beat up in the doing it

Air caste would be easy

[tired cairn]

Gretchen is still going to cheat out a shiv though

[junior summit]

Everyone in 40k is swole

The average soylens viridians ration is 90% algal protein

[thin ibex]

mankind, viewed through the lens of the most swole techno swolebarian ever to stride Terra's wastelands

[pastel rampart]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/408452338622267401/1451420119497441393/image.png?ex=69461bd2&is=6944ca52&hm=2a97a928aa7022ad9d9f474699f56c9ab203a407fa8cdc6dbc9294cb6969cc4a&

[wary cape]

Darn, so close

[jaunty dawn]

Dinosaur?

[paper bluff]

I think the real thing that would be for a cultist is that they've got high morale

[wintry mist]

holy shit this is a banger

https://tenor.com/view/black-templar-sister-of-battle-warhammer-40k-dancing-space-marine-gif-16084334959388278613

[raven meteor]

#video-game-discussion message Anyway,
Going onto a tactics page for GSC and seeing this listed as a Pro really cracked me up
It's one of Those playstyles I see
Carl Clover looking ass

[floral herald]

Lmfao that’s so real

[raven meteor]

........What would a genestealer named character even be
They're sort of temporary flash in the pan organizations by nature

[rocky shale]

You could put this for agents (If they had one!)

Named character: Jean Steeler

[junior summit]

John Kelermorph?

You'd probably need archetypes rather than explicit characters

I.e the kelermorph as a recurring hero to the downtrodden etc

[raven meteor]

Yeah I guess it would have to be like The Kelerest Morph
Maybe like how the Swarmlord is rebuilt by the Tyranids whenever it dies, a Particular Genestealer Figurehead crops up in revolt after revolt because they're programmed into genestealer DNA

[obsidian flume]

Honestly that would go hard

Maybe you could make one that’s like, a fake Saint

For the more 4 armed emperor type Genestealer cults

[pale narwhal]

My darktide psyker is named Jeanne Steeler. No relation to genestealers, I assure you

[vital barn]

I always imagined this was basically how GSC character units worked anyway

The Abominant definitely gestures in that direction

[onyx elm]

Vet named Johnny Third-Arm

[raven meteor]

Oh yeah but I meant like
An Individual rather than a like, morph
Something something 'mastermind who learns from every successful genestealer cult because the swarm reabsorbs their experiences and integrates it into the next one'

[vital barn]

That feels like it would defeat the point of GSC being a bunch of locally innovative little gremlins who aren't pulling major galactic players out of nowhere

it's nice to have at least one faction that isn't just dropping a high lord of terra or a primarch or whatever every other battle

[raven meteor]

Fair! The root of this convo was just 'what would a named genestealer character even be'

[vital barn]

I think you could maybe get away with the patriarch of one of the larger cults

there are some interplanetary ones

or even one of his lieutenants, it's not like the Guard struggled for uniques before the era of Epic Hero-hammer where every faction got a primarch equivalent, and those were just dudes

[paper bluff]

https://www.tumblr.com/encarminus/803107530775642113/merry-fucking-sanguinala-i-havent-seen-this-one?source=share

🩸whammy blog🩸

merry FUCKING sanguinala, i havent seen this one reposted here (or maybe im blind) so you all now get to see this thing and also have your very own cutout sanguinius

-# #sanguinius #sanguinala #wh40k #warhammer 40k #i was listening to adeptus ridiculous and they showed this thing and i lost my shit #im printing these out tomorrow with the company printer

Tumblr · Dec 16, 2025, 4:37 PM

[broken dew]

Sanguinius 😔

[paper bluff]

Shit I mean, the leader of the custodians might be said to be primarch like, but he's very underwhelming

[thin ibex]

I do feel like Trajann is much scarier in lore than in game

[tepid stratus]

Dude took out a norn emissary in lore, he can't in game unless he gets real lucky with the moment shackle

[tired cairn]

Tyranids are only contractually obligated to job in lore, not tabletop

[vital barn]

He's a high lord, so he's covered by the other category

[mild glen]

Lore is Propaganda Pieces or stories where someone's dice are especially hot.
The real tale of the tape is the tabletop

'Nids just lack propagandists

[sweet solar]

counterpoint: the rulebooks and stats are cannon but no tabletop is cannon , not even official batreps

[mild glen]

These are the same argument.

[past sphinx]

nothing is canon in 40k

the entire horus heresy?

psi op

guard books are the sole peusdo-canonical works

emperor? dead guy. Primarchs? dead generals. space marines? robots probably

and ill be dead cold and buried before i acknowledge terra

eldar? tall humans. Squats? short humans. Necrons? robot humans but not the space marine robots

[pastel rampart]

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/warhammer40k/images/2/27/Dancing_Marines_Jim_Holloway_1994_illustration.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20190107194437

And this too, of course.

[sour sequoia]

Alas GSC talk escaped me while I was on an international flight with the flu—Patriarch was an Epic Hero until 10th, thats about it

And re: pro “nobody understands your army” cannot be understated tbh, you put in the effort and you will just clap games on scoring.

[raven meteor]

It def seems like an Extremely Tricksy faction

[sour sequoia]

So few people play this thing that going even at one tournament put me top 100 in North America

[raven meteor]

LMAO

[sour sequoia]

Extremely OnlyTricks

I dont know what honest warhammer is but I know I dont have it

[raven meteor]

Honest Warhammer feels like custodes or something
Admittedly still learning what everyone does but
Like 12 dudes with god stats facerolling

[sour sequoia]

Here’s a 20-man guardsman squad that gibs big knights, or a bunch of naked guys with 5+ saves and hammers who outlast custodians

Everything about the Reductus Saboteur, actual best lone op in the game

“Oh cool thats your like, librarian psyker guy right” and its actually just the norn emissary’s antitank gun on a 32mm buried in a guardsma squad

[raven meteor]

It feels like a lot of your weird synergy units being 'dude whose fiddling with some device' is a perception filter yeah

[vital barn]

I am steadily starting to like GSC more and more as I learn more about them

although I suppose Skitarii also have some shenanigans, just less of them

just about the only facecheck armies I've ever played are 30k Mech and Ossiarchs in AoS

and Mechanicum get the weirdo freak faction status because they're a lot more complicated than Legions 1 through 19, despite basically being about arranging stat checks

[raven meteor]

These are not something you look at the way you look at like
Some huge mech with a chainsaw

[vital barn]

Reductus saboteur looks pretty intimidating, the rest don't trigger the tabletop fear response

[raven meteor]

They're sort of in the top three factions That I Think Are Neat but I definitely know that even if I learn the system a playstyle that weird and psyop focused will not work for me
If I actually manage to finish grinding my way through the rules I'm gonna focus on Sisters to start
Those girls are why I'm here

[sour sequoia]

I cannot in good faith recommend em even as they’re phenomenal and my pet army because the absurd learning curve + whole army being a dollar per point besides Goliaths and Aberrants/every army being dependent on massive quantities of different battleline units means its Rough Out Here

[raven meteor]

Oh don't worry about that second bit
I plan on doing all this over tabletop sim because I don't want to become a beggar (or paint things)
It's very much the galaxy brain that's the issue

[mental birch]

Two kinds of GSC players

[rocky shale]

Wrath of the rock dark angels are craaaaazy

Fought for my life and lost 65-68 on some bad secondary draws round 5

[vital barn]

'I don't understand,' he replied. 'Start what?'

Jain Zar waved at the macabre ornamentation.

'This. When you began, you couldn't have possessed enough bones for the whole ship. It would look stupid with a few dozen skeletons nailed to the walls. So, how do you start? Do you save up enough bodies for a corridor at a time, or put them away until you have enough to decorate the entire vessel?'```
Jain Zar asking important questions of the Dark Eldar who has decorated his ship with flayed craftworlders

[raven meteor]

Clearly they all died at once in a Typical 40k Megaslaughter

[desert jay]

Really curious how the guy answered

[vital barn]

he did not, he just growled at her and then took her to see his boss

[desert jay]

A mystery for the ages!

[past sphinx]

digging up the megagraveyards

[misty violet]

The secret is that they're actually bought from a skeleton wholesaler who gets them grown straight by a homunculus, most of them were never actually alive at any point or even ever had skin and muscle

[paper bluff]

That sounds like a waste. Of course there would have been muscle on those skeletons. He just grafted that onto something else

[vital barn]

in another entry of "Misc skims short stories", there's apparently a prequel short to Brutal Kunning which involves the Orks randomly running into a single Kastelan, having a real good fight and dubbing it "tinboy"

unfortunately they did not loot it and paint it green

[tired cairn]

Couldn't figure out how to get inside

[vital barn]

there was at least one Mekboy sentiment of "cool, I've always wanted to see one of those!" right before it power fisted the aforementioned mek into green dust

they beat it by the very orky expedient of duct taping a bazillion grenades together and throwing the ball at it, then running in with a bunch of nobz

I'm glad someone is enjoying the great works of the omnissiah even if it's in a slightly odd sense

in fact now I'm on my reread of Brutal Kunning I am quite charmed by just how much fun the Orks are having fighting the admech

the voids on a Warlord they've just captured using an imperator-sized gargant, some teleport nonsense and a dragster are, apparently, "the business"

they don't like fighting Dark Eldar quite so much, for obvious horrible poison reasons

[pine matrix]

That's so fucking funny, she thinks it's gauche

[vital barn]

Jain Zar is perhaps a bit too human in this one honestly

but it is funny

[pine matrix]

Asking some imperial where they get the babies for cherubs from
"We make them"
"Yes I know you make them, but nine months for each one?"
"No, no-"

[vital barn]

at one point a dark eldar archon is doing the traditional evil sleaze thing of running his hand over her armour possessively during negotiations and she just goes "look, man, I'm a Phoenix Lord, I couldn't fuck even if I was capable of wanting to" in such a straightforward manner that he's very taken aback, as that was not quite his intention

[vital barn]

Even a direct hit only rendered an ork immobile or otherwise ineffective forty-eight point two five per cent of the time, and there were many more of the enemy than could be brought down before they reached the base of the wall
This is kind of cute because at least when this was written, a standard galvanic rifle hit on tabletop killed an ork exactly 50% of the time unless the ork was in cover, in which case it got a 6+ save

they've gotten tougher since

[mental birch]

Wait in 8e they were bolters i thought

[vital barn]

I could be misremembering the exact statline but I'm pretty sure they were AP-1 for a bit

Definitely in 7e they had S4 AP4 and 'ardboyz were T4 4+

[mental birch]

They had 6's to wound ap1

But like that was really niche

[vital barn]

Still, close enough

Certainly closer to tabletop than your average bolter in a BL book, it's within a couple of percentage points either way

[raven meteor]

I have attempted
An incursion army
(I was told by a friend off server that 5 points short of cap is well within acceptable margins)

I do not have the new recruit option to attach leaders but I assume people can intuit who is supposed to go where

[charred bridge]

Megaslaughter, the older brother of the Imperial Fist named Slaughter

[raven meteor]

I'm nodding! This tracks!

[charred bridge]

Also Slaughter was the only surviving Imperial Fist in the chapter at some point during war of the beast so like they did all indeed died at once sans one guy

[mental birch]

Wow i hate this (this is good)

[raven meteor]

Anyhow I have given the rules a bit of a read but haven't like, gotten to the familiarity level I want yet, and obv don't really have a lot of wider system knowledge but the basic idea is
The Hospitaler-led Sacresants grind up the middle and hold objectives
The Mortifers plug away with heavy bolters and eventually hurl into the fray for melee carnage and miracle dice
The Vahl Pals carve up any really nasty stuff
And the whole three Arco Flagellants fill points while daring people to either kill them to give me a miracle dice or ignore them as they cause mild issues

[mental birch]

Wow i hate sacristants

Hahaha

[jaunty dawn]

Meannn

[raven meteor]

I caught on to the sacresant block + hospitaler combo while reading up on SoB tactics, I am glad to hear that this was not Some Redditor Saying Things

I've got a few pals with tabletop sim who are also interested in 40k with varying levels of experience, so hey, maybe I'll actually play it if it's good!

[mental birch]

They refuse to die to my AP2 flamers

[jaunty dawn]

Oh wow the hospitaler got so much better

Or did it always give fnp

[mental birch]

Led by a hospitalier?

Hatahatehate

:p

[raven meteor]

I'm deeply amused how many layers of defense the Sacresant + Hospitallers have
Debuff to the wound roll, decent save (afaik?), pretty good invulnerable save, feel no pain, regening models if not wiped out

There's like five points of failure on each attack against them

[viral crest]

That guy then died

[charred bridge]

Yes, but the Imperial Fists got better

[viral crest]

War of the Beast did in fact kill off the entire Imperial Fists chapter of Space Marines, because apparently they all ditched the Phalanx in orbit of Venus and went 4 systems away?

[mental birch]

I have to spend a command point and my elite buster missile unit on them

[viral crest]

The Phalanx just, doesn't show up until after the successor chapters all get together and remake the fists

[jaunty dawn]

I still miss armour of contempt sacresant haha

And they had 2+ armour too

Sad

[charred bridge]

They forgo

[raven meteor]

That's the sort of issue I hope to solve with the likes of the Mortifiers
On that note- Anchorite Mortifiers or full on Penitent Engines (and drop the enhancement from one of the hospitalers to afford it) 🤔
Again still learning stuff, so not great at understanding the proper ratio of surivivability vs Getting TF In yet

[mental birch]

Hate being in this situation lol hahaha

Best i can do is melta Morgan

[sour sequoia]

Yeah this is abt the gist of it

Morven Vahl and the Morven Dolls is one of the nastiest units around

[mental birch]

Yeah i said i hated this list in a good way for a reason ahhaha

[raven meteor]

I was surprised to figure out the zeitgeist around Paragons was mostly 'they're so ugly'
I like them a lot honestly

[mental birch]

Mecha
T’au Empire
Retaliation Cadre
980 points

• Commander in Coldstar Battlesuit [Prototype Weapon System] [1x CIB, 2x FB, 2x GD, 1x HOBC] 110
• Commander in Enforcer Battlesuit [Warlord] [Starflare Ignition System] [1x MD, 4x MP, 1x SD] 100
• Crisis Fireknife Battlesuits [6x Missile pod, 3x GD, 3x SD] 120
• Crisis Starscythe Battlesuits [3] [6x Flamer, 2x GD, 1x MD, 3x SD] 110
• Crisis Sunforge Battlesuits [3] [2x GD, 1x MD, 3x SD] 140
• Pathfinder Team [2x GD, 1x Recon Drone] 90
• Riptide Battlesuit [1x Ion, 2x Missile Drone, 1x Plasma] 200
• Stealth Battlesuits [5] [1x GD, 1x MD] 110

[jaunty dawn]

I like morven vahl quite a lot visually

[mental birch]

Behold my mech fight lost

List

[raven meteor]

Oooooooo

[jaunty dawn]

I think paragons with similar robes would be cool

[sour sequoia]

Spear sacresants are a good unit to force people to answer you on primary

[mental birch]

Biggest thing is i cant just overwatch them off with flamers

[raven meteor]

Trueeeee
Would make people complain about the legs less too :3

[mental birch]

Give the warsuits a spinny dress

Poofy dress

[sour sequoia]

Its worth noting certain things are gonna be punching thru em Anyways since they’re not marine toughness and IIRC single wound

[jaunty dawn]

I like sacresants I wanna make ones for every character

[sour sequoia]

But they’re a problem your opponent has to actually solve

[jaunty dawn]

Hospitaler with shield. Imagifier with shield

[raven meteor]

It is a little funny that the SOBs have little versions of space marine power armor, but also drive Even Bigger Versions of space marine power armor
While the space marines themselves have like at least 2 bigger tiers of power armor/mini mech

[jaunty dawn]

I have a palanite with a shield already :)

[mental birch]

Saturnine dreads

[sour sequoia]

Keep meaning to grab an Imagifier to make for my third Iconward

Hell of a sculpt

[raven meteor]

Yeahhhhh, 10 models one wound each
But Hospitalers can bring models back so essentially is healing wounds

[jaunty dawn]

Oooh imagifier iconward sounds fun

Bloody rose sacresants basically carried my entire game in 9e

Zephyrim were fun but unkillable block of melee death did the bulk of the work

[sour sequoia]

Doesn’t it? Its a clear equivalent but it’s a very different vibe from the acolyte sculpt

[jaunty dawn]

Mhm mhm

[mental birch]

Bht yeah my math says wow hate

Because i only kill 6 without the FNP

4 witth it

Againdt the Sacristans

[sour sequoia]

With what unit?

[raven meteor]

I HAVE been wondering which Order this army would be
I guess with Vahl around it's heavily encouraged to be Argent Shroud but iirc they're a
Slightly more sane, guns shooting kind of order
While this is like, bloody rose go in and cut up heretics melee centric situation

[mental birch]

Flamersuits

I wipe basic battle sisters

[sour sequoia]

Gotcha. I think Breachers slap em to hell at least

[mental birch]

Not saying much

Breachers slap everuone

[sour sequoia]

Fair enough lmao

Montana meta is boatloads of world eaters, death guard, chaos marines so our good tau players are all kinda just at “take 30 breachers and then figure out your list”

[rocky shale]

Gyr why is my local meta all melee marines XD

I got bullied by the lion last night

Wtf is a deathwing knight and why did it steal my lunch money

[sour sequoia]

I can almost guarantee its less aggrobrained than mine

Wargames Live came up here and was fuckin blown away

We’re just beating each other with hammers

[rocky shale]

Lost 63-66 on basically the last secondary draw but it was brutal

[sour sequoia]

You wanna know the secret to the lion is 90% of the time you can just kill everything else and then ignore him, even as he’s like. Viable now. Distraction Carnifex

[rocky shale]

That's what I realized after he vaporized my banshees on contact

I also misunderstood the wrath of the rock charge in enemy charge phase strat

Jumped the lion, failed to kill him, got charged by inner circle companions with a judicar

[sour sequoia]

Yeah that one’s hard to see unless you’ve played AoS where it’s a global strat

[rocky shale]

After that I basically just played keep away from the lion and 2 units of deathwing knights

The inner circle companions were tough but still went down in one round of focus fire

My opponent also kept cull for like 3 rounds trying to kill my guardian+warlock blob

If I didn't feed the lion 300pts of banshees T2 I probably could have won lol

[sour sequoia]

Waiter waiter more 40ppm t3 melee for my fights first unit

[rocky shale]

Yeaaaah

The "both units fights first" standoff is goofy since whoever charges loses

Except if you can charge in your opponents turn and then get to fight first

[sour sequoia]

Fights First is just something you learn to play around, with the exception of like Plague Marines they’re almost always melee
-only units and you can just moveblock or shoot em to death, I usually just drown the lion in dirtbikes and metamorphs

Heroic Intervention is also the way, keep banshees back and stage so you can charge easy after he goes for his target

[rocky shale]

Yeaaaah

I got baited by a tempting target and not respecting what a 3++ invuln does

Or what 2+/3++ with AoC does

[sour sequoia]

You know what really pisses in lion’s wheaties? Swooping Hawks

[rocky shale]

My real takeway was that my list needs war walkers

[rocky shale]

Really? Just spamming AP0 lethal hits?

[sour sequoia]

Flyby Mortals and then that, yeah

[rocky shale]

Oh yeah fair

The 4+++ against mortals does hurt that a bit

[sour sequoia]

Just fucking mortals the guy and it’ll have the side benefit of Average PrimachHammer Player starting to seethe and melt down because you’re supposed to play their stupid game and engage in Honorable Combat

[mental birch]

Even into this meta i will take 18 crisis suits

[rocky shale]

My 5d6+10 destructor shots with eldrad +1 to wound did pretty good but they needed 1 more AP to not be as shut down by armor of contempt

[rocky shale]

Unfortunately my opponent was too normal for that

[sour sequoia]

Oh do war walkers give the AP after tagging?

Sick

[rocky shale]

Yeah it's really good and any time I cut them and then play into AoC I regret it

[sour sequoia]

Elfchilles CraftRunner

[vital barn]

I'd recruit the Corpuscarii Convention but AOC kind of rinses them

[sour sequoia]

Given that it’s the actual secret army rule of Genestealers at this point, yeah. Its really fucking good

[vital barn]

Pretty sure they cap out at -1ap despite the wonders of 16 autowounds + 30+ hits on average

[sour sequoia]

Corpuscarii Convention leaving the boat to score on objective and then a disintegrator or Dunecrawler may actually still be a trade up is the thing lmfao

Only a 30pt trade down actually. Not bad

[mental birch]

I am a crisis suit weirdo

Hahahaa

[sour sequoia]

“I am a [flagship model of faction] weirdo”

I respect crisis suit spam godspeed soldier

[pale narwhal]

if crisis suits weren't so goddamn expensive I might do the same

alas I only have six old sculpts so I usually run one fireknife squad and one starscythe with those

[mental birch]

I got reallt lucky

[mental birch]

Hey look everyone else is doing reasonable infantry combined arms

[vital barn]

Breacher gang is shooty enough to handle almost anything but deathwing have a really annoying statline

I'm pretty sure they handle Lion if I can kill his screen at least

[sour sequoia]

Remember to factor in Wrath of the Rock

[rocky shale]

Deeply evil detachment rule

[sour sequoia]

Thats the last sticky part of the situation, and only DA detach you’re gonna see like ever unless its the one guy in Bozeman who likes traveling to random RTTs across the country with company of hunters to go seal clubbing

[vital barn]

Not actually that much of a problem for the full breacher brick because I have 5+ lethals that can get rerolls if I'm going full murder

[sour sequoia]

Company of Hunters is actually even fucking nastier lol

[vital barn]

The annoying part is just that they take two failed 4++ each even with D3 guns

[sour sequoia]

You know nobody plays DA because people don’t know that detachment exists with the strongest rule in the game

[mental birch]

I lucked into a guy quitting tau

[vital barn]

I believe if I get the full Cawl-reroll lethals breacher brick firing at 18" or under they do pick up 5 DWK but that's basically the hardest I can go

[pale narwhal]

I think we’re talking about two different breachers (tau vs admech)

[vital barn]

Probably

I also like the Tau ones but I don't play blueberries and am quite fond of my tankette zombies

[brittle salmon]

Company of Hunters actually saw someone other than James repping it recently, it took 2nd at some Minneapolis tournament

[raven meteor]

I think I've decided on Sacred Rose....
They favor calm, slow, durable advances, which fits the core of the army with the Sacrasants
And attract a ton of fanatics to supplement their Sisters, so the Arco Flagellants and Mortifiers fit
Though I think I want to take the alternative approach I've seen around of the Anchorites being essentially SoB Dreadnaughts with the Agony Devices removed rather than have them be penitents

[rocky shale]

That is nasty but then you aren't slamming DWK

[topaz elk]

How many members does Deathwatch have?

[brittle salmon]

Their numbers are spread through the galaxy and constantly in flux, i don't think we can know

[topaz elk]

Ah alright

They aren’t beholden to the 1000 marine limit though?

[brittle salmon]

They're not a chapter

They're officially the militant arm of the Ordo Xenos

[misty violet]

Deathwatch is certainly one of those non-countable numbers in 40k, like the number of planets in the Imperium or total number of space marine chapters

[topaz elk]

Oh alright

[misty violet]

The answer is always going to be "Low enough for an amount of dramatic tension but high enough that you can always add a few more"

[topaz elk]

I just thought they were allied with them

Not officially under them

[jaunty dawn]

The orders militant lore is kinda outdated yeah

Chamber militant

Like the idea kinda comes from 3e era when there was meant to be three inquisition codices

But with deathwatch and gk becoming their own factions the lore kinda developed away from it imo

[brittle salmon]

I dunno

[jaunty dawn]

Also the sisters developing more towards ecclesiarchy service/running half the imperium/have a gun to the head of every priest

More specifically i mean that like.

You can absolutely take the chambers militant to be a matter of authority

But a lot of more modern lore doesnt really depict it that way

Which is why its possible for ppl to take it in either direction

[raven meteor]

Update- learning the TTS funnies!

[thin ibex]

https://www.newrecruit.eu/app/list/rKR6l

Running this against me WE buddy today, wish me luck

Not super optimized but my plan is to use all my transports to block for me

And focus fire any big monsters with my armor and fusion suits

[sour sequoia]

Premeasure everything, sit breachers at 10” exactly and they butcher berzerkers.

[thin ibex]

really i have what i need to win, its just me remembering how much ground the damn world eaters can cover

im just 1-3 against this guy, gotta learn my lesson sooner or later

im also planning on bleeding all his infantry with indirect sms fire

en mass

[viral crest]

Question:

Is 'Arbite' the singular of 'Arbites', and how is it pronounced

[pale narwhal]

I believe ‘Arbitrator’ is the singular usually used

[floral herald]

It is yeah

[viral crest]

Thank you

[floral herald]

“Judge” would also probably be appropriate for an Arbiter

[raven meteor]

So it looks like I've drummed up 3 other people to do games on TTS in the next few weeks 😌
Two fairly experienced with 40k if not this edition, one Very Fresh like myself

Looks like me as SoB, then Night Lords, Eldar, and the other newbie is undecided
Likes Harlequins but isn't really impressed by the 10th edition situation

[mental birch]

I'm free in like 12 hours

Hahah

If yoh want tts

[raven meteor]

Thank you for the offer, but our thingy is gonna be in the next week or two, don't think any of us are really Ready yet

[pale narwhal]

I believe judge is a specific rank

[broken dew]

https://youtube.com/shorts/n0mM3Qa2a0o?si=nO4cDepthz_1xkUO

gods this shit is so fucking funny

Talos basically got butt dialed by Nurgle

"man i don't want you"
"why the fuck are you even here"

[runic swallow]

That whole sequence is funny and interesting

[stark cypress]

"What the fuck."

"..."

"How the fuck did you get this number you, you parasitic abomination of a spirit."

"Look, this was a mis-"

"I know a mistake. You ya parasitic, weak willed, abomination of intellect, that I would not even let my squire lick."

"I'm hanging up."

"Chaplin! Chaplin! Bring forth the holy rites! A fecking fething karking pathetic servant of the Great Enemy has crawled away like a sniveling snotty snotling!"

[runic swallow]

Oh, no, Talos is a wet rat of a night lord (they are all some degree of wet rat)

[stark cypress]

Ah

Can we slaughter the wet rats that are too afraid to pick fights with anyone who isn't weaker than a child.

[broken dew]

It's more so Nurgle saying this not Talos

[runic swallow]

Many are trying, issue is catching them in a standup fight lol

[broken dew]

He thinks Talos is a bit shit and rightfully believes that Talos would never serve him properly

[stark cypress]

I mean

He's a Night Lord

The Night Lords are just gene enchanted gangers who believe in nothing.

The Deathguard believe

The Emperor's Children are nihilistic death cultists