MAGIC! (CSM Sorcerers)

Today I wanna talk about the sleeker, sexier, sorcerer(ier) HQ in the CSM codex: The Sorcerer. A very good, cheap HQ that really requires no upgrades to still be effective. 60 points for a mandatory HQ in a Space Marine equivalent codex is really good. You can spend the extra points on your troops and vehicles and such. Honestly a Captain costs 40 points more, meaning you can take a Rhino and a Sorcerer for the cost of a basic MEQ HQ. And have 5 points left over (get something nice for your mother).  Let's analyze each mark first and how they benefit the sorcerer and then mathhammer the powers.


Marks

Khorne
lol.

Tzeentch
+1 to your invuln save is always good but the powers you're forced to take under Tzeentch are just okay. Honestly, Doombolt is sweet, the Blessing power is very cool as well (1/6 chance of killing a MEQ character so 5/6 chance of the dude getting a roll, pretty good) and he has Breath of Chaos as it should be. Definitely one mark to look into as you also get access to Disc of Tzeentch which gives huge mobility and a bit of survivability, both things that your Sorc lacks.

Note: The +1 invuln is 10 point upgrade (Aura -> Sigil = 10 pts) so you're not going to be cost efficient with this mark. Where you benefit is the powers and Disc access. Otherwise you lose 5 points by getting this upgrade.

Nurgle
Plus one toughness is where it's at. Serious odds going in your favor when basic MEQ weapons need a 5+ to wound you. (Math: 3+ hit, 5+ wound, 3+ save = 2/27 wound chance per bolter or in CC) The powers you are forced to take are meeeeeeeeh. The Plague Wind has a pretty good chance of drifting back into you and the Primaris power means you're waaaay to close to the enemy (but with effectively a 'cooler' bolter that has a 1/6 chance of doing nothing)  and the two malediction powers don't do much other than make you lol at Land Raiders that glance themselves. Gift of Contagion doesn't impress me much, the stat loss is negligible and it requires a bit of finesse and comboing that might not be available to your army. You need to pair it with a successful charge and since charge distance is random this is difficult. The other way is to hope for option 3 and bring down an MC or something dangerous with massed fire, also difficult. And with a 1/6 failure rate it's hard to count on your positioning even mattering.

Chaos Sorcerer strikes again!

Slaanesh
The initiative bonus is nice because it puts you ahead of MEQ so now your Sorc can take challenges and not get murdered every time. Slaanesh also has, in my opinion, the best powers. Symphony of Pain combo-ed with Noise Marines will shred FX and MEQ. The Primaris power is a power I love to see: No randomness, cool effects and a range that makes sense. Ecstatic Seizures is pretty cool too because if it hits the average MEQ unit will lose 1/6 of its members and the average FX unit will lose 1/3. There is a 'hidden' combo where if you hit a unit with Symphony of Pain and Sensory Overload you'll reduce a units BS and WS to zero meaning they can't shoot or attack back (May need an FAQ for that.). Getting two Slaaneshi Sorcerers isn't a crazy idea and can really benefit you if you can keep them together you'll be able to systematically wipe stronger units with your Noise Marines. By the way, did I mention you'll want Noise Marines? You'll want Noise Marines.

Powers
Just gonna throw out some math so you can see how much better Slaanesh is than everyone. Tzeentch is still really good true but Nurgle did get shafted with his powers in this book. Let's begin.

Tzeentch
Tzeentch Firestorm Avg Strength 4, AP -

vs. MEQ 1/2 chance of wound (assuming 3 hits), if that happens the number of followup wounds is .22, Wow.

vs. FX average wound 1.33 (assuming 3 hits), if you wound the average number of followup wounds is .67. So you'll probably kill 2 FX with this power. Wow x2.

Boon of Mutation
This Blessing power is pretty good. You have roughly 1/6 chance of getting nothing (pretty much as if the unit got Deny the Witch) and a 1/18 chance of getting Spawn'd. The rest of the upgrades are nice but a lot of them will be pointless on basic sergeant style Characters (Eternal Warrior on a 1 W guy?). And a lot of the rest don't change your little guy enough to really change the game. You'll be using this power on already beefy guys to make them beefier honestly.

Doombolt
vs. MEQ or FX it's just .55 chance of wounding (BS 4 + 5/6 to wound always). Versus tanks however you get some funny stuff happening, most vehicles are AV 12 in front so you'll usually have a 50/50 or better chance of glancing any vehicle. With the Explodes! result range doubling it's kinda neat. You probably won't get that on many vehicles outside of the DE and Ork vehicles. (Chances are 2/3 to pen, 2/3 to Explode! so .44 chance of getting the special effect. Highly recommend versus those armies)

Breath of Chaos 
Just as good as last edition. Unfortunately you can't mass it now with new Daemons (and their version sucks anyways) but having a 50/50 chance of wounding any guy who's under the template is still awesome. The glance chance isn't that cool because, again, you can't mass a bunch of these and wipe Land Raiders. Still though, very sweet power.

Nurgle
Nurgle's Rot
Ehhhh, A 6'' Nova power that isn't impressive.

vs. MEQ with average attacks (4), you're doing .67 wounds average aka you have a mild chance of 1 wound.

vs. FX you have 1.33 wounds average. Meh. Also you can't have units with Mark of Nurgle with this. Alright.

Also for this power since it's Nova you get every unit within the power's range but how often will you hit more than 1 unit with your Sorcerer? Since you hit everything within 6'' of each side you do have a pretty good chance of hitting more than 1 unit. The problem is your vulnerability to being shot or assaulted next turn skyrockets.

Weapon Virus
1/6 chance of the power failing and 1/6 chance of it succeeding on anyone in the unit you target.

vs. MEQ you have a 1/18 chance of causing a wound for each bolter shot.

vs. FX you have a 1/9 chance.

Amazing.

vs. a vehicle you have a 1/12 chance of causing a glance

vs. a Land Raider with TL-Lascannons you have a 1/72 chance of either weapon getting a glance because of re-rolls. Superb.

Gift of Contagion
The effects are varied enough in their situational usefulness that you'll run into problems of not getting the right effect at the right time. You're going to want to combo this with a unit of yours charging in. I can't really do math for this since what unit you'll use is wholly your choice. If you have a MEQ unit assault another MEQ unit that got hit by 3 then you'll go from .08 wounds to .11 wounds average against them and they'll go from .08 wounds to .05 wounds back at you. Not big enough numbers to matter on the small scale of 10 vs. 10. The dice can go either way still and your odds haven't changed enough to matter. Your kinda always hoping for 3 on the roll because the other 2 just don't matter enough in fights and none of the stats lower the strength of their guns so prepare to eat bullets when the changed squad still gets Overwatch.

Plague Wind
12''! Nuuuuuuuuuuuu! You have an okay chance of having this scatter back into your own face (the maximum distance you can fire it from you is 9'' since the template is 3'' in radius and 1/4 of the Cardinal Directions are your face.) Other than that, it's a different template of Breath of Chaos, you'll probably get 6 hits with it so expect 3 dead. Not bad but the fact that your range is so small and the chance of scattering so high means you're going to average less and have a good chance of doing nothing (1/6 Deny the Witch) or blowing yourself up.

Slaanesh
Sensory Overload
Versus MEQ it's nothing to write home about .67 wounds average. Against FX however you're getting  2.67 wounds average. Now the real kicker is the combo of Blind, Pinning and Concussive. With these 3 you can effectively tamp down an MC, lock up a squad or burn a heavy weapons team. Super versatile power. Against MEQ you have a .22 chance of both wounding and Blinding which is great against something like Long Fangs. The chance of any MEQ failing the pinning test is really low (1/12 average) so I wouldn't count on it but this power really puts the hurt on FX units out in the open. Also, against, say, a Bloodthirster you have a 15% chance of hurting it and if you do he's now Init 1 and has a 5/6 chance of being WS and BS 1 for the turn. Sick. Not likely but hey, it's the Primaris power. It can't kill everything.

Hysterical Frenzy
All of these benefits are good on a unit and you don't have to worry about Deny The Witch just outright failing to cast the power. No real math to be done here, just solid stat increases. You'll always want to use this on a unit charging the enemy or possibly a unit you think will be a charge target next turn. Solid stuff, you'll probably hope for 2 or 3 results if you cast on another Slaaneshi marked unit because init 6 has about the same benefit as init 5 as very few units in the game are above init 4 (and those that are are usually expensive or very weak).

Symphony of Pain
Other than Deny the Witch or failing the psychic test this power has no counter test for the enemy so your guaranteed to really hurt another unit. If you can get Noise Marines within range you can devastate an enemy unit of FX with sound Salvos that rip through cover and armor. This power is even good against MEQ units with heavy weapons as they are reduced to snap shots for the turn. Not sure if you can use this against vehicles (it just says 'targets a single unit') but if you can good. Shutting up a Vendetta or Land Raider would be great. You can even use it on tarpit units to give you an edge in CC...while in CC. A solid power.

Ecstatic Seizures
Hilarious. The unit kills itself. Versus MEQ 1/6 die (1/2 wound * 1/3 unsaved) and versus FX it's 1/3 (1/2 wound * 2/3 unsaved). Now, this isn't that great of a power since there are very few units with Strength higher than their Toughness but nonetheless still a fine power. If only you used the units own AP against themselves, what a devastating power it would be against Grey Knight troops (effectively a Breath of Chaos that hits the whole unit) To be fair: this power isn't worth 2 warp charges as it'll only probably cause 1-2 wounds against MEQ. More against FX but everything kills FX, that's why their Filthy Xenos.


Conclusions
Overall your sorcerer can benefit from any Mark but Slaanesh and Tzeentch are way more beneficial in the powers department and Nurgle more so in the utility department (put your Sorcerer on a bike with MoN. Laugh at small-arms fire and force heavy units to target your Sorc.)

For equipment, your sorcerer doesn't need much to function as an HQ. Biomancy and Telepathy are both great sets of powers to make a dangerous unit. You don't really want the Sorc in CC because he'll get blown up by anything (he's just a MEQ with 2 wounds) so finding some ranged powers to loose at the enemy is what you're gonna want. Getting your Sorc a mobility upgrade (jump pack, mount or bike) is a good investment as getting him in range or out of a CC threat quickly is a high priority. Having a Cultist shield is great too as they're cheap as hell and pretty much act as 4 point wounds plus bonus attacks. Also giving him a plasma pistol is pretty nice (little bit of light-vehicle and MEQ killing power).

Honestly the Sorcerer needs even less survivability than the Lord because any mount or cultist shield will take care of it. You don't need the Aura because you're spending 1/3 of his cost for 1/3 chance of saving. Plus at T 4 W 2 he's not exactly survivable at all so including the invuln makes him slightly more not survivable. The trick is not trying to up hit stats so that he saves more shots, it's giving those shots to others to suck on.

Or give him Nurgle and Bike and an extra psyker level to access better powers and go hog-wild with an accompanying biker unit and bitch-slap the back-line.

Up to you. Feel free to share any Sorcerer builds or combos you've come up with in the comments.