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Well, looking at all of the HQs closely in the new CSM codex, I'm finding that i like the dark apostle a lot more now. He has hatred standard against everything, is fearless, and can take the axe of blind fury. And he is really cheap for what he can do. Only for 150 points for 5+d6 S6 attacks at WS4 re-rolling hits on the charge. Even if he gets charged, he still gets 4+ d6 attacks, re-rolling hits. It's pretty nasty. Throw him in a squad of khorne marked CSM, and you have a very potent force for cheap.

This is the kit i would roll with the dark apostle

Dark apostle 160
Mark of Khorne, Gift of Mutation, Axe of Blind fury

Chaos space Marines (9) 230
Four more marines, Mark of Khorne, Icon of wrath, 8 CCWs traded for Boltguns, Sergeant - Power Weapon, Gift of Mutation, Rhino - Dirge Caster

Now you have 37 attacks (5 at ap3) re-rolling to hit at S5. You also get to re-roll your charge range and the opponent does not get to fire overwatch (well the rhino is basically for extra mobility, i wouldn't always expect it to survive...). Then you also have your dark apostle's attacks. This seems like it would be a good way to run regular marines (even without the dark apostle, as 40 s5 attacks (5 at ap3) are pretty nasty anyway). Use two or three squads of these to put pressure on your opponent quickly.

The reason I am thinking that these CSM will survive that long without taking any casualties is that I play daemons and run flamers, screamers, and fiends, so i will be up in my opponents face, and he will only be thinking about dealing with them instead of looking at my CSM rolling up. It's also nice, because these are cheap, potent units that i can take two of and they are scoring.Two squads of 10 khorne CSM seem to fit really well into my list.

Anyway, getting back on the point, the dark apostle is probably the best carrier (cheap and deadly) for the axe of blind fury. Unless you really need those attacks at I5 with the lord, the apostle will always do better against any opponent. his re-rolling hits will cancel-out his WS4 v WS5 of the lord, and will end up inflicting more damage. Plus hit boosts (fearless, re-roll boon, ld10 within 6", hatred) seem to be more worth it for the point cost. Although he can't take a 2+ armour, nor a 4+ invuln, i think he will end up being worth it. His bonus to the khorne CSM that he is stuck with will be a lot better than trying to make him more survivable.

Bar the Daemon prince (really expensive), the dark apostle IMO makes the best use of the Axe of Blind Fury.

What are your thoughts? Is there a better bearer for the axe?

the biggest weakness of the Dark Apostle is he is a lot easier to kill - having a lower WS, and two wounds rather than 3 (while also striking at a lower initiative) means he is more likely to go down before dishing out his attacks. this is particularly true against enemy characters - most enemy leaders built for close combat will probably kill him before he ever gets to strike.

So the question you have to ask yourself is are the additional hits from the axe worth the risk that the guy holding the axe is killed sooner than a Chaos Lord would be? If he's dead it doesn't matter how many attacks he's got

A much better approach to Khornate slicing-things-up is a Khorne Lord w/ AoBF & Sigil accompanied by 9 Zerkers. In a land Raider if you can afford it

Or even better:

Lord of Khorne on jug, AoBF, Sigil, mutation
5 spawns

That makes for a very brutal unit...

True, but that become very expensive very quickly. Plus re-rolling hits will always be better than +1 Ws on the first round of combat, against any opponent. Unless you really need the I5, and the 2+ armour, the apostle will be better. Stick him in a unit with a champion and challenge with the champion while he wrecks anything else.

thisisnotpancho wrote:
True, but that become very expensive very quickly. Plus re-rolling hits will always be better than +1 Ws on the first round of combat, against any opponent. Unless you really need the I5, and the 2+ armour, the apostle will be better. Stick him in a unit with a champion and challenge with the champion while he wrecks anything else.

but +1 WS and Hatred SM is better than flat Hatred against half the armies in the game. Even worse, most of the armies you really want to get into CC with are marines. Who care about hatred in CC when you are playing against IG, DE, CWE, Tau.

Also init5 is huge. So many Meq armies are going to be running around with init5 characters with a lightning claw/power sword and skewer the DA before he gets to strike. Additionally it means that all those init4 meq are going to be hitting at the same time as those attacks come out. So the DA might kill a bunch of ATSKNF meq, get killed himself and then leave his squad alone without fearless. An init5 Chaso lord will kill meq before they strike, and take less wounds in return

2 wounds is also a big issue. Barage weapons, LOSfail shooting, psykic power will all take their toll. Not to mention 18% of the time you are taking a wound from the axe. The Chaos lord has another wound to survive and dish out combat damage for another turn or two.


VotLW Chaos lord with Sigil is 95 points, A DA is 105 points. Add the Axe and MoK and the DA is still 10 points more expensive.
Is 10 points worth -1attack, -1 wound, -1 WS, -1 BS, and hatred (DE, IG, CWE, Tau, 'nids, sisters and newcrons)?
also the chaos lord unlocks bezerkers as troops.

Plus the Chaos Lord is just better. He is significantly deadlier on his own, should he be found, er, alone, because his body guard got wrecked.
And the Lord is CRAZY cheap for how good he is!
And you get Berzerks are troops!
I don't know, generic hatred is good, but its no preferred enemy. DAMN YOU DESTROYER LORD!!!

 Brymm wrote:

I don't know, generic hatred is good, but its no preferred enemy. DAMN YOU DESTROYER LORD!!!

Who would, incidentally, turn that axe against you, then decapitate whats left.

i4 vs i5 makes it worth the extra 10 points for the chaos lord? its the difference between trading with a i4 sergeant with a power sword and killing him without taking a wound.

That said good effort, i applaud anyone trying to make this model what it should have been or indeed making it useful in a game... Screw you GW for not giving him a deepstrike icon or SOMETHING to make him an interesting alternative...

On the other hand THANKYOU GW for the AoBF!!! it makes just about anything brutal...

I just modeled a AoBF lord w/ sigil of corruption on a juggernaught.

That should deal some significant pain.

I'd rather spend 10 pints more than a dark apostle with the axe and bring Kharn.

I've been running a dark apostle with MoN in a unit of seven terminators and they've lasted every game so far and have never lost slay the warlord either.....the model still sucks though

Ithani wrote:
i4 vs i5 makes it worth the extra 10 points for the chaos lord? its the difference between trading with a i4 sergeant with a power sword and killing him without taking a wound.

That said good effort, i applaud anyone trying to make this model what it should have been or indeed making it useful in a game... Screw you GW for not giving him a deepstrike icon or SOMETHING to make him an interesting alternative...

On the other hand THANKYOU GW for the AoBF!!! it makes just about anything brutal...

it's actually -10 points to have init5, more attacks, higher WS and more wounds.

you pay less for more nastiness, durability and damage with the chaos lord.

I can't even begin to explain how important I5 is for an Axe user. The fact that you're hitting at AP2 means that you're very effectively going to take most of your opponents out of the action before they can strike back at you. While it's still nice that you can strike simultaneously as them, being able to reduce the number of attacks or wounds incoming is even better.

I've had the Axe go up against Termies, Grey Hunters w/ Wulfen, Wolf Guard Termies, and each time being able to strike at I5 increased the survivability of my lord significantly.

You see, what i do is I take CSM as allies, so the dark apostle is useful in a couple situations:
I run him with khorne marines, and in this instance, he is far better than a lord. The fact that he can give his whole unit re-rollable hits is amazing. That coupled with that huge number of attacks can make what he does really deadly. Just challenge out the aspiring champion and look out sir the wounds and boom goes the dynamite.
8.5 s7 ap2 attacks always re-rolling hits is pretty amazing. A lord in that position would go first, but still wouldn't be nearly as deadly in CC. Yes he would mitigate the attacks coming back, but giving all of the 37 attacks (if you roll 9 in a rhino) always re-rolls is simply better than killing a character in a challenge.

Against any non-marine units, the minus one initiative is not going to matter because most of the things aren't i4. And you also get to re-roll hits. And the way i roll my primary daemon (flamers/screamers) army, i don't need to worry about MEQs. Overall the lord might be better against marines, but against everything else, the dark apostle triumphs. chaos space marines, daemons, dark eldar, eldar, tau, tyranids, sisters of battle, orks, necrons, imperial guard, all of these will be armies that you will play against where his lower initiative and hatred (everything) will help. And against marines, he is still pretty badass. Challenge out the champion and watch him wreak havoc against all things, from marines to terminators to nids. I even figured that he could almost take a tervigon down by himself with the icon backing him up.

i5 is sick now that furious charge sucks

thisisnotpancho wrote:

Against any non-marine units, the minus one initiative is not going to matter because most of the things aren't i4. And you also get to re-roll hits. And the way i roll my primary daemon (flamers/screamers) army, i don't need to worry about MEQs. Overall the lord might be better against marines, but against everything else, the dark apostle triumphs. chaos space marines, daemons, dark eldar, eldar, tau, tyranids, sisters of battle, orks, necrons, imperial guard, all of these will be armies that you will play against where his lower initiative and hatred (everything) will help.

Tau, IG, Sisters, and in many cases CWEldar and DE arent going to have any comabt units, or really units that an expensive beatstick is going to be worth it, and if you do see combat, doing less damage might be better as you can stay in combat and avoid getting shot. Against Daemons, CC DE, CC CWE, and 'nids init 5 does make a huge difference. They have a lot of init4 and int5 units. Far better to go simo with Incubi, Sorpians and ahead of guants and bloodletters.

If it works for you, great. I think most people would rather avoid getting punked and have the extra wounds and attacks to last longer. Also getting dropped to WS4 means you will only be hitting most CC units on 4+, a problem if the enemy makes it past the first round.

I prefer the Lord on a Juggernought.

If you have a dark apostle leading a squad to give it re-rolls, all your opponant needs to do is charge with 1 character.

For example if I use anything ap3, I5+.
I Charge with one man (and duck the snap fire shooting). Declare challenge. Either you feed an aspiring champion to my character and I kill him and another challenge happens next round or you give me the I4 apostle and I drop him and either way, you lose the re-rolls. I've actually found it better to do things like bubble wrap a khorne lord with a large squad, but not have him lead the squad.
This way, when someone uses a proper special cc monster (eg mephiston) you can tie him up with your champion for a turn and then tar pit him with the unit. Meanwhile, the khorne lord goes the other way and we have a race to see which character can kill most.

And my money is on the khorne juggernought lord.

It's why I hate the 'must always challenge rule'.

If you're rolling the Apostle up with Berzerkers, you'll need a transport for him. That caps your 'zerker squad to 9, because you either stick them in a Rhino or a Land Raider. Your numbers are capped, or else if you max out the 'zerker squad, you're going to footslog.

Lord of Khorne on jug, AoBF, Sigil, mutation
5 spawns

That makes for a very brutal unit...

Yes it does, and minus the mutation (which I can't justify buying...can someone explain that to me?) that's exactly what I run in my World Eater army.

Back to the Dark Apostle, he is a pretty cool concept. I like the idea of the corrupted chaplain type character and all, but I can't find a good "fit" for one in any of my Chaos armies. I tend to use lords and/or sorcerors anyway....

.....the model still sucks though

It sure does. It's hideous. It's the poster child for everything that is wrong with Citadel's current trend in making character models that are over-cluttered and are simply a sculptor showing off how much detail/clutter he can cram onto a model. No thanks. I'm going to pick up an old RT Space Marine Chaplain model and do some quick conversion work to make my own Dark Apostle model. It will wind up looking better and be alot cheaper in the end....

TR

If you are so intent on running them in a rhino I might try the warp smith. You will enjoy the normal compliment of 2x flamers or meltas and he comes with more attacks and 2+ save. The WS drop is hardly that important.

Anyway if you are going to ram some combat character into a rhino it should probably be a warp smith or something. You might miss the fearlessness but you won't miss the price of that tacked on maul or the mediocre boon buffs. Dark apostle is such a weird support character. I guess he's meant to hang around your lines with a countercharge unit or bubble wrap.

 Lucre wrote:
If you are so intent on running them in a rhino I might try the warp smith. You will enjoy the normal compliment of 2x flamers or meltas and he comes with more attacks and 2+ save. The WS drop is hardly that important.

Anyway if you are going to ram some combat character into a rhino it should probably be a warp smith or something. You might miss the fearlessness but you won't miss the price of that tacked on maul or the mediocre boon buffs. Dark apostle is such a weird support character. I guess he's meant to hang around your lines with a countercharge unit or bubble wrap.

the warpy is even more fun because he can fire his flamer and his meltagun at the same time

 Exergy wrote:

 Lucre wrote:
If you are so intent on running them in a rhino I might try the warp smith. You will enjoy the normal compliment of 2x flamers or meltas and he comes with more attacks and 2+ save. The WS drop is hardly that important.

Anyway if you are going to ram some combat character into a rhino it should probably be a warp smith or something. You might miss the fearlessness but you won't miss the price of that tacked on maul or the mediocre boon buffs. Dark apostle is such a weird support character. I guess he's meant to hang around your lines with a countercharge unit or bubble wrap.

the warpy is even more fun because he can fire his flamer and his meltagun at the same time

I don't know what unit you'd be shooting that that a flamer and a melta might be effective against save a bunch of terminators in a clusterfeth. It's not really that big of an advantage tbh.

You think melta guns aren't something good against terminators? Sisters of battle had a great match against death wing and draigo in 5th because of S8 AP1.

But seriously, 9 marines and an hq is not a deathstar. The axe might be okay but he has to waste his billion attacks first round killing a squad leader. It's not as if the unit gets to charge the moment they leave their armored hull anyway so it has to play shooting unit for a little at least. Get some mileage out of it where you can. You can't play that unit like a deathstar unless you are only fighting units that are cheaper than it. The flamers over watch is also surprisingly useful against units that traditionally swamp units like this.

Rhinos don't play well with bpccw anymore, but there is something to be said for a unit that can do more than one job.

Edit: I guess so long as your champion stays alive you won't have too much challenge pain but the champion sure ends up killing the crap out of one crappy dude each round (unless everyone is suddenly challenge happy for some reason and hates leveraging a tactical advantage and keeping their squads lean) Los lists not withstanding. The basic point remains the same. This unit is going to have durldley turns where it isn't accomplishing much and feels vulnerable.

 Lucre wrote:
You think melta guns aren't something good against terminators? Sisters of battle had a great match against death wing and draigo in 5th because of S8 AP1.

I didn't say that it isn't effective, I said that it is.