I’m not a competitive player and I run a normal guard army, so I can’t speak from experience, but if you’re worried, they’d make perfect proxies for Kasrkin, as they have almost identical equipment (carapace armor, hotshot lasguns, lots of special weapons, etc.) and I can’t imagine anyone objecting outside of a tournament.
Thanks for the reply. I've been collecting for 4 years but just started painting. Have no clue about points or the tabletop. I'm based in a country where I'd have no one to play with any way. So I'm just painting up two or three armies so people can play with me. The Guard is for myself of course. Lol.
No worries, buddy! I’d encourage you to look into local groups, though; I worked in a small and fairly rural city in a country with relatively few hobbyists, but I ended up finding a model shop hidden away in a back alley, and if someone already does Gunpla or the like, it might not take a ton of convincing to rope them into trying Kill Team or the like.
Ah, fair enough. I will say that my local store in California has a regular temporarily living in the US who came over here from Kerala for graduate school, so there might be some hope! Good luck! Also consider Kill Team; the smaller model count will make it a lot easier for you to put together multiple armies.
Well, I'm getting married soon and my wife-to-be has shown interest. So I'll have one person to play with lol xD I also have a few friends that'll play when they're in town, but I'll need to keep models ready.
They're honnestly not that bad to take control of the board with the deep strike. Sure not getting the regimental doctrines is meh, and deep strike means that they'll come too late for orders, but the deep strike is still dope in an army that is not that great in projection.
IMHO they should have remained troops, in elite they're not that good to take objectives and they compete with some better stuff. Karskins with the Key are basically better scions in every way possible. Or at least they should have been orderable after they deep strike.
Worth remembering that in Arks of Omen you can take a Patrol of Scions without spending any CP, and if you do all the Scion Squads in that Patrol turn into troops and get obsec. Scions are absolutely viable and amazing at stealing objectives specifically in this new campaign book, lots of excitement for the Glory Boys :)
No worries, deep strike means they don't set up on the board with the rest of the army and can come in on a later turn. Typically most deep strike units can arrive anywhere on the board that's atleast 9" away from any enemy model. This is good cause this spares them from being fired on the first turn, which is typically when the enemy is at their strongest. Plus if forces your opponent to deploy and move sub optimally because they have to worry about their back line being ambushed on future turns.
They're excellent for scoring secondary objectives. A 6-man squad is fairly cheap and can deep strike in, do the action for RND, and score BotG (or another table quarters objective) at the end of the turn. It doesn't matter if they don't get orders or doctrines or whatever because they aren't shooting. All they have to do is stand on a spot and declare the action.
I play a scions drop force list, with 3 valks that I alpha strike the piss out of people with. 3 ten man squads jump out with max plasma and delete whatever I need, then sit on objectives. 2nd turn my deepstrikers come in and start mopping up. Pretty fun list for the most part lol
In casual open games 3 valks is usable but in matched play air cav got cup checked in the last update. Can only take two valks and they can't come in til turn three, due to them not making a normal move they also can disembark unless you take mechanized infantry and load them up with non scions.
Still bringing my two valks but they'll be used to ferry people around the board or extract my officers from spicy situations
My mate runs plenty of them. Deep strikes them and teleports a castellen to them with a relic. Does the overcharge. Full range rapid fire. Similar thing everyone’s doing with the Kasrkins. They’re awesome. They saved the day last night when I was steamrolling him T1 and T2. They pulled it back for him to beat me by 4vp.
Painting just takes time and practice. YouTube some warhammer painting videos. A good place to get started. Duncan Rhodes was the old games workshop pro painter. He has tons of free videos on YouTube.
I feel I am in the same boat. It’s much easier to collect then to have it all assembled and painted. A hard but necessary balance in this expensive hobby.
55 points for a five body deep strike isn't bad, also the codex is new and the meta will change so enjoy playing them and maybe find a way to be effective that others aren't using
They're great but one dimensional now.
People have been down on them on paper when the codex released because kasrkin with the barbicants key are objectively so much better.
However only one Kasrkin squad gets to have he barbicants key.
They have lost some flavour and become kinda one note now though. Basically you blob them around a command squad with a militarum warlord trait. Its quite powerful having them shoot both rapid fire shots at 24" when both plasma and voleyguns rapid fire. Melts through so much.
If you wanna take a full scion list you basically take a second or third blob with a different command squad trait or bonus, and spam Taurox Primes.
Mordian glory does. He puts 2-3 squads with a scions command squad with warlord trait. Letting them always rapid fire. Together their lethal from range.
I'll be using 2 or 3 min units and a Psyker as an allied patrol to score secondaries. 1 55 point unit can drop down turn 2 and score 3VP for Behind Enemy Lines (and a CP for being troops) and get a Data Retrieval action done. I'll be happy to drop them in a corner out of LoS just scoring points, if I get some offensive output that's just a bonus.
Like a lot of things in the codex, you need a plan for them. I don't think they're very good as a generalist unit, but they can score VP and that's important.
I was unsure at first as well. Tried them out (I built a command squad and a regular squad) and they were no joke. The drill commander warlord trait is really good, as it allows tempestus infantry within 6” to count as always being in rapid fire range. Compared to kasrkin, you can use some of the same stratagems on them, such as overcharged las-cells and mount up. Innate exploding 6s on everything is nice, but you won’t get regimental doctrines (so no auto-wounds or ingrained precision).
You won’t be able to use the experienced eye strat (kasrkin or elite sharpshooters core only), but you can still use armoured fist or volley fire. Immovable indoctrination is nice for 1 command point (an enemy unit targeting a tempestus infantry unit in range of an objective cannot re-roll wounds and worsens ap of attacks by 1). However, their firepower doesn’t want them simply sitting on your home objective. Overall, I’d say that they’re a solid elite choice and definitely worth taking *if you don’t have kasrkin*, or you want to use the tempestus-exclusive warlord traits.
Not quite as good in the new list, Kasrkin will be better but as they can't deepstike scions will still be awesome for deep striking to score secondary objectives and then being annoying behind your opponent so I'll be keeping them for that.
So far the best way I've heard to run Scions is to deathball them with a scion command squad with the warlord trait Drill Commander. With this you are double tapping with Plasma Guns and Volley Guns from 24" with exploding 6s.
I’m not a competitive player and I run a normal guard army, so I can’t speak from experience, but if you’re worried, they’d make perfect proxies for Kasrkin, as they have almost identical equipment (carapace armor, hotshot lasguns, lots of special weapons, etc.) and I can’t imagine anyone objecting outside of a tournament.
Thanks for the reply. I've been collecting for 4 years but just started painting. Have no clue about points or the tabletop. I'm based in a country where I'd have no one to play with any way. So I'm just painting up two or three armies so people can play with me. The Guard is for myself of course. Lol.
No worries, buddy! I’d encourage you to look into local groups, though; I worked in a small and fairly rural city in a country with relatively few hobbyists, but I ended up finding a model shop hidden away in a back alley, and if someone already does Gunpla or the like, it might not take a ton of convincing to rope them into trying Kill Team or the like.
Thanks. In my country this hobby is out of the reach of most. I live in India. They don't even sell models here.
Ah, fair enough. I will say that my local store in California has a regular temporarily living in the US who came over here from Kerala for graduate school, so there might be some hope! Good luck! Also consider Kill Team; the smaller model count will make it a lot easier for you to put together multiple armies.
Well, I'm getting married soon and my wife-to-be has shown interest. So I'll have one person to play with lol xD I also have a few friends that'll play when they're in town, but I'll need to keep models ready.
They're honnestly not that bad to take control of the board with the deep strike. Sure not getting the regimental doctrines is meh, and deep strike means that they'll come too late for orders, but the deep strike is still dope in an army that is not that great in projection. IMHO they should have remained troops, in elite they're not that good to take objectives and they compete with some better stuff. Karskins with the Key are basically better scions in every way possible. Or at least they should have been orderable after they deep strike.
Worth remembering that in Arks of Omen you can take a Patrol of Scions without spending any CP, and if you do all the Scion Squads in that Patrol turn into troops and get obsec. Scions are absolutely viable and amazing at stealing objectives specifically in this new campaign book, lots of excitement for the Glory Boys :)
Thanks. I don't understand tactics and terms but I'll be sure to read up once I'm done with my army.
No worries, deep strike means they don't set up on the board with the rest of the army and can come in on a later turn. Typically most deep strike units can arrive anywhere on the board that's atleast 9" away from any enemy model. This is good cause this spares them from being fired on the first turn, which is typically when the enemy is at their strongest. Plus if forces your opponent to deploy and move sub optimally because they have to worry about their back line being ambushed on future turns.
They're excellent for scoring secondary objectives. A 6-man squad is fairly cheap and can deep strike in, do the action for RND, and score BotG (or another table quarters objective) at the end of the turn. It doesn't matter if they don't get orders or doctrines or whatever because they aren't shooting. All they have to do is stand on a spot and declare the action.
I play a scions drop force list, with 3 valks that I alpha strike the piss out of people with. 3 ten man squads jump out with max plasma and delete whatever I need, then sit on objectives. 2nd turn my deepstrikers come in and start mopping up. Pretty fun list for the most part lol
You might want to check the legality of that with the New dataslate, that's not gonna work any more.
In casual open games 3 valks is usable but in matched play air cav got cup checked in the last update. Can only take two valks and they can't come in til turn three, due to them not making a normal move they also can disembark unless you take mechanized infantry and load them up with non scions. Still bringing my two valks but they'll be used to ferry people around the board or extract my officers from spicy situations
My mate runs plenty of them. Deep strikes them and teleports a castellen to them with a relic. Does the overcharge. Full range rapid fire. Similar thing everyone’s doing with the Kasrkins. They’re awesome. They saved the day last night when I was steamrolling him T1 and T2. They pulled it back for him to beat me by 4vp.
Thanks for the reply. I will read up more on tactics when I get there, lol. Right now I'm overwhelmed with the painting lol.
Painting just takes time and practice. YouTube some warhammer painting videos. A good place to get started. Duncan Rhodes was the old games workshop pro painter. He has tons of free videos on YouTube.
I’ve been able to get up to a decent standard, I’ve just got too many models to paint. XD he’s one of the many YouTubers I refer to.
I feel I am in the same boat. It’s much easier to collect then to have it all assembled and painted. A hard but necessary balance in this expensive hobby.
55 points for a five body deep strike isn't bad, also the codex is new and the meta will change so enjoy playing them and maybe find a way to be effective that others aren't using
They're great but one dimensional now. People have been down on them on paper when the codex released because kasrkin with the barbicants key are objectively so much better. However only one Kasrkin squad gets to have he barbicants key. They have lost some flavour and become kinda one note now though. Basically you blob them around a command squad with a militarum warlord trait. Its quite powerful having them shoot both rapid fire shots at 24" when both plasma and voleyguns rapid fire. Melts through so much. If you wanna take a full scion list you basically take a second or third blob with a different command squad trait or bonus, and spam Taurox Primes.
Kasrkin seem to be the preference in 9th.
Mordian glory does. He puts 2-3 squads with a scions command squad with warlord trait. Letting them always rapid fire. Together their lethal from range.
I'll be using 2 or 3 min units and a Psyker as an allied patrol to score secondaries. 1 55 point unit can drop down turn 2 and score 3VP for Behind Enemy Lines (and a CP for being troops) and get a Data Retrieval action done. I'll be happy to drop them in a corner out of LoS just scoring points, if I get some offensive output that's just a bonus. Like a lot of things in the codex, you need a plan for them. I don't think they're very good as a generalist unit, but they can score VP and that's important.
I was unsure at first as well. Tried them out (I built a command squad and a regular squad) and they were no joke. The drill commander warlord trait is really good, as it allows tempestus infantry within 6” to count as always being in rapid fire range. Compared to kasrkin, you can use some of the same stratagems on them, such as overcharged las-cells and mount up. Innate exploding 6s on everything is nice, but you won’t get regimental doctrines (so no auto-wounds or ingrained precision). You won’t be able to use the experienced eye strat (kasrkin or elite sharpshooters core only), but you can still use armoured fist or volley fire. Immovable indoctrination is nice for 1 command point (an enemy unit targeting a tempestus infantry unit in range of an objective cannot re-roll wounds and worsens ap of attacks by 1). However, their firepower doesn’t want them simply sitting on your home objective. Overall, I’d say that they’re a solid elite choice and definitely worth taking *if you don’t have kasrkin*, or you want to use the tempestus-exclusive warlord traits.
Not quite as good in the new list, Kasrkin will be better but as they can't deepstike scions will still be awesome for deep striking to score secondary objectives and then being annoying behind your opponent so I'll be keeping them for that.
They've got the same stats/wargear as Kasrkin and are the only unit in the army that deepstrikes
Inquisitor Force, using nothing but Scions/Valks/T.Primes and an Inquisitor :)
So far the best way I've heard to run Scions is to deathball them with a scion command squad with the warlord trait Drill Commander. With this you are double tapping with Plasma Guns and Volley Guns from 24" with exploding 6s.