Chaos Marine Analysis - Predator and Vindicator

The pre-rambling shall be quick today. I went out food shopping this morning and came back with this.

What it is is a limited edition GW dice shaker. Ok, it sounds tacky, but it was only £4 and when you have as many dice as I do accumulated through 5^th edition, the board becomes so covered in them that you need to spread a big space to roll dice in, so I'm going to be using this to keep all of my dice in during games. Plus it's pretty good for keeping my pens, etc in. It's veneered leather on the outside and fabric on the inside, although it's mainly block is plastic. Still, it looks quite nice.

Anyway, I need to get some more Heavy Support done, so here come 2 in one post. I'm putting these two together because they're very similar to the Predator and Vindicator that we already know. So I'm going to run through the Chaos upgrades that they can take and judge how useful they are on the units rather than the units as a whole.

Combi-Bolter. I really think that this is an insignificant upgrade. If you have 5pts spare, fine, why not? But really I don't think that it'll have a great effect. I can see this more on the Vindicator than the Predator, simply because it matches the range of the Demolisher Cannon, and might mop up a 1 that you rolled when wounding with the main gun. Actually, I think that this weapon is worth taking, especially on the Vindicator, just as some defence against weapon destroyed results. The reason you take a Vindicator is for that cannon, if you lose it you've lost the primary use of your Vindicator, so for 5pts I'd say that it's worth it.

The same can't be said for the Dirge Caster. Both of these vehicles are probably going to be sitting back and shooting, especially the Predator, and you don't want to get your Vindicator too close either, so you aren't going to be close enough to enemy units a lot of the time to get the effects of Dirge Casters of.

The Dozer Blade might be useful on the Vindicator due to it's tendency to move around a lot, but then for 5pts more you can get a Siege Shield. That said, I think that the Dozer Blade is probably the better option as what are the odds that you'll fail more than one Dangerous Terrain check?

Warpflame Gargoyles, no on the Vindicator, you'll be causing enough damage anyway. No on the Predator too, a lot of the time you'll be shooting light armour with that, so these aren't great, and when shooting at infantry, anything that is particularly effected by the Autocannon is likely to be horde-like in nature (4+ save or worse), and so Warpflame Gargoyles won't do much. Although for 5pts it isn't bad.

Combi-weapons are a no too, they're ok I suppose, but I wouldn't take them, more points to spend elsewhere. The flamer is too short ranged for these, I'm only likely to get 1 shot off the plasma at non rapid-fire and I wouldn't say that's worth 10pts and the Melta suffers from the same problem as the flamer.

Extra armour isn't that great anymore on any vehicles because you're more fussed about the loss of the hull points and if you've suffered that result your vehicle is likely to be in trouble anyway whether you get that more or not.

The Havoc Launcher might be ok, I think that it's a good upgrade on most vehicles. I think that it depends on what you want your vehicle for. The Predator is for light armour, the Havoc Launcher is not useful here. The Vindicator smashes heavy infantry, the Havoc Launcher won't really help here. Leave this upgrade for the Rhinos.

Destroyer Blades. Yes I love this upgrade, but I'm not going to be running over infantry very often with either of these vehicles, so why bother? Especially at that points cost.

I'd also say that Daemonic possession isn't worth it. I don't think that you want to be taking anything that will be decreasing your shooting effectiveness here. They're both durable anyway with that AV13 and at the same points cost as the Destroyer Blades but with the addition of making your shooting less effective.

So in short, I'd give your Predators and Vindicators the Combi-Bolter as some insurance against losing your main gun, but that is all.

Chaos Marine Analysis - Maulerfiend

Before I jump into the post, my desire to talk about myself has caught up with me. I've got my Vendetta repaired, and got a chance to use my new toy in a game today. I'll keep this brief. I played 2,000pts against Vanilla Space Marines, so I took my current 1,500pt list and threw some Wolf Scouts, a Dreadnought, a couple more Grey Hunters and my Thunderwolves in there, without any real thought just a chance to play with my cool toys.

In a drastic contrast to previous experience, I was really pleased with my Thunderwolves today, although the Storm Shield toting ones didn't do much, the Power Fist did, it's nice having a fast Fist. Here is a list of the things that he brutally punched to death.

Turn 1: Dreadnought

Turn 2: Vindicator

Turn 3: Drop Pod

Turn 4: Stormtalon

Turn 5: Killed by Terminators

The Terminators in question were pretty much the King of Hammer units. 10 of them, a couple with Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields to sit at the front and take my Lascannons. In the squad there was also a Chaplain, making them fearless and giving them re-rolls, as well as providing them with an additional 3++, apparently the Iron Halo stacks with his Terminator Armour, and a Librarian, which managed to get the Invisibility rulebook psychic power, which was frustrating, and somehow they also all ended up with Feel No Pain. To cap this all off, they were embedded in a 14 all-round vehicle with Ceramite plating, quad-linked Lascannons and 5 Hull Points. The Spartan Land Raider.

Either way, this was a fun game and although only 4 Terminators including the sergeant, Libby and Chaplain made it to my lines, it was still enough, and it finished at the end of turn 7 with my opponent taking it 11-8. But anyway, Maulerfiend.

In a vacuum, I really like the Maulerfiend. It comes in at 50pts less than a Forgefiend, whilst maintaining it's durability. Fleet is actually useful on this thing too. It's devilishly fast. It moves 12” in the movement phase and is unaffected by difficult terrain. It also has a +1 to the building damage table too.

Essentially, it will absolutely wreck anything with an armour value, so long as it hits, it also gets what is essentially an automatic hit with a meltagun. If it hits with everything, this doubles. Nasty. It only has 3 attacks after taking its close combat weapons into account, so I wouldn't recommend using it to chomp on infantry, but get into combat with another unit with an armour value and it will rip it apart.

I can only see 2 problems with it though. The first is the availability of useful targets. On the Fortifications front, I have not seen a single Bastion or Fortress of Redemption since Throne of Skulls in July, they are essentially death traps, if you're inside it when it wrecks, you're in deep trouble. That just leaves the Aegis Defence Line and the Skyshield, both of which are indestructible, and I have seen these around. Therefore, opportunities to smash up buildings with your Maulerfiend are going to be limited at best.

Coming onto other vehicles, the 2 types that I am seeing at the minute are Battle Tanks and Flyers, both of which are going to be extremely difficult for your Maulerfiend to get at in most cases. Flyers for the obvious reasons, and your opponent would be foolish to hover his flyer near your Maulerfiend unless he/she really needs to. Battle Tanks, are also going to be buried inside your opponents army, especially if there's a Maulerfiend around. They typically have long range weaponary, meaning that they don't need to get close to you, so your opponent will just bubble wrap their vehicles with infantry, presenting a wall of squishiness that your Maulerfiend will struggle to break through.

That said, I think that the second reason is the most important, and probably why I don't think that many of these are going to be seen unfortunately.

On the Overlords Facebook group, there is an interesting topic regarding, 'how do you build your lists?' During 5^th edition, I always liked to keep a strong firebase, just so that I'd always be able to reach out and hurt something, and preventing armies like Dark Eldar from just flying away from my Orks taking shots at them. I believe that this has become even more important in 6^th, with 40k being much more of a shooting game now.

So, you're going to need some firepower. And where can the Chaos Codexes big guns be found? In the Heavy Support slots, meaning that these slots are going to be needed for giving your army some long range support, and unfortunately every other unit in this slot shoots better than a Maulerfiend. I like it, I really do, I definitely don't think that it's bad for it's points, but when looking at it's competition, and what kind of a role these force organisation slots need to fill, I'm not sure that it'll get a look in.

Chaos Marine Analysis - Forgefiend

It's Wednesday Night / Thursday Morning. It's 1:30am, we all know what that means. Time to write a semi-coherent blog post. These late nights seem to have effected me a little. At 3:00am on Tuesday I woke up and accidentally read my clock as 9:20. Thinking that I was late to my lecture I got ready as quickly as I could, threw on some clothes and chucked/put my Ipad, pens, etc into my bag, before legging it out of the door. It took a while for my to clock that it was dark.

Therefore, in this less than optimum state, I have decided that I am going to be analysing an easier unit today. I had considered doing either the Havocs or the Land Raider, but I think that both of these units are going to require some heavy analysing, for reasons which I shall go into when I get to them. Therefore, today's post is on the Forgefiend.

Weighing in at 20pts less than a Defiler, at the same cost as a Doomsday Ark, it's quite a chunk of points. Especially considering how long it's going to be on the board for. Yes it does have 'it will not die' and a 5++ save but it's also the size of a Tervigon so hiding it is going to be tricky, and when you get down to its armour values it's ok but not fantastic, essentially armour 12 with 3 hull points.

The question of its durability becomes even more of a problem when you start to think about how big a target is going to be pasted on top of this thing. Yes, it's only BS3, but honestly, my Ork player is coming out here and saying that enough Dakka can often offset crappy BS, and it's these guns that make the Forgefiend such a big target.

The first choice that it gets is a modified Autocannon, known as the Hades. It has a shorter range, but +1S, double the shots and pinning. Ouch. So you;re churning out 8 S8 pinning shots per turn. The range is annoying, in a static shooting unit I like to be able to sit back and throw shots into the distance but 36" is ok. Although you can always just move.

The second option is a pair of Ectoplasm cannons. Again, modified Plasma Cannons. -12" and +1S. If you're looking to kill Paladins, this could be the trick with this Codex. You can then take a third one for an additional 1/7 of the Forgefiend's cost, but remember that they get, so you could hurt yourself.

I think that even with the BS3 both of these weapons are brutal, and although the Forgefiend has decent armour, with so much painful weaponary it's going to attract attention. I like the Forgefiend, I don't think that it's terrible at all. But unfortunately, I think that it's going to be one of those units that is most effective when you take multiples of it, to give some target differenciation.

1 Forgefiend isn't a problem as I can just shoot it down, it might take a few hits but what else does my anti-tank have to fire at. However, 2 Forgefiend's is going to be a difficult nut to crack and although you might end up losing one the other is going to get full usage, and the other is still going to get some. But then, is this really worth that many points?

Chaos Marine Analysis - Defiler

I have been trying to be positive about every unit in the Chaos Space Marines Codex, not focussing on what it can't do but trying to focus on what it can do. However, I'm afraid that the incoming post is going to be a bit more negative. It's not that I think that this unit is the worst in the world, not at all, but I do think that it's not very good and the insistence of some of my friends that the Defiler is the definition of awesome has annoyed me to some degree. So, here we go.

In comparison to its last incarnation, the Defiler has increased in points. Now it is just shy of 200pts. So what do you get for these extra points. Well, now you get a 5++ save, 'It will not die' and Daemonforge. So essentially, it has been made more durable. But is it really worth it. I would argue that the previous Defiler was better.

The reason being that it was durable enough as it was anyway, it was a tough old thing, so adding more durability to it is on the point of overkill (or overlife). I would say that it is to such a point that the Defiler will struggle to make its points back. You are now paying almost 200pts for a Battlecannon that's going to be sticking around for a while. Are you going to kill 200pts of models with that.

Now I've also seen people argue duality, saying that the Defiler can shoot well and do combat well. But can it really do either well enough to justify it's cost? It doesn't matter how durable something is, if it can't dish out the damage you're not going to win. Now you could always just say tarpit units but at least they free up your more deadly units to do some damage, so the technically are helping doing some damage, and minimising it to your more valuable units.

So, does either the Defilers shooting or combat capabilities allow it to do enough damage to make it worth it. Let's start with combat. It has 2 Power Fists and 2 Attacks. So 3 base due to the dual combat weapons. So at most I'm going to lose 3 models a turn, and that's if you get lucky with your WS3. I'm going to use an example from my own experience, in the times of the old Chaos Codex I was playing in the Steel City Wargaming – Tournament of War (there's a post about it under tournament reports). In my last game 6 Grey Hunters tied up a defiler for about 5 player turns, ultimately winning me the game by a pretty convincing margin. The fact that it took the Defiler so long to chew through those shows that it isn't great in combat. That is half the game assuming a turn 5 ending.

So, is its shooting ability any better? Well it's BS3, fantastic, and although one big S8 power armour chewing template does look good, if you think about, you can take a better armoured alternative in the form of the Leman Russ Battle Tank through allies, which is 45pts cheaper than the Defiler. Plus, I can always use cover to at least get a save from that thing, if it uses it's longer range of 72” it's probably shooting at my Long Fangs and if I know there is an AP3 Large Blast template on the table I'm going to put them in cover, it's that straight forward.

So, let's just do a straight up comparison to the other Heavy Support choice that I've been through so far. For 15pts more, I can have 3 base Obliterators. On durability, both are really durable, a 12 armour vehicle (meh) with 4 Hull points (sweet) vs 3 T4 Ld8 models (meh) with a 2+ save and 2 wounds a piece (sweet). So how much damage do they put out, let's just assume Plasma Cannons for the Obliterators. Would you prefer to have 3 S7 AP2 blasts at BS4 or 1 S8 AP3 large blast at BS3. I know which one I'd go for.

Chaos Marine Analysis - Obliterators

I've decided that I really need to get moving with the Chaos breakdowns. Out of the 37 units in the Codex I've done 13 of them. At this rate I'll be done by the time Dark Angels drops.

So I'd better get on with it then. Obliterators have taken a bit of a hit through the Codex transition. The most notable downgrades are twofold. The first is that they're no longer Fearless, which is irritating, as they're only Ld8 base, and losing a model will always mean taking a leadership check, unless there's only 1 guy in the squad.

The second hit being that now you can't use the same weapon on your Obliterators twice in a row, so no hurling Plasma Cannon blast after Plasma Cannon blast down the table.

However, there have been a couple of plus points too. Obliterators are now 5pts cheaper than they used to be, but that's going to go straight out the window as the part of the post where I talk about the upgrades is going to be something other than just saying 'no'.

Obliterators can take Marks now. Starting with Mark of Khorne, it's pretty expensive, 1pt less than melta bombs on an Aspiring Champion. I don't really see you using this. If you're looking for a close combat unit then there are better options out there than Obliterators. Sure, they're 2 wound models with 2 attacks base and a Power Fist, but the best thing to kill an Obliterator with is another Power Fist in combat, cancelling out their main save and doubling them out. This one is a no.

Mark of Tzeentch is twice as expensive as Mark of Khorne, but it's actually useful. Giving your Obliterators a 4++ (invulnerable) save. I think that this is a good upgrade, but I just think that it's a bit more than I'd want to spend on a 4+ save when I already have a 5++ and a 2+ armour which isn't cancelled out too often. No, but better than Khorne.

Half way between Khorne and Tzeentch in points is Nurgle. What it does is gives you a +1 to your toughness, and I think that this is 'the money mark'. The simple reason for this is that you are really reducing your chances to get doubled out. Most of the AP1 and 2 weapons around will generally double out T4 models, but not T5, like Melta weapons, Lascannons, etc. The only weapon that I can think of that I see reasonably often that is also S10 and AP2 or better is the demolisher cannon, which isn't particularly long ranged, giving you a chance to bring the offending vehicle down before it gets in range. So, this Mark is definitely worth its points, and definitely better than the previous ones.

There's a reason why the Mark of Slaanesh is so much cheaper on Obliterators, it's terrible. It's ¼ of the cost of the Mark of Khorne, and considering that your Obliterators all have Power Fists, isn't very useful. The only benefit that I can think to it is that it makes it easier to pass initiative tests such as ones caused by Jaws of the World Wolf. Even if you're playing against Wolves, Nurgle is still better, as it gives you some insurance for when you fail saves against all of those S8 weapons.

The final upgrade is also a very important one. Veterans of the Long War. It's cheaper than Mark of Khorne, and although that Hatred Marines is nice, you really take it for that +1 to your Leadership, the last thing you want is a 200pt squad running off the board because it's only Ld8.

Overall, I still think that Obliterators are still a good unit, whether they still hold the top slot in the Heavy Support options is yet to be seen, but I reckon that they'll be up there.

I'm done for tonight, it's 1:00am. I'll be back again tomorrow / today.

Chaos Marine Analysis - Warp Talons

I'm going to close out the Fast Attack analysis today, and I'm going to do it with what is probably the easiest unit to describe. Warp Talons.

I really want to like the Warp Talons, I really do. But I don't. I love the models again, and I'm probably going to get some for my Word Bearers anyway though. My plan for them now is to make a 600pt brick of a competitive force to take to doubles tournament and then just fill in around that with cool units to make a 1,500pt list.

But back to business. Warp Talons are nearly double the cost of a Raptor. So what's the difference. Well, there's 2. The first is that they get a special rule called Warpflame Strike, meaning that they blind all units within 6” of their position. Now some have said that this is a useful ability. I don't really think it's very good. First off, in order to use this rule you have to deep strike, which you may not even want to do a lot of the time. Secondly, even if you do deep strike, you need to hope that you don't scatter whilst deep striking within 6” of an enemy unit. I think that it's very restrictive for not much benefit.

The second difference is that they come with dual Lightning Claws as basic. Which means that they're going to be absolutely brutal against standard marines. But at 30pts a model, you really should expect that. Upgrades.

There aren't many, so they are made for one purpose and one purpose only, to punch MEQs. They have absolutely no capacity to take out vehicles, and they don't really have enough attacks to deal with hordes either. They have the same statline as a Raptor.

Anyway, you can take up to 10 in a squad, upgrading from 5. I really wouldn't do this. They're expensive enough as it is, plus they'll do they're job well enough as it is, adding more is overkill. The Champion can also take Gift of Mutation. I'm just going to repeat my verdict on this from previous posts. Fun – yes, competitive – no.

Marks. They get even more expensive with the transition between Warp Talons and Raptors. I stand by my point with the Raptors, only here Slaanesh is individually the least expensive Mark in points terms, and it's probably the most useful too. Finally, Veterans of the Long War. I would consider this a must take on this unit, for 2 reasons. The first is that the Hatred allows them to do their job much better, but the main reason is again the leadership buff. For an expensive unit, their leadership is poor. 8, with the Champion being 9. I would say that 10pts for a 5 model unit is very much worth taking to help with this.

In short, my conclusion is that Warp Talons are tooled out and way more overcosted Raptors. A cool unit, but not great in rules terms.

So, to conclude the fast attack slots, how would I rank the units. Well starting from the top, with 1 being the best unit and 5 being the worst. Just a quick ranking. If you'd like detail on each of the other units, please take a look at my other Chaos Marine Analysis – Fast Attack posts.

1. Chaos Spawn

2. Chaos Bikers

3. Heldrake

4. Raptors

5. Warp Talons

The next slot that I'm going to cover is the Heavy Support slot, make sure to look out for that tomorrow.

Chaos Marine Analysis - Raptors

Just as a quick supplement to the Invasion tournament report, I've just seen the final scores for the event. It looks like my team drew with the winning team on points for both games and painting, meaning that the winner was determined on a dice roll (1-3 this team, 4-6 that team), which we lost. Balls.

But anyway, sorry for the lack of Chaos posts recently, I got distracted by my shiny new toys.

I only just discovered that my local WHSmiths not only sells White Dwarf, but also Wargames Illustrated, Toy Soldier, and other tabletop wargaming magazines. They also sell Settlers of Catan and the Discworld 'Ankh Morpork (sp?)' board game. You know you're in Oxford.

Anyway, I spent the last day or so assembling my £56 Vendetta, and then on its first outing it fell off the table during an Apocalypse game smashing into many many pieces. Anyway, long story short tomorrow I'm going to spend a further £4 on some new glue because after nearly 10 years in the hobby I am fed up with GW's glue, it's more expensive and it stretches the definition of glue to the limit. The irony being that the glue in question was a replacement to the glue that I brought back to my GW when they released the dodgy batch. In my opinion, they're all dopey batches.

But anyway, back to Chaos. I'm hoping to have Fast Attack done with by the end of tomorrow, although as it's 20 to midnight while I write this tomorrow may turn into today, so stay tuned for that. Raptors.
 

Well, I think that I can safely say that these guys are better than they were in the last Codex. For a start, I really like their new models. Secondly, I don't think that they're priced too badly. 4Pts more expensive than a standard Chaos Marine, and for that you lose your bolter but you gain a free close combat weapon, a jump pack and fear (which isn't much, highly situational and won't help against most units that you would need it against).

A further thing that I like about the Raptors is the ability to take them in squads of 15. I think that this is really starting to become a common theme across the Chaos Space Marine Codex, every power armoured unit that you get has the ability to come in large blocks. Essentially though, they are still Chaotic assault marines, although you can probably pile on enough attacks on the charge to make up for the lack of power weapons (46 inc Champion).

Running through the wargear. Plasma Pistol, no, I could nearly get another raptor for that. Flamer, no, at that range I am getting enough S4 hits anyway. Meltagun, meh, why not, although I'm sure there'd be some better anti-tank in here somewhere, if you're looking for small, fast tank hunting, semi-suicide squads why not, they'll die the moment they pop something.

Plasma gun, better than a plasma pistol, and same cost, but still no. Melee weapons on Champion, why not more attacks, he'll be in challenges most of the time anyway. If you're really feeling it go for a power weapon. Gift of Mutation, for the fun why not, but I wouldn't. Melta bombs on the Champion, yes. Gives you the ability to at least damage vehicles in combat giving you more versatility, and 5pts too, sweet.

Marks, go with Mark of Slaanesh if you want one. Cheapest of the Marks and FNP, although it bumps their cost to almost 20pts per model. Icons, they're fine, but I personally don't like the idea of pumping too many upgrades into this squad. The fearless icon is Ok, but I would probably take Veterans of the Long War instead. LD10 should do the trick.

Overall, I think that Raptors are one of those 'not bad units', if you're on a board with lots of cover, so you can hop about avoiding fire and jumping out on enemies like I've seen Hellions do. This works especially well considering that you get your 3+ against dangerous terrain now. But to be honest, in a slot that also contains Spawn, Bikers and your only flyer (my gaming club in Sheffield's Facebook page has gone crazy about whether the Heldrake is any good or not), I don't think that, 'not bad' cuts it.