Pouring over the various rules, a thought hit me.
Telepathy offers a primaris power similar to the Doom's but without cover saves (3d6-ldr = wounds with no armor or cover). Units can swap their random roll for the primaris power. A unit of zoans can use this power 3 times. A unit of zoans in a pod can hit just about anywhere on the table.
I'm gonna playtest this unit a bit and see how effective it can be.
For their second power, I'll probably go biomancy and hope for the str6 shots to hunt rear armor, endurance, enfeeble, or smite. Drop within 6" of Old Adversary and smite gets even better.
3 psychic screams can do a serious number on MEQ. Problem is you've got 2/3 hit, 1/6 (or 1/3, or even 1/2) shut down from deny the witch, then you need to break LD with 3d6. While that's not particularly hard, that's a lot of dice you're depending on going your way.
ReplyDeleteI think it's got a lot of possible upswing, but there's too many dice in the chain of operations and wouldn't want to rely on it. Now, 3 Zoanthropes all rolling on Biomancy trying for enfeeble/endurance with the ability to end up with life leech, haemorrage or smite gives you a serious buffing base with the ability to put out 3 buff/debuffs per turn and very likely to have some sort of shooting to go with it.
I tryed this combo already with Daemons. I was lucky enough to bring down Daemon Prince on the turn my Zoeys arrived, but that is all. 220 pts quite a heavy price for a "all or nothing" unit.
ReplyDeleteYeah that's what I'm finding in playtest also.
ReplyDeleteDon't get stuck, Zoans are very versatile.
ReplyDeleteLots of AV14, stay vanilla
Lots of flyers, go for OM
Lots of foot, Psy Shriek
etc
Psy Shriek is easy, since it is a primaris; means each zoan can have another power. If there is no decent target withing 12" for PS, then use Enfeeble or TDome etc. (Granted, some luck involved after PS)
Zoans are not fragile, but not overly resilient either. So we need to be a bit careful in deployment. I am not sure if a Pod is the way to go or not.
Psy Shriek seems really good as armor and cover saves cannot be taken against it. (Although cover saves count against Doom's Spirit Leech.)
DeleteHell 3 Zoans with Psy Shriek can even break Terminators. Sure it's LD test, then 2/3 to hit, then Deny the Witch, then 3D6 over LD, then those 5+ invus, but it's a tool. A really great tool.
Smite is great too at R12 S4 AP2 Assault 4 / Zoan; having 12 AP2 shot is nice. (yes, ld, deny, to hit, to wound - too many dice but Zoans seem to be a viable choice now as I think they are not direct competitors against Hive Guards but fulfill a completely unique and useful role in the army.
I'm a bit torned about Zoans. Supposedly Landraider got a little better and will be more popular, but our MC's hit them on 3's now. It's nice to have the option of swapping powers before every game, but random is bad and the new PE makes the original powers stronger.
ReplyDeleteReally liking the new paradigm for zoans: as Coredump notes they are much more versatile, and with the changes to hoods etc..., better chance for the original powers to function, and they were pretty nasty to begin with. Plus, somewhere out there we'll hear of the S7 T7 or I6 4A, 3++ squad of zoans that wrecked someone's day. If a full brood of 3 zoans in max coherency drops a Shockwave it might be fun to watch: 12" nova power that hits everything in range with d6 pinning hits (admittedly, S3) but that's a 24"x30" chunk of the battlefield.
ReplyDeleteThe chance of all three Zoans in the brood rolling Shockwave, then cast it succesfully three times, and then all affected units getting a Deny the Witch roll - very very small. And the effect is weak against most common units out there.
ReplyDelete