While preparing for both our upcoming podcast on the Chaos codex and for the Iron Fist painting challenge, I have been thinking a lot about the Chaos codex's choices which slip under most peoples radar and what sort of army it is nowadays.
The conclusion I have come to is that the Chaos codex is all about punching your opponent in the face really hard on turn 2*. Why do I think that? Lets take a look at some of the units people on the Internet in general seem to be writing off.
Spawn - These guys are now gaining popularity as people realize what beasts can do in this edition of the game. Beasts in general now move 12" completely ignoring terrain, they have fleet so they can reroll their run move and their assault dice, and they ignore terrain during the assault move too. This all comes together to mean they are very, very quick. They should be in combat turn 2, in nearly every game. Now spawn bring 3 wounds, strength and toughness 5 to the board, all for very cheap. The best upgrade for them perhaps unsurprisingly is Nurgle to up them to T6. so for 180 a unit you get 15 T6 wounds, with a tonne of attacks which will be hitting you turn 2. Put 3 units on the board and then your opponent has an issue. Their downside is that they have no save, but generally you'll be throwing them through terrain as they ignore the movement penalty, when they make combat T6 makes them a real pain to shift.
Maulerfeinds - Cheap as chips, and most importantly again, beasts. So stupid quick. Yes they are only AV12, but they have a 5+ invulnerable save as well as all the other daemon engine goodness. I would personally always give them lasher tendrils so noone will be getting more than 1 attack with their powerfist. So 3 cheap AV12 daemon engines, which again are in combat turn 2 all for less than 400 points? So 6 dangerous units in the opponents face straight away and they will not be able to stop all of them.
Hellbrutes - Yes really**. For 100 points basic they are cheap. For 125 they can have twin linked lascannon. They are more armour for the opponent to worry about, they can walk behind the spawn and maulerfeinds so will never be a high priority, they have a good and reliable gun, and they will reach the enemy turn 4 or 5 which makes them a big threat late game. Finally Chaos have a viable dread!
Huron Blackheart - The unassuming Icing on the cake. For 160 he is a solid choice, he is a versatile unit in his own right, he has a lightning claw and a power axe so can deal with most things when it comes to fistycuffs, and a heavy flamer. Huron is pretty much the space pimp*** of the 41st millenium. He has all the toys, he has a funky pet which can prove useful, maybe, and he gets his ho's where they need to be. Up to 3 good sized units of marines infiltrating with their Rhino**** into the opponents face? Thats bad news for them, not only that Huron is in one, but that they have them in their face as well as the spawn horde, and the maulerfeinds all of whom will be slapping whatever Huron desires in turn 2. Not to mention the possibilities of using the rhinos to block line of sight and give cover saves...
So you have your whole list in combat turn 2. Your opponent cannot stop you getting there and when you do you'll be making a mess. If you wanted to lose the hellbrutes and their guns you could take a big scary flying daemon prince to put another massive scary turn 2 combat monster on the board and get some cultists to hang around in the back field to claim objectives.
* Khorne favors actual violence, but ill leave that to your discretion...
**No, really. I'm super serial.
***Bitch, wheres his damn money?
****Not forgetting Hurons tricked out one with the neons, the massive stereo and that suspension which goes up and down.
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ReplyDeleteBare in mind James, you must choose 3 infantry units from your army list, not during their deployment. This means that Huron is counted as one unit himself, so you would need to roll at least 2 on a D3 to get him and a unit of marines to Infiltrate, which somewhat de-values that ability.
ReplyDeleteApart from that, some fairly good points. I love Spawn, been going crazy about them since releace, but I would pefer Havocs over Maulerfiends, their low WS and Attacks doesn't really bring much.
Why do you say that? You can infiltrate the whole unit so long as one member has the special rule. You decide during deployment if the unit is going to use its special rule or not. Also during deployment you can choose if your IC's are going to start in a unit or not. Therefore you can select huron as 1, so he will give infiltrate to any unit he wants (including the spawn if you wanted) as well as up to 2 other infantry units.
ReplyDeleteIf it worked the way round you described you would not be able to put characters into units in flyers or units in drop pods etc...
No, read the warlord trait, it specifies army unit, not during deploymeny. It's different to how a normal infiltrate works :)
ReplyDeleteEven if it is that way round it makes no difference, some units in your list get infiltrate. Then, during deployment (as warlord traits happen first) you choose to put Huron in a unit then choose to use the infiltrate special rule as per the rule book.
ReplyDeleteSo in fact it's identicle to normal infiltrate ;)