The Death of a Psyker (it finally happened to me...)

[Prot]

So a while ago we all talked about the new Genestealer Cult Sniper and the relic rifle. We talked about how destructive it could be in theory.

 

Some people claimed that losing a 5 man rubric squad would not only be terrifying, but perhaps a worst case scenario. 

 

I realize that since we started that thread the most recent 2019 FAQ thread has clarified that only the rubric squad themselves could take mortal wounds based on the ensuing perils results. But still... even so that's an extremely potent result.

 

It just turns out that I had a sorc I 'hid' in the middle of the table around some ruins. The opponent was GSC and he 'perfect ambushed' his sniper. Now this is not the first time I've played against this, but it was difficult to entirely hide my sorcerer. 

 

The ability to pop out just about anywhere gave him a clean shot at my sorc. Since this was a 'buffing' sorc I had him around multiple squads. The sniper killed my sorc, I re-rolled the perils result of 3 wounds, and rolled a 3 again.

 

POOF... Sorc gone, and the surrounding support units - cultists, 3 characters, and some Daemon Engines took a total of... 24 Mortal wounds! 

 

So that's my new record. I had a game where an exploding tank did 19 mortal wounds on my army, but this is definitely my new record. My opponent felt terrible and asked if I wanted to restart the game. I declined and insisted we play on, but it was quite brutal.

 

So there's a real world example for you guys. It can be really ugly... keep your head up! (or down might be a better idea!)

 

 

[Dosjetka]

I'm confused as to how this happened. If I understand correctly:

1. The Sanctus shot your Sorceror and inflicted 1-3 points of Damage;
2. This triggered Perils of the Warp, you rolled a 5-6, re-rolled, got 5-6 again which inflicted 3 Mortal Wounds;
3. The Sorcerer died;
4. The death of your Sorcerer caused Mortal Wounds on the surrounding models as per the PotW rule;
5. You got a result of 5-6 which then caused a total of 24 MWs (3 MW x 8 units = 24 MW)*?

*I'm assuming you rolled one 1d3 dice for all eight surrounding units. Is that how it works? Don't you roll for MW once per unit?

[Panzer]

So a while ago we all talked about the new Genestealer Cult Sniper and the relic rifle. We talked about how destructive it could be in theory.

 

Some people claimed that losing a 5 man rubric squad would not only be terrifying, but perhaps a worst case scenario. 

 

I realize that since we started that thread the most recent 2019 FAQ thread has clarified that only the rubric squad themselves could take mortal wounds based on the ensuing perils results. But still... even so that's an extremely potent result.

 

It just turns out that I had a sorc I 'hid' in the middle of the table around some ruins. The opponent was GSC and he 'perfect ambushed' his sniper. Now this is not the first time I've played against this, but it was difficult to entirely hide my sorcerer. 

 

The ability to pop out just about anywhere gave him a clean shot at my sorc. Since this was a 'buffing' sorc I had him around multiple squads. The sniper killed my sorc, I re-rolled the perils result of 3 wounds, and rolled a 3 again.

 

POOF... Sorc gone, and the surrounding support units - cultists, 3 characters, and some Daemon Engines took a total of... 24 Mortal wounds! 

 

So that's my new record. I had a game where an exploding tank did 19 mortal wounds on my army, but this is definitely my new record. My opponent felt terrible and asked if I wanted to restart the game. I declined and insisted we play on, but it was quite brutal.

 

So there's a real world example for you guys. It can be really ugly... keep your head up! (or down might be a better idea!)

 

Exploding psyker deals 1d3 MW, right? Did you really have 8 units within 6" and rolled 3 MW for each of them?   I'd immediately burn those dice and blame Tzeentch for playing tricks on you lol

[Prot]

The total wounds is 4 (For the sorcerer) plus 19 for all surrounding units. I did roll an incredibly high number of '3's. 

 

Three of the units were characters kind of huddled around the character base I was trying to avoid other GSC stuff. 2 of the units were Daemonengines.

 

This really did happen. I've had it go poorly before, but this was definitely a worst case scenario. It was literally the first trigger pulled in that game which resulted in this. 

 

Like I said he was as shocked as I. He offered to restart the game and I insisted we carry on.

Edited May 6, 2019 by Prot

[Panzer]

Welp. A funny story for the future I guess. I mean the GK player in my group once had a game were he periled like 80% of his cast attempts so he basically defeated himself and the opponent only cleaned up ... and another game his Apothecary with hammer refused to die and killed half of the opponents army all on his own. :D

[HighMarshalAmp]

My perils are usually just a poof on some corner of the table where nobody really cares...

Doesn't really make for a story with any entertainment value though :/

 

And how'd the game end?

[CrystalSeer]

So I'm not familiar, what does 'perfect ambush' do? Would you have been able to counter with zone denial had you seen it coming?

[RolandTHTG]

Welp. A funny story for the future I guess. I mean the GK player in my group once had a game were he periled like 80% of his cast attempts so he basically defeated himself and the opponent only cleaned up ... and another game his Apothecary with hammer refused to die and killed half of the opponents army all on his own.

I had a 1000 pt game where my CSM Sorcerer Warlord (with the extra wound and 6++ FNP warlord trait) managed to kill himself turn 2 from getting perils on 3 of his 4 cast attempts. The opponent hadn't even tried to shoot him, and got first blood and slay the warlord. 

 

Prot, I applaud your sorcerer's ability to demonstrate the potency of the TS casters. Surely no one will question your psychic might again!

[Ahzek451]

Ouch. That's brutal. Can't say I've experience anything like that. My worst record is rolling perils on 5 out of 6 of my casters back to back in the same phase. To add salt, I got fed up by the third time and used a command re-roll to get the same perils. 

[Raven1]

My last Perils of the Warp, I believe it was a DPoT, I rolled snake eyes for a power, Gaze of fate re-roll one "1" and I got a "1" I command point re roll the other "1" and got another "1" perils roll 3 MWs, it was terrible.

[Prot]

So I'm not familiar, what does 'perfect ambush' do? Would you have been able to counter with zone denial had you seen it coming?

 

Basically the sniper (he had a relic rifle) can use this stratagem for free and it allows him to come in just about anywhere and get a free shot when they come in (I believe this is in addition to normal shooting... I should know this by now as I have put a lot of time in against GSC.)

 

 

 

My perils are usually just a poof on some corner of the table where nobody really cares...

Doesn't really make for a story with any entertainment value though :/

 

And how'd the game end?

 

Well it wasn't with my Thousand Sons.. .it was Black Legion and I had to play extremely defensive after that as it gave the GSC a huge advantage with boxing me in my quarter. The damage control on my end forced me to play far less aggressive than I like with BL. I ended up getting very lucky and it was Lord Discordants which boxed their way  out, and gave me a chance at the win which I pulled off by a point or two. It was super close, and frankly it was a bit embarrassing. :)

[shanewatts]

Perfect Ambush lets a unit that arrives from reserve to either shoot immediately or move d6". So the sniper would still have had to deploy 9" away from enemy models, but could fire in the movement phase and shooting phase.

 

The Lying in Wait stratagem allows a GSC unit arriving from reserve to be placed more than 3" away from enemy models, but they cannot charge that turn.

 

So if he used both, the sniper could be nearly anywhere, and fired twice.

[Prot]

Perfect Ambush lets a unit that arrives from reserve to either shoot immediately or move d6". So the sniper would still have had to deploy 9" away from enemy models, but could fire in the movement phase and shooting phase.

 

The Lying in Wait stratagem allows a GSC unit arriving from reserve to be placed more than 3" away from enemy models, but they cannot charge that turn.

 

So if he used both, the sniper could be nearly anywhere, and fired twice.

 

And I believe when he did this that Perfect Ambush is 'free' for that particular model to use. It's extremely hard to dodge the mechanics... it's extremely potent against any psyker based army. 

[shanewatts]

You are correct, Perfect Ambush cost 0CP for the Sanctus to use.