CYCLOPIAN CABAL: KNOW YOUR ROLE

With the re-relase of the Black Legion supplement book, and the more current release of the Traitor Legions book, came a host of new formations, few of which are getting as much playtime as the Cycloian Cabal.  So lets take a look and see exactly what makes this formation so damn popular.

It's all about the psykers

This formation consists of 3-5 Sorcerers.  That's it, no garbage units, and the only "tax" is that they have to have VotLW.  Just 100% psykery goodness.  Typically you'll see these guys in 2 rolls, all levelled up to ML3 with Spell Familiars, and with the new bevy of psychic powers (see my Traitors Hate post) these guys have a barrel of tricks up their sleeve, or kept cheap and used just for the special power that comes with them.  The former you'll typically see in Death Star builds, the other will be more likely in an MSU style army.

The special rule that accompanies this formation is a special psychic power that one of the sorcerers may cast, and he will get bonus warp charge dice equal to the number of Cabal psykers within 12" of him.  The power is called Shroud of Deceit and it allows you to pick a non-vehicle enemy unit within 30" and lets you shoot it as if it was in your army.  This is pretty strong against lots of armies these days as a good portion of the meta is leaning towards shooting heavy armies.  Any Grav heavy unit like Devastator squads or Centurion squads, Dark reapers, Vaul's Battery, Tau suit Death Start with all the USRs, Stormsurges, Obliterators (preventing them from shooting that weapon in the next turn also), Flying Hive Tyrants...you get the idea.

This is pretty damn powerful as Chaos Marines tend to lack in the overwhelming firepower department.

With the Traitor Legions book, there is an additional facet to this formation as the Black Legion Detachment has an additional trick, the turn 1 deep strike.  So what you are essentially able to do, is take a series of Sorcerer's in Terminator armour and attach them to a Terminator Annihilation Force, roll to Deep Strike them on turn 1 and hammer the shit out of your opponent with his own guns after shooting them out of their transports with combi weapons BEFORE they can Intercept you, and then shoot them again with your bolters.  Or add them to a unit of Oblits form the Cult of Destruction.  Then you can use the Sinistrum movement shenanigans to get your guys in position and shoot them twice!

Any time you can do something twice for free, do it.

To top this off, the new Tzeentch Chaos Discipline contain a power that is very similar to the Shroud of Deceit with a slightly shorter range.  3 level 3 Sorcerers, plus the Sorcerer that comes with the TAF means you could potentially have 5 chances to steal an enemy unit to shoot his own units with.  If that doesn't make you re-think taking that unit of 2 Stormsurges, I don't know what will.  Now there will, of course, be the required allocation of warp charges, so you won't likely get more than one of each power off as you'll likely need to toss 7 dice at it to successfully cast it, and more if your opponent has a bonus to Deny the Witch.

As for the Death Star, it's pretty self explanatory.  Take all them powers that let you not die, put them on bikes and slide them in a unit of tough fast moving units like Bikes, Khorne Dogs from KDK, Spawn, and then attach a killy Lord to the unkillable unit and tally ho!  All while still yelling "Stop shooting yourself, stop shooting yourself!" to your opponent until he starts to cry.

Something deadly on a bike.

So this post on the Cyclopian Cabal was pretty straight forward.  Good luck and have fun...

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.