Chaos Marine Analysis - Bikers

Well it's Halloween, and whilst my block of University flats is empty due to everyone going out and having fun, I remain behind. There is no room for merriment here!

But seriously, there's a bit of a hidden agenda behind my lack of Chaos posting this week. The agenda in question is that the unit that I have set myself to talk about next is one that I know absolutely nothing about. Incoming Chaos bikers. In 9 years in the hobby I have seen bikers once, and that was back in the days when I picked up my Eldar and barely knew what I was doing. The only other time that I have seen bikes is when my Eldar were out and kicking, but I don't count those because they are jetbikes.

So, I am going to attempt to talk about a unit the likes of which I have barely ever seen in action, late at night and with nothing to keep me awake bar a bottle of Sprite. If/when this is a terrible terrible analysis please leave feedback that will help me better understand these guys in the future, thanks (you may have noticed that my ego bounces up and down like a yo-yo (I can't think of an original similie right now)).

Before I get started though. GW news. I'm going to start with some generic products with the new paint set. I'm just going to rattle off a couple of my original thoughts on this very quickly. I think that the design of the box is good, I like the fact that it doubles as storage space for your paints. The downside being that most of the paints are going to dry up before you use them. If you work out the maths you're essentially getting 21 paints free, but I can probably think of more than 21 paints from that set that I'd never use. That's that then.

Obligatory embossed army cases are coming for Christmas. As an owner of one that I got a couple of years back, although they're good they're not that comfortable to wear (due to them being as wide as a house) and you can get much more efficiency out of a dual KR case, so I'd probably stick with that. That said, I am probably going to be picking up a few of the Northern Wastes (Space Wolves) basing kits. I sort of have to don't I?

Other than that you've got the huge trenchline, which I was interested in until I saw that it cost £100. And there's more. A Space Marine megaforce (of course) and a Necron one too. I like the look of both of these, I think they both make a solid core for a new army, but from a competitive standpoint I probably wouldn't bother if you're looking to build a new tournament army. Finally, GW have heard our calls and released a box of Cultists (whoo!). Not great though, they are the Dark Vengeance Cultists (which is good), but I'm a little disappointed that GW haven't done this properly. Instead, they've released a mini-box, which is £6 for 5 cultists, 3 have Autoguns and 2 have dual close combat weapons. So, if you're looking to give all of the cultists in your army 1 of the 2 choices, half of that box is going to be redundant.

Look at that, I'm procrastinating even inside the post.

Bikers time.  

I'm going to do this the way I know, compare them to something. Let's compare them to a standard Chaos Space Marine. Ok, so for 7pts more, what do you get? Well, the bikes get to move a heck of a lot faster, that's obvious, but they also get twin-linking on their bolters (bikes), dual close combat wepaons and T5. Hmm, looking good already. Their marks are a little more expensive though.

I always like to have at least one fast contingent in my army. The main reason for this being that Linebreaker point. I really like to push for those points, as I know that they can make a huge amount of difference in a game. Take the Emperor's Will for example. I am most likely going to keep hold of my objective, you are most likely to keep hold of yours. This was the case even before 6th edition, but now that the game has very muched shifted to shooting based, even less units are willing to go forward, so no-one's going to get linebreaker, and no-one's going to get slay the warlord if you hide them in your armies (which you probably are doing).

This means that the game is going to come down to whoever gets first blood. In this way, winning on the secondary objectives can really take the pressure off on the main ones, as all you have to do is draw, and I think that bikes are good for Linebreaker. Maybe put another couple of bikes in there to increase durability in case they are shot at, 5 in a squad maximum, hide them behind terrain and then turn 3 or 4 start to make a break for it, taking advantage of that sweet 4+ Jink save and T5.

So, how do I see this in comparison to the other Fast Attack choices. I think that they all fulfill different rolls. Spawn are an excellent tarpit, no two ways around it, that is what they do best and they can also put out a bit of damage too. The Heldrake is an infantry frier, it will stomp MEQs like nobodies business. Bikers I think are a difficult unit to use, you can take advantage of a bit of bad positioning exposing a meltagun in an enemy unit with your speed for example, you can prey on a weakened unit that could cause you a problem elsewhere if not dealt with, and they can grab that linebreaker point for you. Just whatever you do, hide them first turn, even if you're going first, a sieze would cause you a problem if they're in the open in front of guns, especially missiles.

Invasion - Tournament Report

I want to apologise for the lack of chaos analysis posts recently. However I'll get right down to it and there should be a post late Wednesday night. Additionally, if you thought there was an additional paragraph above this about Flamers and Screamers, there was. However, now that the Chaos Daemons FAQ has been released in English it is incorrect so I've redacted it to avoid confusion.

However, on to the topic at hand.

This Monday I attended my first doubles tournament. This was an interesting experience for me, each half an army had to operate as though it was individual, and this included for the purposes of the for e organisation chart. So I took a Rune Priest, 2 large squads of Grey Hunters, and 2 packs of Long Fangs. I found a team mate a day before the event, who had a company command squad in a Chimera, 2 squads of Veterans and 2 Leman Russ Battle Tanks.

So it was to our horror, with no practice with each other whatsoever, that our first game was on table 5 against a Dark Eldar army with lots of Blasters and 3 Venoms coupled with a Necron army with a pair of annihilation barges, a flyer, Spyders, etc. The Scouring, Dawn of War.

Essentially, we knew that this was going to be a shoot out, whoever got first turn would knock out some opposing firepower and take the game. They got the first turns, killing the Chimera for first blood, the company commander for slay the warlord and crippled a Leman Russ, stopping it from shooting and leaving it with 1 hull point. The game ended 8-5 to them. A fantastic start.

Despite this, the tournament was still there thanks to a couple of things. Firstly, there were 4 winners, one from each store, and all but 2 of our teams lost. Secondly, the scoring increased in each round, with a win in round 1 being worth 5pts, round 2 10pts, and round 3 15pts.

So we move to the next table, and there we are greeted by a guard and grey knights alliance with 2 vendettas and a stormraven. Fluffy tournament my arse. Purge the Alien, Hammer and Anvil.

We got pretty lucky this game, with one long fang squad with a Rune Priest in it going crazy. A lone long fang, hitting, penetrating, and blowing up a vendetta on the second turn, with the priest throwing a grenade off a bastion hitting and glancing a stormraven removing its last hull point and killing it. Overall this was a resounding victory, with only an opposing vendetta left on the table. We didn't count up points but I think that it was 13-6 to us or something.

Going into the third game, there were 3 teams from our store neck and neck. The previous winners from the first round both lost, so it was between the second round winners. We were playing one of these teams. Emperor's Will, Vanguard Strike.

We were playing against a dual space marine army, and it was a fantastic game, with the stormtalon sneaking up behind one leman Russ and scouts behind another, both vehicles exploded killing far to many models. Essentially, we won this through slay the warlord and first blood, we were never going to get that objective. 5-3.

So, on battle points we were 26/30, unfortunately for us, the other Oxford team also won. So it came down to theme and painting to see who would win. Now as I was kicked from the other team because my Space Wolves didn't fit with the Night Lords as well as the renegade Guard did (understandable), you can guess who came second.

So, not a bad result overall, looking ahead to throne of skulls now, I have plans, and curtesy of a trip to warhammer world, I now have forge world upgrade kits. Well done to the winners from my store though.

I hope this comes out ok. Blogging on an iPad is weird.

Chaos Marine Analysis - Heldrake

Yes yes I've been neglecting this for a few days, but I really needed a short break. I've had lots of work to do and the fact that I stayed up until 4:00am last night finishing off watching season 2 of Battlestar Galactica (I'm just too grim-dark). Add to this the fact that I went down to my local store yesterday and came back again with 2 tournament tickets, one of which being the January Throne of Skulls and the other being for a doubles tournament happening on Monday, and you can see that I have a lot of prep to do.

On Wednesday however, I was able to get 3 games in against a Chaos Space Marine player, who is now my partner for the doubles tournament. We actually evened each other out quite well, I tabled him the first game, we fought to a draw in the second and then he tabled me in the third, the lists also seem to completement each other quite well, we have 4 troops choices (a legal requirement that each 600pt force brings 1 HQ and 2 Troops), he has a hitty HQ in his Chaos Lord and I provide some excellent psychic defence and buffery with my Rune Priest, equally, he has a hitty troops choice and a good deckchair troops choice in a Khorne Marine and Nurgle Marine squad respectively, whilst I bring the swiss army troops in the Grey Hunters, he fills out the roll of get close and wreck face flyer goodness in the Heldrake, also useful for the Scouring whilst I do what Space Wolves do best and bring the big guns. Incoming 2 packs of Long Fangs.

But anyway, onto the bulk of the post. Speaking of Heldrakes, that is what I'm going to be covering today. I think that this unit is very well costed. It comes in at 10pts more than a standard squad of Warp Talons and it's very well armoured too, the same as a Vendetta in fact. Same BS, same armour values and same hull points. In fact, it's a little bit more durable than a Vendetta. It comes with a 5++ save and 'It will not die', and although it doesn't have twin linked, it has a slight consolation in that once per game it can re-roll to wound, although that comes with a slight risk.

Base, it comes with a Hades Autocannon, which is a 4 shot Autocannon with +1 strength. I'm not sure about this, as what you'd be using this for is taking advantage of the Heldrake's Skyfire rule, and using it as flyer defence, it wouldn't be good for much else as it is unlikely to cause too much hinderance to infantry and other vehicles, although Vector Strike will do a little. Then when you're firing at a flyer, you're likely going to hit twice and maybe cause 1 Hull Point of damage, you probably aren't going to get another shot then as the opposing flyer zooms towards you and you zoom away from it, unless you hover, which will expose yourself.

Therefore, I think that the best way to run this is to take advantage of the only upgrade that a Heldrake can take, and give it a Baleflamer. This is similar to the flamer that the Baal Predator can take, although I've had a memory blank and can't remember what it's called, but it also has Soul Blaze (...great...) and Torrent, which basically gives the template a 12” range where you can place it, allowing you to more easily encompass as many models as possible. This is a fantastic weapon for Marine hunting, my Long Fangs were roasted many a game by this, and remembering that it's a flamer, they aren't going to be getting a save unless they can get an invulnerable save from somewhere, or if they're Terminators, which do get Invulnerable saves anyway.

So, Heldrake. If you're an MEQ player facing off against a couple of these things, especially in smaller points levels, it can be terrifying, but not too much so. It's a good unit, but I think that only time will tell as to whether it is better than Spawn or Bikes.

Chaos Marine Analysis - Chaos Spawn

Now that I've finished with all of the non-special character Hqs, I'm going to move on. I'll come back to the special characters later and when I do I'll also go through the units that they unlock / unlock as troops. So I'll move on to Fast Attack to give the false impression of progress.

The unit that I'm going to be talking about today is the one that I looked at first when I picked up the Codex. We already knew that they were probably going to be getting a buff, they couldn't have been much worse in the previous Codex, but the buff that we've seen is pretty strong. Allow me to introduce the Chaos Spawn.

I am pleased to say that the random movement that the Spawn saw in the last Codex is gone. Already much better, but what I can easily compare them to now are the Wraiths from the Necron Codex. Here's why.

They're beasts, so they're pretty fast, like the Wraiths being jump infantry, but what makes them most comparable is that they both tarpit extremely well. Base, Spawn are 10pts per T5 Fearless wound. That is excellent, but it can get even better once you get into the Marks. Yes, Spawn can take Marks, and the most obvious one is Mark of Nurgle, meaning that you are now paying 12pts per T6 Fearless wound. I would definitely recommend giving them this Mark. The first reason being that you are basically immune to boltguns, if you're charging a squad of tactical marines they will need 6s to hit and 6s to wound. Not easy. Add to this the fact that they cannot be instant killed by S10 weapons, whereas without it I'd just point my Manticore at you and then your Spawn are in trouble.

Yes, Spawn have random attacks, and they have a random mutation in combat, but honestly, I don't care. What you use them for is tarpitting and it doesn't matter how many attacks they get or what their mutation is, although the 4+ save is quite nice. Like Wraiths, you can't rely on them doing real damage, due to the random nature of the Spawn, but you can guarantee that unless your Spawn are in combat with a huge hammer unit they are going to keep them there for a while, many hammer units may even struggle with that, all for 180pts. In short, I think that we have some cheese here.

That said, they can still churn out a decent amount of damage if the dice are with you, with between 3 and 8 S5 attacks per Spawn on the charge. The only downside to their tarpitting however is that they're WS3, so they are going to be hit on 3s most of the time, but your opponent is also going to need 6s to hit them on 3s most of the time too. So, how exactly would I run these? I'll just put in a summary.

5 Chaos Spawn: 180pts

-Mark of Nurgle

Chaos Marine Analysis - Warpsmith

The first positive thing that I have to say about the Warpsmith is that his model is very nice. Ok, that's aesthetic opinionated crap over and done with, let's get down to analysing this thing in a way that is less objective.

The Warpsmith is 5pts more than a Dark Apostle, and comes with his own special shenanigans. First off, as a parallel to the Techmarine in the Space Marines Codex, instead of improving one of your pieces of terrain, you get to worsen one of your opponents. Although you can't use this on area terrain. I would say that this is better than being able to improve terrain. Yes you can take an Aegis Defence Line and give your units a 3+ save base or something like that but at the end of the day, it comes down to how dependant upon terrain Chaos Space Marines are.

If you're more dependant on it than your opponent, then you'll want to improve your own terrain, as your opponent won't care too much if you degrade theirs. But if you're playing against an army that is dependant upon it (Dark Eldar, Tyranids), they're going to hate their cover saves being reduced more than you'd enjoy your cover save being better, if you get where I'm coming from.

His second piece of shenaniganary is to do with his ability to repair vehicles. Incorporated in the rule which allows him to do this, is a second paragraph which allows him to mess with enemy vehicles too. Essentially, if he hits it, its weapons get hot (Leman Russ Punisher fun), when I saw this I also thought, hmm, Stormtalon, that'll come close to me and can get a decent number of shots off. But King Kelly has thought of that, the Warpsmith rolls to hit with BS rather than a fixed number. Balls.

Other than all of this, he also comes loaded with a crap load of basic wargear. He has a 2+ save (not so basic) but no invuln, but he also comes with a piece of wargear that gives him extra attacks, a flamer, a meltagun and allows him to fire 2 weapons. He can also take Veterans of the Long War and standard Chaos Artefacts, Rewards and so on.

But do you want to load him down with that extra stuff? The reason that you'd take one of these guys is for the shenaniganary surely. Yes, he's not bad in a fight with those 4 attacks base but when considering his base cost if I wanted a brawler I could do a whole lot better with a Chaos Lord, who is also fearless. So, don't bother with that. Maybe go with Veterans of the Long War though, that's always nice to have.

So, is he worth his 110pts? I think he's not bad for it. He's very versatile, being able to deal with hordes and vehicles with his weapons, he's good in a fight, although I think that an invulnerable save would be nice - if you really want to spend points on him go for Aura of Dark Glory then – as he strikes with an Unwieldy weapon. And he also comes with some nice special anti vehicle rules as well and the breaking down of opposing terrain is a nice force multiplier.

So, if you're looking for a versatile HQ unit without having to flick about the book for that perfect upgrade, why not go with the Warpsmith. Plus he's one cool looking model.

Chaos Marine Analysis - Dark Apostle

I'm going to try to keep up the pace here. I might not be able to get a post done tomorrow as I've got a lot of work to do, but I'll try to get the last generic HQ choice done. So Dark Apostle today.

As a Word Bearers player I will almost certainly be taking one in my army, so I'll try not to destroy my opinion of them too much. The first thing that I noticed when I was looking at his entry isn't too exciting, it just specifies that he can take Veterans of the Long War for free. Why would you not do that? You might as well just auto include it in his Special Rules. Speaking of special rules, here is the first appearance of the USR, 'Zealot' giving the Apostle Hatred and Fearless, so already you can put him in a big squad and he'll buff it pretty well, a bit like a Marine Chaplain (no surprises at that comparison).

He can take Chaos ranged weapons, rewards and artifacts but honestly I wouldn't. He already comes stock with a Power Maul (thunder hammer), grenades and a 4++ save. He also gives all units within 6” his leadership and members of his squad get to re-roll on the boon table.

The only thing that I would be concerned about is his lack of attacks. He only has 2. So in every combat he should hit once, and reliably kill/wound (depending on toughness and eternal warrior) 1 model per turn of combat. So maybe a Mark of Khorne is in order. It's the cheapest of the Marks and it'll give him an extra attack enough of the time to make an impact. But then the question comes down to, do you really want him in combat, or just to buff a squad?

I'd say that the answer to this is yes. What good is buffing a squad if you're not going to do anything with it? I like rhetorics this month. The other way that I could see you using him is castling up your fire base and objective campers around him and making your Obliterators leadership 10 or Fearless depending upon whether you've joined the squad, then attatching him to a different unit to charge with/take a charge should the enemy get too close. But then are you getting enough use out of him?

I think that this is another thing that requires playtesting, and who knows? As I go through the book I may find units where I think, 'a Dark Apostle would be awesome in here'. As I do, I'll let you know.

Chaos Marine Analysis - Daemon Prince

I've had to have a bit of a think about the Daemon Prince, I definitely like the new incarnation, although the passing of Lash will be looked on with sadness/joy depending upon your perspective. I'm going to go the for controversial option here and say that I'm saddened by its passing. I never played Lash Chaos, so I'm not saddened by it because I now can't use another cheesy combo. The reason I'm saddened is probably down to a sense of nostalgia. About a year after I first got into 40k my gaming buddy started using a dual Lash Prince, Tri defiler list.

The first time I played against that with my Footdar I was tabled and only managed to kill a single Thousand Son in the process. I didn't mind him playing the list, because during this period my game really started to improve, and although it took me 2 years to beat the list, I came out of that a much better player than I had started as. That's probably expected due to my increase in experience but I believe that playing against a hard list like that drove me to want to improve my play as much as I possibly could. Plus, Lash was quite common in my community and although I played against it a lot I have won every game against a Lash list that I've played since I first beat it at the end of 2010, because I'd played it so often that I knew exactly how to deal with it.

But anyway, that's past, onto the present. The current Daemon Prince has one heck of a beasty statline. I'm actually thinking of bringing back the Arena once I've finished analysing the Chaos Codex and watching a bear DP fight the Avatar of Khaine. It's 10pts cheaper than an Avatar though, but anyway. How are you going to kit this guy out?

Well for a start you have to take a Mark, so which one to take? Well, starting off generically, each Mark gives you hatred against Daemons of the polarized God, I'm not going to state outright which hates which but Lexicanum will tell you. But, other than that, they all come with their own nifty rules. Khorne gives you furious charge, Nurgle gives you shrouded and slow and purposeful. Slaanesh comes with quite a few, +3” to your run, fleet and rending. But my favourite by far is Tzeentch, which allows you to re-roll all saving through results of 1, being familiar with this through my Space Wolves I'll come on to how nasty this can be in a minute. All of the Marks cost the same, with the exception of Slaanesh which is 5pts cheaper and all 5 give you access to Mark associated psychic powers, with the exception of Khorne of course.

Now, moving onto individual upgrades. You can give him Wings, a good decision. Why not make your 200+pt Monstrous Creature flying, they're nasty. The one I probably have more to say about however is the humble upgrade of power armour. For 20pts I really think that this is mandatory. Especially considering the Daemon Princes Toughness of 5, as otherwise I can drop a Manticore missile on you and 2/3rds of the time that is going to result in a dead Daemon. So, give him a 3+ save to mitigate that. Now, normally I still wouldn't like the risk for such an expensive model, but remember, you have a Mark of Tzeentch, and now, half of the saves that you fail are going to allow you a re-roll, that's pretty nice.

You can also give your Daemon Prince psychic mastery levels, so he doesn't have to take any psychic powers at all, for the same cost as the Sorcerer has to pay per level. I probably wouldn't go with this, I'd like to keep my DP as inexpensive as possible, especially when I would be paying 25pts for something that is essentially random. If you're going for the biggest beatstick that you can find. Sure why not? But then you'll also want to dip into the Chaos Rewards, etc, which I'll come onto now.

I probably wouldn't take the rewards. I've heard about taking the Axe of Blind Fury but then I'm not getting Mark of Tzeentch, plus I'm a WS9 S6 Monstrous Creature with 5 attacks anyway, and this isn't something that I'd really like to go overkill on. So essentially, this is how I'd set up a Daemon Prince.

Daemon Prince: 220pts

-Mark of Tzeentch

-Wings

-Power Armour

And that's already pretty expensive.766 words. Cutting down.