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One of my buddies is new to 40k and starting a Chaos army. He has a Chaos Lord and for his 2nd HQ choice really wants Fabius Bile. He has no play time in the game and a small amount of understanding of how it works. I suppose he enjoys the rule allowing him to buff other units. Rarely do I see this HQ in any lists. Can you CSM players out there let me know where he fits into a army and what units he goes well with. Thanks.

i don't know much about Fabius Bile as a fielded model but i do know that in the fluff he is even amongst chaos marines a bit of a d**k

Fabius can be good, but I'd take a Daemon Prince as a 2nd HQ choice any day

I tried to sell him on a Daemon Prince. I played against a tzeentch one with winds of chaos and warptime who did quite well. For 3 points per model Fabius Bile usually buffs the models strength by 1. If you roll a 1 on the "to buff" chart he still buffs +1 strength but the unit attacks each other and only the survivors get it. On a 6, he buffs +2 strentgh to each model but you have to kill off a model each turn. I can see where this could turn a mediocre set of chaos space marines into strength 6 bad asses. Anyone else with any other insight on his usefulness?

I have been experimenting with Fab and he's actually not as terrible as he looks. There is a bit of a gray area in his rules, but just enhancing vanilla marines and giving them icon of slaanesh gets you basically berzerkers for 3 points less. No weapon skill 5 but still pretty sweet. actually rolling a 6 isnt too bad as long as you get into combat quickly. The real kicker is that Bile himself is basically a marine in combat... yeah 5 attacks but any power fist or dedicated cc unit will bend him over. Just kinda learn to deal with a 160 point useless model. Bile lists arnt the most competitive, but they are cool, fluffy, and your opponent likely wont have played much against him before, so you'll have surprise!

Agree with the above post Fabius is not a competetive HQ choice but he can give your opponent a nasty surprise and put him off balance. Why not use him it is better than 2 Lash Princes 3 Squads of Plaguemarines and 9 Obliterators which is probably the most boring army in the world but apparently very competetive (although quite easy to neutralise).

In order for Bile to work, you really need to build a list around him--a list that spams units of 10 enhanced marines with meltaguns in rhinos supported by some ranged attakcs like obliterators. It works better at 2000+ point levels.

Bile by himself is totally not worth it, and using him to only enhance one or two squads is also not worth it. Just buy cult marines.

Question, what all can you enhance with his ability? Just normal marines, or other squads as well?

Irdiumstern wrote:Question, what all can you enhance with his ability? Just normal marines, or other squads as well?

Just normal marines

You can buy it for 3 points as an upgrade to normal CSM only.

Fabius is okay in friendly games, wouldnt ever say he is good though. He's far to random and relies on chance for almost everything. He can make your army kill itself very easily. If he want to play for fun then yuo could give him a spin, if not go for somthing more reliable, like a DP.

Enhanced Warriors refers to "Chaos Space Marines", which has three extensions in Codex: Chaos Space Marines.

1. All units, since all the units are Chaos Space Marine units by dint of being in Codex: Chaos Space Marines.

2. Some units, specifically Chaos Space Marines, Chosen Chaos Space Marines, Chaos Space Marine Bikers, and Chaos Space Marine Havocs, since they are listed under the "Chaos Space Marine" entry in the Forces of Chaos section of Codex Chaos Space Marines.

3. One unit: the unit named "Chaos Space Marines" in the Troops list of the Army List section of Codex: Chaos Space Marines.

Discuss which one extension you and your opponent wish to use before playing.

I did pretty well a couple of years in 'ard Boyz with a bile army just like I describe: spamming about 5 rhinos with enhanced marines with khorne icons & fist champs, some oblits, lash sorcerer, some summoned daemons.

Everything fearless, everything scores. Enhanced marines can kill their own tanks with meltaguns, are pretty shooty, and fight really well in HtH, especially when supported by daemons who can tarpit things that hurt marines, like terminators.

But that's at 2500 points where you have the room to spam big units like that. At smaller points, the opportunity cost of Bile becomes proportionally too high.

If you do the reverse engineering you can make slightly cheaper Khorne Berzerkers who have only some of the advantages for a point or two less. Really kind of a toss up from there.

Well the biggest advantage of enhanced marines over berzerkers is the weapon options. Enhanced marines can take meltaguns. So they don't need to depend on somebody else to kill tanks for them.

That's what enhanced marines provide as an alternative to cult marines--they break the usual dynamic of needing berzerkers to fight, chosen to melta, and plague marines to hold/score. Enhanced marines can do it all themselves, if slightly less effectively.

I wouldn't say you "need" Berzerkers to fight. I kinda disliked them because they tended to get shot down first then be useless. I find that normal CSM can do a bit of everything just fine if played properly. A lot of it depends on your local meta what works better or not anyway.

Yeah with GW's track record as far as making rulings goes, the enhancement grey area will probably remain. I just play it as only vanilla CSM can do it, as the other choices arn't really worth it. Maybe Chosen, but thats a stretch.

purplefood wrote:i don't know much about Fabius Bile as a fielded model but i do know that in the fluff he is even amongst chaos marines a bit of a d**k

Yeah, he mainly "helps" meaningless traitor guardsmen, not marines. The spikies think he's an arrogant barstool. I think.

He's not terrible, but He needs to be a general unit type, not a special character. CSM should be able to take apothecaries anyway.

Flavius Infernus wrote:Well the biggest advantage of enhanced marines over berzerkers is the weapon options. Enhanced marines can take meltaguns. So they don't need to depend on somebody else to kill tanks for them.

That's what enhanced marines provide as an alternative to cult marines--they break the usual dynamic of needing berzerkers to fight, chosen to melta, and plague marines to hold/score. Enhanced marines can do it all themselves, if slightly less effectively.

There are also instances where a cheap unit of 20 strong fearless marines can come in handy. They don't always have to be mounted in rhinos.

id take kharn the betrayer over Fabius any day. I dont think killing off 1 CSM per turn or having them attack eachother is worth the risk

I think Fabius can be competitive. Chaos Space Marines that are fearless, S5 and I5 (MoS) is handy. You've got uber grit and these units really can take advantage of this ability. I would run these squads with a meltagun/lascannon in rhinos. I think MoS is the best mark as you already have enough attacks base due to uber grit. A good support unit would be Khorne Havocs in rhinos kitted with 4x meltagun. They are also quite good in assault due to the high number of attacks and are very blasty. Every one of these squads (tacticals & Havocs) should have a power fist. Fabius himself is no slouch in assault either.

Basically it's an alternative list you rarely if ever see and that in and of itself is not a bad thing. Flavius said he did well with this style of play in hte Ard Boyz so that is a testament in and of itself that is has some potential in smaller point games.

G

Ed_Bodger wrote:You can buy it for 3 points as an upgrade to normal CSM only.

Not Chosen or Possessed? Huh, I guess I got hood-winked. Not that it saved him from the Rail-cannon death sentence.

For a large point game sure. If you cant talk him into DPs have him run some Greater Daemons they exist out side the force org chart and pack a punch

Chaosswanson1 wrote:id take kharn the betrayer over Fabius any day. I dont think killing off 1 CSM per turn or having them attack eachother is worth the risk

Lol on average Kharn does the same thing with any unit he joins....

Anyway I agree with the suggestion of khorne havocs. A 4 x flamer squad with Fabius' large amount of CC attacks (in a rhino with havoc launcher) would also make a great horde killing unit. I think it's probably best if we start planning an actual genetic engineered vanilla CSM spam list.

if you use fabius please DECK OUT the EW!

i love going up against nids with my fabi/kharn list only for the opponent to find out my CSM wound his trygon on 4's :p

fabius by himself is a normal CSM with alot of attacks which can cause instant death if failed, no invul and at S5 and WS5, meh alone i say!