Primaris Desolation Squads are looking SCARY in 40K 10th Edition - Full Unit Review 

And remember that these are 15 points cheaper than an Ork tankbusta squad.

10 points cheaper than single wound sororitas retributors.

Not enough people bought them in 9th so here they are ready for meta sales

They're so OP that by the time they're sold separately they'll be nerfed

GW gotta sell them, that's why

one of the first days we had point values I heard some friends mention that indirect fire was looking really strong so as a joke I put together a 3000 point list with 3 x10 desolators, 3 whirlwinds, and 3 thunderfire cannons expecting "Ha ha funny cursed list" only for everyone on the discord server to comment how terrifying it sounded. If I didn't have a mortgage to pay right now I might try putting it together

It's hard not to jump to the assumption that they have been deliberately undercosted to encourge people to buy them. Although i would say the same about those new Barbgaunts.

A Desolation Squad lead by a librarian all embarked into an Impulsor, buff the Impulsor with Feirros, firing deck 6, your Impulsor is now shooting 10 massive shots all at +1. This is how I want to run iron hands.

theyre definitely overpowered because of their special rule that lets them ignore indirect fire penalties. the whole point of indirect fire having penalties is so models with indirect fire are penalized. letting desolation squads ignore the indirect fire penalty is counterintuitive especially with oath of moment being as busted as it is.

Watched these play against Black Legion/chaos cultists yesterday. They played two games and won both on their second turn.

No matter how powerful they are, you at least get to know that whoever is fielding them has to own these deeply silly models.

Just compare them to Devastators. Same points cost, about twice as good (they get both anti-infantry and anti-tank weapons, and indirect fire on half of it). When your internal list-balance is that bad, you know the balance against every other list will be bad too.

Literally just played a list with only 10 and they dictated the entire game. I was able to overcome them with Templars but I couldnt imagine 2 or 3 squads of them

What I would say here is-remember the Plasma Inceptor incident. Don't necessarily go buying any just because they're strong at the moment, that can change very quickly. Also, if possible, aircraft (hover ideally as they can show up T1) could be a good counter given they ignore LOS and are available to nearly any faction (I think it's just leagues that don't have them), or counter-battery indirect if again you have access.

Actually quite funny this vid pops up. Played 2 space marine players today. Both had 2x10 of these guys, and with oath of moment and the indirect fire they are super overpowered. I suggest tone down oath of moment to give you either reroll 1's to hit or wound, and only from turn 3 or 4 full rerolls to hit or wound. Not both. The power you gain from so many rerolls early in the battle, while your opponent has 0 or 1 cp is a joke

Wow. They're Space Marine Lootas, complete with hilariously-large guns.

Oh look, The New Primaris Gamebreakors. your sources were wrong about the Backpack mounted twin autocannon, but the rest of it seems pretty spot on from your early reveal video a year or so back.

I think Oath with Guilliman in the list will make these quite a bit more effective than you're seeing there. You can target one squad with Oath, blow it away with everything in your army except the desolators, then use Guilliman to redirect the Oath to a squad you cannot see, pop Storm of Fire, and annihilate it or at least seriously hurt it with the desolators. The ability to have ~1400 points of your army free to alpha strike one unit with Oath and kill it, then get another Oath to super buff the out of line of sight shooting, looks nuts.

People are a little hysterical about them, carrying over the power that isn’t in 10th. There’s no longer reroll all 1’s on ALL the shots and the additional AP is also gone. The relative strength of the krak shots went down a little. Instead there’s oath of moment which then rerolls everything against one target and the pairing of sustained hits 1 (exploding 6’) and an invul save from a primaris librarian. They are also cheaper having gone from 185 to 125. Practically the target destruction is going to happen anyway, desolation squads just makes it easier. The missing AP makes their indirect worse and despite the decreased killing power overall, removing chaff is still not an issue for pretty much any faction. Channels like Art of War who overhype and pretend like it’s the end of the world (who are historically wrong on their predictions, such as Armour of Contempt being a big deal competitively) drum up panic about things like this like no tomorrow, especially from newcomers who netlist and think they should start on a competitive level. In reality if you face 5-10 of these and not 20-30, you’re fine. And yes, the point decrease is cynical and should be reverted. Marines have issues on points on most other things being too high, dreads are WAY too expensive and the relative cost to the power lost overall makes marines underperform save this exception. Oath should be replaced with something else. Make Doctrines the faction ability.

Just picked up a squad of these today. They have avoided nerfing to this point... we shall see what this week's update brings.

When a unit can provide an answer to everything they will always be overerpowered

They weren't selling because of their aesthetics so GW lowered thier points and buffed thier rules

Adepta Sororitas: We need so more Variety and better MD Manipulation. GW: Take away normal Celestines, make Morven only buff PWS, and make Space Marines more effective. I am laughing at some of the changes, but I am actually pretty happy with my SoB army, but gaddamn the Space Marines got the sweetest changes.

Infiltrators with Phobos librarian are a great counter unit.

In DW they can wound infantry in 2+. These guys can one shot two Obliterators. Or any squad of 5 marines in cover. It is a 36'' zone of automatic free damage with no penalty. 🎉

GW’s infinite wisdom of lowering the single most powerful unit for SM in 9th point cost from 35ppm to 24ppm just goes to show they don’t know how their own game is played on a fundamental level or don’t care. 10th is going to be clown world for quite a while so buckle up boys

The Vengor bus is coming, and everybody's jumping.

People hate on this model constantly for no reason. “They’re guns are big”. Ok. It’s Warhammer.

They just need a points buff, they should be about 170 - 180 for a squad of 5 and generally they need to do something with indirect fire, probably taking it out of special buffs like oaths if you can't see the target, stuff like that.

Triple launcher launched in the intro. Bonus points for style.

OoOOoOhh~ 24-48" range strength 7, 1 shot str 10 and 6" movement! So scawwy! *me pitching over with howling laughter to the sound of Astra Militarum counter-battey fire*

the old hive guards tyranids but better lol

I am to say I am one of five people that bought these guys. I ended up mounting the launchers on top of their targetting array things, so they actually looks pretty cool IMO. Funny to see my meme unit is gonna be viable/worth the points (looking past the alterior motives behind it).

Heavy Bolters with missile launcher. (Panik) oh nooo.

If they make it so you can't benefit from Oath if you can't see the target, and raise the price on these guys to like 28-30ppm, they'll be much more reasonable.

They just came out, of course they are good. Incursors are great for letting the Castellans hit on 2+. The missiles, being heavy, go up to 3+ for staying still, or Incursors can boost it to 3+ if the Desolators move. If you stick them in an impulsor, firing deck allows them to shoot the missiles or the castellans, but not both. They are good, but hardly OP. I run mine with Superkrak. The missiles have great range, damage, but the AP good at -2, but hardly a game changer. Eliminators with Lasfusils and Eradicators do not get enough shots to do anything more that finish a vehicle off, and you cannot reliably tank hunt with Hellblasters anymore.

These unit reviews are always great! Please do barbgaunts soon :)

Yay Auspex, I really like these kind of videoes.

Something to consider is that fast attack can do wonders against strong shooting. Like if you threw something at this that could tie it up in melee then you would have a good chance of winning.

I've been seeing a lot of tall about these guys and the teleport from the Blood Angels Librarian Dreadnought.

Indirect Fire has changed slightly in that if you can't see any models in the target you are -1 to hit and target gets Benfiots of Cover.

Wait, I'm kind of new, but did GW make these guys only available in the Strike Force Agastus box or do they have plans to release them separately in the future?

Five of these killed five squads of twenty gaunts in five rounds of shooting while hiding at the back of the board. None of my gaunts even got close.

The fact everyone is making such a big fuss about them means eventually they’ll get nerfed, but not before GW tries to sell enough stocks of these.

Interesting to look at these compared to the only indirect fire weapon in all of AdMech land. At first it seems like the AdMech gun might have a chance. It comes on a 195pt model and the stat line is 36”, 2d6 shots with blast, 4+, S7, AP-2, D1. The datasheet ability gives a +1 to hit against infantry which will offset the indirect penalty, and with the army rule it is possible to get the Heavy on the gun so you can hit on a 3+ effective. So far so good. Well, just the Sergeant’s gun on its own can do half the shots of the AdMech gun with better to-hit on a S7, AP-1, D2 profile. Oh, and since it can get ignores cover and the AdMech gun can’t, the AP is functionally the same. Then let’s assume this is only a 5-man squad at 120pts compared to the AdMech tank at 195pts. So, 4xD3 more indirect shots from the other marines on 3+, S4, AP0, D1. The Str being lower will hurt, but since they can also get ignores cover, the AP difference is really more like 1 pip since pretty much everything seems to be able to get cover in 10th. So that is D6 + 4D3 shots for the marines and 2d6 for the AdMech gun. That is more shots on average for marines but half are on a worse profile. Then you get to blast, which will give the AdMech unit 1 extra attack for each level of blast, while the marines get 5 for each level! That quickly blows the AdMech gun out of the water with sheer volume of fire, and this is from a unit that costs 75pts less. As far as the direct fire guns go, the Desolators get 4 more shots with their superkrak’s with 4+, S10, AP-2, D6+1 damage with heavy, while the tank gets 3 shots at 4+, S9, AP-2, D6 damage and twin-linked. Again, if the marines sit still to get heavy, they also get ignores cover. So, the tank is taking one less shot with one less str and one less damage per shot on its direct fire anti-tank. It does also get 3x3 stubber shots on a 4+, S4, ap0, D1 profile with rapid fire 3 and sustained hits 1, so it does have a big bucket of anti-horde direct fire shooting that the marines don’t. That direct fire would largely make up the difference in number of shots if the tank is willing to risk being exposed, but that sort of missiles the point of indirect fire! Other than that, it is the typical difference in defensive profiles between marines and a vehicle. So the vehicle is probably harder to kill overall. All of that doesn’t take into account that the marine unit has access to a wider range and variety of buffs than AdMech. The AdMech tank has exactly three sources of shooting buffs: reroll 1s to hit from Cawls aura (a 185pt unit), a strat for +1 to wound, and the army-wide rule that can either give the gun heavy, or give it an extra AP against units in the enemy deployment zone. That is it. That is everything it can possibly get to buff its shooting. So, as indirect platforms go, the 120pts marine unit will put out more indirect damage than the 195pt AdMech tank, and if they both step into the open, the damage becomes roughly equal with the marines ending up a little ahead on anti-tank and either even or a little behind on anti-horde depending on the exact situation. If you take two 5-mans or a single 10-man, the tank doesn’t even come close on damage output. So, is the extra movement and defensive profile of the tank worth 75 more points and less damage? Nope. Does that mean the tank is bad? Also nope. It means Desolators are too pushed.

Have you covered these Desolation Marines since the updates for 200pts per 5 etc? If so can you link the vid where you mention them!

Mission luncher on mission luncher - lunched this year lol!

This squad is what first got me instrested in the Warhammer. The weapons are perfectly ridiculous. Just like space marines, bolters, the emperor, the boyz, the warp, noise marines and this entire game. Its great. Im gonna order two squads so i can kitbash one onto a centurion or something.

Do you plan on doing a Leagues of Votann analysis for 10th edition ?

@Auspex, how about the Whirlwind? viable now?

Are these not for sale individually??

The cynic in me says they wanted to shift the remaining boxes but the Augustus boxes now seem to have sold our or at least taken off the shop.

Compare that missile profile to the tau missile pods... Got pretty shafted

The Big issue is the base datasheet and points cost is good, and probably needs a small points bump. But when you combine it with 3 max size squads of 10 (though most run 2 squads), Full rerolls through oath of moment every turn with ways to give lethal/sustained hits, have an excessively long range for their guns (36" and 48" respectively) AND you give them rules or buffing characters attached that let them ignore indirect penalties make them outright oppressive. The best solution is get rid of rules where indirect penalties are ignored, and for space marines redesign Oath of moment to either A) reroll hits and wound rolls of 1 against a target each turn OR B)reroll all hits OR wounds (not both, pick one) against a single target each turn. It would fix the desolators, and tone down the other problematic marines units without nerfing the base datasheets.

Trying to sell those Agastus boxes that are sitting around.

Tbh, I'm liking Hellblasters more due to the addable captain and lieutenant; the free stratagem, lethal hits paired with bolter discipline, and the countercharge threats make them quite the formidable death star

Where can they be purchased?

Don't forget Dark Angels can use 1 cp to give them Lethal Hits, on 5's if someone in the army is battle shocked. Nasty combo with oaths. Could see an argument for taking frag with that combo.

Something you got wrong is they only get the ignores cover if the target isnt visible to the unit, so the super krak can never ignore cover.

got my hands on an agustus box a week or so ago and tried these guys in a game against sisters... The indirect was not friendly..., honestly still wasn't as bad as bolter discipline hellblasters. 10th needs to work out the balance issues ASAP...

I'm using 2x invictor units with assault bolters in deep strike to counter stuff like this..

Remember when these lads were 35 ppm in 9e and were still absolutely absurd value? Pepperidge Farm, remembers.

This aged like fine wine 😂

This one unit is better than the whole DG codex

I still stand by the 4x Grav Cannons Devastators as being very competitive with this who, without character support, can drop some of the toughest vehicles in the game atm, maul some of the toughest elite infantry, and scour hordes from the board, all for the low low price of half the cost of a full unit of Desolators, then you can add extra marines for both ablative wounds, and extra anti infantry fire, and still come in at less than a full unit of Desolators.

Somehow cheaper than SoB Retributors too. Madness.

T-Shirt cannons are pretty op tbh.

I look forward to pitching my artillery against theses. I doubt they'll stay so cheap. Guard can mitigate Indirect Fire with some synergies but nothing directly on the datasheet.

Too many stories online of one of these squads wiping a 20 man Necron Warrior blob in a single shot. Great. Wonderful.

Lost Angron turn 1 to a squad of 10. I'm no more mad than the tankiness of Bladeguard Veterans. I'll just need to remember to bring them to matches I play Space Marines.

My ass is waiting so patiently for a necron index video

A guy let me use them with my marines at my local game store. I must say they are crazy powerful. Took out a few death guard terminators because of them

So each marine gets d6+1 dice per model??

I think I will get a 5 man Desolation squad to escort a Primaris Apothecary in an Impulsor. Those would be some angry EMTs. 😂

Get nerf or get ‘nuthin

I don't care if people think these look goofy, I love them.

Black Templar index review!!!

I still say they should have made the launchers fire either able to swap between Frag or Krak on the fly and put the Castellan Launchers on a different unit entirely. Obviously the price needs a tweak.

Deathstrike launchers, your own Indirect Fire assets, and deep strike can all do wonders to counter these blokes tbh.

I expect Desolation Squads will remain very good and very cheap until about 6-8 weeks after they come out. I'm gonna guess they release sometime in early November, sell out thru Christmas, and get nerfed in January. Unless they're super super busted, and then it will be the week after they release.

FUCK THIS, I’M JOINING CHAOS! (Battletech)

Wow didnt see that coming, they had to make it overpowered to get people to actually use the dumbest looking models made in recent years

Kinda sucks that Desolators are so strong with their indirect. I wanted to run 2x5 squads in Impulsors and drive around spewing missiles (would be reminiscent of Combat Tech Marines in Mastodon strats from Halo Wars 2), but if theyre this strong then people may not want to fight them at all.

What a surprise, a new model is overpowered in the new rule set! :surprisedpikachu:

Perhaps the easiest (arbitrary) fix would be to limit the unit size to 5 models. (Like Tankbustas). 3 squads of 10 (the max) is ludicrous. Making the Krak Missile 1 shot seems reasonable too (I mean..... where are the spares?) I play Marines and Orks btw...... I'm quite glad these aren't on sale atm. I've faced these units in 9th..... they were horrendous. When everyone can get them easily......... oh woe is me........ Oh, and get rid of the 'hits everything on 2's' shenanigans too. *soap box back under the stairs*

"Oh, yeah?! Our model is stupid? How about NOW!?"

How many necron warriors can 10 of them kill?

Wouldn't be a problem if people ran max 1 unit of indirect fire per list. (Maybe the guard get more)

GW design team getting one up on the trolls and memes when they first got released.

Kinda feels like a big middle finger making the launchers that people dunked on earlier for looking goofy, op as hell

Glad I think they look cool, because that means I already have them.

Great! - now... where do you buy them? They seem to... not exist

Crazy to me that these rocket launchers have more strentgth than a macro plasma fromma redemptor

I’m curious to see, when they get nerfed, how many will suddenly be getting sold on eBay

My new Bloodcrusher focused list is actually ok with these. It’s more afraid of large Terminator bricks .

Remember Simple, but not Simple!

Points increase to 160 per unit of 5, remove blast keyword from their weapons and nerf to oaths, and life is good

Just played a game against these squads, killed an entire squad behind cover from inside a Building..wtf...

Our crap looking missile launchers aren't selling!!! Best make them so OP you have to take them.

I'm getting Inceptors