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While it's possible for Chaos to make most any squad Fearless by virtue of a babysitting HQ or expensive and vulnerable icon, is it necessary?

VotLW gives us easy and cheap access to LD10 coupled with a decent unit buff, so can we trust the dice gods for those leadership checks and pocket the savings?

fearless and LD10 are completely different. Fearless makes you completely immune to a number of things and means you wont ever run, even when you lose by 8.

Keep in mind that sometimes it is better for squads to not be Fearless. Now, CC units benefit a lot from Fearless, but units that are supposed to sit in terrain, having a high Leadership is way better.

Why? Because it means you can go to Ground against plasma, battlecannons, vindicators and other ranged MeQ-killers. A 3+ cover save means it wil will take a lost on non-barrage shots to dislodge you. So just place yourself carefully so you don't run off the board in a turn should you fail a LD roll, and you have a definite advantage.

 Exergy wrote:
fearless and LD10 are completely different. Fearless makes you completely immune to a number of things and means you wont ever run, even when you lose by 8.

Yes in general Fearless is better. My question had more to do with using our limited resources (points) most effectively.
Put another way, is Fearlessness a mandatory upgrade for all Chaos units or is it situational?

Sephyr: I agree, the greatest concern seems to be losing in assault, failing the check and being swept.

Well, for the fearlessness of CSM troop units you need an icon. The icon bearer can be singled out by precision shots. So there is no safe way to bring this icon to bear when it will be needed.
I'd go for CSM units with VotlW giving you leadership 9 which should be sufficient most of the time.

 minigun762 wrote:

 Exergy wrote:
fearless and LD10 are completely different. Fearless makes you completely immune to a number of things and means you wont ever run, even when you lose by 8.

Yes in general Fearless is better. My question had more to do with using our limited resources (points) most effectively.
Put another way, is Fearlessness a mandatory upgrade for all Chaos units or is it situational?

Sephyr: I agree, the greatest concern seems to be losing in assault, failing the check and being swept.

Being a Necron player, I can tell you that LD10 is not all it's cracked up to be in assaults. A squad of 20 warriors and a Necron Lord with a Warscythe can kill most units, provided they never lose the assault by more than 2. They will wear the other squad down because half of the warriors that die, reanimate at the end of the phase.

Now, you don't have to have a fearless squad, just have another fearless unit in the fight, then the enemy can't sweep you. Takes a little more work and care moving units around, but one small fearless unit could protect a couple other squads and then jump in the assault with the unit you don't want to lose.


Note - I can tell you horror stories of losing 500 point units due to sweeping advances. One was a horrible die roll on my part and incredible armor saves on my enemy. I lost the assault by 1 and my 15 warriors, 2 Lords, and 1 Overlord were swept by the single Marine that was left!

Bringing up Necrons is not a good comparison as they're I2 all around, with 1A base. CSMs with I4 reduces the chance of being swept down to a roll off against other I4 units, and they can also be kitted out to not be a wash in combat (ie not 1A per model).

EDIT: OP, how often did you get swept using the older book? Getting swept is a concern that's overblown.

Seems to me like a combination of both is better than one or the other.

In objective-camping, put the non-fearless ones on the objectives with cover (so they can go to ground) and the fearless ones on the more-exposed objectives (where every model has to be killed).

In assault, it's easier to afford a big non-fearless unit pointswise, but if they lose then sending them in with even a small fearless unit can prevent the non-fearless unit from getting swept.

That way you get the advantages of both.

For CC units, it's probably worth the points to get Fearless if only because the things that fearless prevents you from doing are things that CC units likely wouldn't be doing anyways (such as going to ground). Additionally, while getting swept isn't as much of a concern for CSM as it is for say 'crons because of their high initiative, failing a combat and falling back means that the unit is now able to get shot up and is not able to continue to tie down whatever it was fighting, making fearless more attractive (depending on how much it costs, of course).

For non CC units, Ld 10 is the way to go unless you are concerned about being shot off a board edge.

A split approach probably is the best. Spend the points where they are most required and save the points where you can.