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So, am I the only player in the world who read the Boon of Mutation psychic power when all the pictures were released before the codex and thought, "Hey, that's pretty cool! I can't wait to use this!"

Am I also the only player who has continued to feel this way for the past three weeks?

I love the Boon table. Sure, it stinks when a special character becomes a Spawn/Prince (1 in 9 chance without any sort of rerolls). But, it's awesome when a generic squad character does, and many of the other Boons can be quite beneficial. I dare say that Boon of Mutation is the best psychic power for the army if you are looking to utilize the Boon table. Consider:

1) We must Challenge, and Accept Challenges.
2) Many of our upgrade characters will die in Challenges due to their Initiative.
3) Challenges are the most likely way we can roll on the Boon table, as shooting requires precision shots.
4) Gift of Chaos costs almost as much as another model in the unit (or almost half for the more expesive models).

With this in mind, I'm excited to give a character (upgrade or otherwise) several chances to improve before the game is over.

We have three downsides to consider: 2" Range, damage to the character, and the randomness of the Boon Table.

1) The 2" Range is the biggest downside I see, and the only one I'm really worried about. This limits you on who can be Booned. ICs with Thousand Sons, and upgrade characters with Sorcerors are the only ones that seem to benefit. However, with proper latticing, you can actually give youself several choices for targets, or even stack rolls onto models. If you were to put a Thousand Son and a Sorceror within 2" of the same squad leader, he could get four Boon rolls before he enters combat (5 if he also takes Gift). You don't even have to be terribly bunched up to accomplish this, either. Alternatively, they can improve themselves if you so desire.

2) The character being booned takes a S4 AP- hit. Why should we fear this? I'm never terribly concerned about vehicle explosions when using my CSM. (Rules question: can we LoS! a Boon hit?) Even if you are worried about this, we have several options for how to protect ourselves from death.
A) Higher T. Targeting a Plague Marine/Mark of Nurgle/Bike champion reduces the likelihood of taking a wound significantly (more so for Nurgle Bikers).
B) Better Save. Terminator armor models are already ones that you want benefitting from the Boons due to the hurt they can bring (and withstand) in 6th edition.
C) FNP. Most easily achieved through an Icon of Excess, we can also see it with Plague Marines, Typhus, Fabius, and with a little help from Biomancy (although this requires a bit more luck).
With this amount of control, a single (or even 4) S4 AP- hits does not concern me.

3) Randomness. Deal with it, or get a different codex.

In all seriousness, I'm not concerned about Randomness with the table. I don't have it in front of me, but I'd say 80% or better of the results are ones that I really don't ever see myself being upset about because of how I build my characters. The others (Deny the Witch bonuses, etc.) are situational and can be nice in the right circumstances. You could also take your second HQ as an Apostle to help reduce the randomness, especially if you are trying to Boon single models as much as possible.

So, why does everyone rate Boon of Mutation, or really the Tzeentch discipline as a whole, as so horrible? I know it might not be as good as Nurgle and Slaanesh in many circumstances, but I really do love this power, and can't want to abuse it.

Essentially you can't rely on random.

Then play a different game?

Morale tests rely on random. How many times have you failed a morale test for Space Marines, thrown your models to the side and said "This is horrible. I only want to play Fearless armies from now on."

You have a better chance at failing a Space Marine morale test at an inopportune time then you do turning a model into a Spawn.

Is there another roll on the list that is detrimental? Not useless or less-than-occasionally-useful, but seriously harmful?

Well, I'm not giving my Champions the ability to roll at this table a priori. Its too many points and rather unreliable.

A cultist champion will actually get better if he becomes a spawn. If find the idea of a cultist morphing into a gibbering mess and then mulching a group of guardsmen infinitely amusing.

somerandomdude wrote:
Then play a different game?

Morale tests rely on random. How many times have you failed a morale test for Space Marines, thrown your models to the side and said "This is horrible. I only want to play Fearless armies from now on."

You have a better chance at failing a Space Marine morale test at an inopportune time then you do turning a model into a Spawn.

Is there another roll on the list that is detrimental? Not useless or less-than-occasionally-useful, but seriously harmful?

Thats a pretty bad argument. There are many things in warhammer that are not random in a real world sense. A marine shooting an ork has about 30% chance to kill that ork. A 30% isn't that high and I might not even gamble on that but I still do. Why? Because I don't a marine or an ork I have squads of orks and marines blasting each other. That 30% is being made multible times in a single turn.

Chaos boon on the other hand is maybe made once per game and I pay extra points for it and get a chance to become less reliable.

And when space marines fail morale they automatically regroup, no need to fear sweeping advance.

The problem I see is that too many of the entries on the table are just not worth it. +1 strength to a shooting weapon, +1BS, fleet or whatever.

Its like yeah you can have a sorc and a dark apostle run around buffing all your champions, but unless you get DP (or spawn in some cases) you are never really going to be happy.

That is 200 points of your army running about trying to buff your champions and it will rarely get you 200 points of value out.

It does seem fun. I wanted to make a list with Sorcerer, DA, and Thousand Sons. Add allied Daemons, Lord of Change/ Fateweaver. Daemon Prince, Flamers with Pyrocaster, Horrors with Changeling.

Being Battle Brothers and the FMC being characters, Boon starts to seem interesting. That +1 Str on a ranged attack starts looking good on Bolt of Tzeentch. Fateweaver with Feel No Pain. Daemon Prince with Iron Hide getting the improved armor save and rolling with Fateweaver. I think the bigger the character, the better the profit.

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:
Essentially you can't rely on random.

That's why they're called the "Chaos" Marines.

All-in-all, the Boons table seems like a lot of fun. Unreliable, but it's the sort of fun thing I'd enjoy in a game.

EricBasser wrote:
It does seem fun. I wanted to make a list with Sorcerer, DA, and Thousand Sons. Add allied Daemons, Lord of Change/ Fateweaver. Daemon Prince, Flamers with Pyrocaster, Horrors with Changeling.

Being Battle Brothers and the FMC being characters, Boon starts to seem interesting. That +1 Str on a ranged attack starts looking good on Bolt of Tzeentch. Fateweaver with Feel No Pain. Daemon Prince with Iron Hide getting the improved armor save and rolling with Fateweaver. I think the bigger the character, the better the profit.

and if you lose fatewearver to becoming a DP or Spawn?

really i think boon of mutation only works on things with Champions of Chaos on them.

That's the reason for a Dark Apostle. Just put the Dark Apostle with what ever sorcerer has Boon of Mutation.

No where in the rules for Boon of Mutation does it say it only works on Champions of Chaos or even from Codex Chaos space Marines. The only restrictions I can find are it targets a single, friendly character.

While not game breaking, I think the randomness would make for a fun game.

EricBasser wrote:
It does seem fun. I wanted to make a list with Sorcerer, DA, and Thousand Sons. Add allied Daemons, Lord of Change/ Fateweaver. Daemon Prince, Flamers with Pyrocaster, Horrors with Changeling.

Being Battle Brothers and the FMC being characters, Boon starts to seem interesting. That +1 Str on a ranged attack starts looking good on Bolt of Tzeentch. Fateweaver with Feel No Pain. Daemon Prince with Iron Hide getting the improved armor save and rolling with Fateweaver. I think the bigger the character, the better the profit.

but if fateweaver becomes a Spawn?

doesnt it require the target to have champions of chaso special rule?

somerandomdude wrote:
3) Randomness. Deal with it, or get a different codex.

I'm taking the second option. I hate this codex.

I'm not sure if the target needs the Champions of Chaos special rules. Boon of Mutation says the target rolls on the Boon Table as described under the Champions of Chaos Rules. I think this just describes how to roll for the table.

As for the Dark Apostle, I am mistaken. The rules indicate that the character must be part of his unit to re-roll Boon results.

Ahh, the "The game uses dice, it's random, so you don't get to complain" canard. It never gets old because it already starts out ancient.

Sticking to the issue at hand, its a clunky, unreliable mechanic.

1- It adds a lot of variable book-keeping to the game. "Well, I remember one of my champions rolled +1S to his bolt pistol, but the other has gained a wound and +1I. Who was it again? Let me check my notes before we start rolling CC".

2- It can easily bust the concept you made for your units. "I love my biker nurgle sorcerer with his biker escort! Zooming around the table, laughing at bolters, dropping poisoned pie plates on the enemy. Oh, wait. He's now a slow, T5 solitary daemon Prince without any of the cool stuff I gave him. This sure is fun."

3- It's quite lame for a psyker power. It can get shut down by Eldar and Nids, the range is laughable and requires you to group important units (and eat battlecannon blasts) and you stand a decent chance of killing the guys improving your worsened Leadership, carrying special weapons, etc.

4- It's yet another case of random piled on top of random, which is less cinematic than annoying ans very frustrating for those who assemble an army hoping it to do something well.

Hehe,

I ran a Deamon Prince in my first game with chaos - he was a complete point sink with black mace etc but I made him a lvl 1 psyker of tzeentch on the grounds that neither the boon or the bolt was bad so you had some decent control! So my first turn, the first 2 dice I roll with the new codex pass ld test! Then what do I become.. a spawn...

Sigh, I'm playing a 1500pt army in a 1750pt game.. wonderful.

I know bad luck in the first game doesn't mean anything, but it really did put me off boon and the table.

That said, I really think that deamon princes get a lot out of the table and can get some really good stuff, for example a 3+ armoured deamon prince of tzeentch getting +1 armour means you have a rerollable 2+ armour save etc..

That said.. It's really random and the only people I think get enough out of the table are the princes and they can't join the dark apostle *shrugs*

Definitely not tournament level as a bad roll 1/9th of the time could easily be game over in a tournament.

C-Hydra

Paying for the boon - you are paying a fairly high amount of points ( it is a meltagun!) to give a 1W sergeant the chance to get a atribute increase that might not help him. That meltagun would always help.

the random is not the problem, the problem is the risk vs reward. The risk is pretty great but the rewards are too light. You can mitigate the risk by using worse characters but then the reward is even lower.

DA should allow you to add 1 to one of the dice instead of a reroll or the chart should have better items.

While it might be confusing, Boon of Mutation is a Psychic Power. Gift of Mutation is the war gear you pay for with each character.

With Boon of Mutation, you can use it each turn.
Gift of Mutation is used once and before deployment.

I think Gift of Mutation is best used on HQs or on the champions in Possessed and Warp Talon units. Possessed and Warp Talons because you can take two gifts. These are rolls that can't turn into spawns or daemon prince.

EricBasser wrote:
While it might be confusing, Boon of Mutation is a Psychic Power. Gift of Mutation is the war gear you pay for with each character.

With Boon of Mutation, you can use it each turn.
Gift of Mutation is used once and before deployment.

I think Gift of Mutation is best used on HQs or on the champions in Possessed and Warp Talon units. Possessed and Warp Talons because you can take two gifts. These are rolls that can't turn into spawns or daemon prince.

but on WT and Possessed you cant use any of the ranged mutations as they do not have ranged weapons.

How many ranged mutations are there? 2 or 3? Shouldn't be too bad.

EricBasser wrote:
How many ranged mutations are there? 2 or 3? Shouldn't be too bad.

yes but added to them are fleet and the range of other useless mutations.

OP, you already outlined how it's a terrible power by showing the very specific situations it is useful in... and no one really uses those combinations ( Tzeentch sorc with a Nurgle Lord or whatever within 2" all the time).

Shame. What a shame. Terrible power.

On a similar note, I disagree with anyone saying Tzeentch Discipline is useless on a whole. It is fine.

Eh, it's not the primaris so it can always be swapped if you get it in a situation that is unusable. It's really not hard, particularly if you're going to run a lot of TSons to design one or two units that could really benefit from BoM and hang around any Sorcerer(s) that get it. As already pointed out, Cultist Champions could use it just fine, as could any Aspiring (insert noun here). Give them a Plasma Pistol for funsies and you could end up with a BS 5 or strength 8 Plasma Pistol. Could be a lot worse. Or just a bare bones AC...then you don't really care even if you get Spawn, still an upgrade from their baseline stats.

Point being, spend less time whining and more time thinking, you'll find plenty of applications for it.

The problem is tactically you sacrifice too much to take boon of mutation.

The benefit is not worth the opportunity cost of giving up a useful character, or a useful psychic power, for one that in most cases will not help your army kill the opposing army, and in some cases will be a detriment to you.

It is tactically a dead end.