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Are naked aspiring champions the way to go?

I ran a pretty hectic three way free for all and played a very aggressive assault based army. Two max squads of CSM with extra CCW, Melta and Mauls on the champ led by Huron, with some lascannon and autocannon havocs. Aside from the fact that Huron proved brutally effective far more than I gave him credit for, I noticed the champs got punked pretty early on. One challenged a Primaris Psyker, flubbed his attacks and got gibbed by a force axe and the other met his unfortunate end by a harlequin troop leader.

The melta bomb and the maul cost me twenty points per leader, and they did very little. If I had run them naked it wouldn't have changed the outcomes of the fights (they'd have lost), but I would have an extra 40 points to spend on other things. More bodies for the havocs, VoTLW, etc.

So has it come to the point where our aspiring sons and daughters of chaos are better off leaving the power weapons at home and contenting themselves only in the fact that Khorne will accept their skulls sooner rather than later?

Try searching as there have been a few topics on this. For me it's basically

I5 marine gets single claw
Plague marine gets axe
Others typically get melta bomb, maybe a matching combi weapon

 minigun762 wrote:
Try searching as there have been a few topics on this. For me it's basically

I5 marine gets single claw
Plague marine gets axe
Others typically get melta bomb, maybe a matching combi weapon

I suppose my question is, what are those power weapons doing for you that more bodies or shooting weapons couldn't?

A plague marine is survivable but he only gets a few attacks and all at I1. Chances are if you fight someone with an invul that's even half way decent in CC, you'll get destroyed.

So you'd say that a combi weapon on the champ is the best investment. I'd probably be prone to agree.

I5 marine have a good chance of killing other squad leaders before they can swing so they can start stacking boons.

With Plague Marines, you are normally tough enough to survive the first swings and an ap2 weapon gives you the best chance of beating another champion, including a more valuable terminator one.

 gpfunk wrote:

 minigun762 wrote:
Try searching as there have been a few topics on this. For me it's basically

I5 marine gets single claw
Plague marine gets axe
Others typically get melta bomb, maybe a matching combi weapon

I suppose my question is, what are those power weapons doing for you that more bodies or shooting weapons couldn't?

A plague marine is survivable but he only gets a few attacks and all at I1. Chances are if you fight someone with an invul that's even half way decent in CC, you'll get destroyed.

So you'd say that a combi weapon on the champ is the best investment. I'd probably be prone to agree.

A plague marines gets as many attacks as any other chaos champ, and they have FnP which works like an invul against pretty much any power weapon.

I always pay the power sword & melta, if you are hoping your champ to kill an HQ well that isn't going to happen. Your champ should be taking out other squad leaders or at least double K.O. them besides bringing some anti-tank for walkers/MC. My chaos champs with swords have killed countless sergeants with power axe, and many equivalent xeno squad leaders. If you are getting involved in challenges you should make sure that your own HQ is near to support the squad.

 Lord Yayula wrote:


A plague marines gets as many attacks as any other chaos champ, and they have FnP which works like an invul against pretty much any power weapon.

I always pay the power sword & melta, if you are hoping your champ to kill an HQ well that isn't going to happen. Your champ should be taking out other squad leaders or at least double K.O. them besides bringing some anti-tank for walkers/MC. My chaos champs with swords have killed countless sergeants with power axe, and many equivalent xeno squad leaders. If you are getting involved in challenges you should make sure that your own HQ is near to support the squad.

The power maul champ has a good chance to kill a Primaris Psyker. All his attacks are instant death, and the Primaris only needs to fail one save to be smushed. There are some HQs which Aspiring Champs should be able to take on.

The thing is, there are so many squad leaders that don't give two effs whether or not the attack in close combat, or if they lose in a challenge. Imperial Guard, Tau, Space Marines even. More often than not, I see people decline the challenge if they think they're giving away free boons. The squad leaders seem more useful in terms of being the chump to go against an HQ so your IC doesn't have to challenge.

I suppose I just think it's a waste of points to even try to get rolls on the boon table. It's rather likely you get something useless, and that's if you get someone to accept your challenge. Then you have to win. A single melta bomb on the champ might be the best bet just cause you've got a chance to kill anything and it's far better against vehicles.

The plague marine argument is fairly valid. I don't see enough terminators around where I play to make it a must take every fight.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 minigun762 wrote:
I5 marine have a good chance of killing other squad leaders before they can swing so they can start stacking boons.

With Plague Marines, you are normally tough enough to survive the first swings and an ap2 weapon gives you the best chance of beating another champion, including a more valuable terminator one.

Both the Plague and the I5 Marines are effective against other squad leaders that are all champed out I think. But with Imperial Guard especially they just don't do that very often. I don't think it's worth the points to assure the kill on a standard Vet Sarge and roll on the largely useless boon table. They'll probably just deny the challenge and let you mince through the squad so they can shoot you next turn.

You probably face more marines equivalents and terminator equivalents. For me it's wasted points against people like Eldar, IG, and Tau.

There are a few justifications for upgrading your Asp. Champions. Since CSM are one of the relatively small number of armies that still want to get into CC, powering those CC units up isn't in itself a bad idea. In addition, that damned Champions of Chaos rule is a little bit of a silver lining -- you generally know what you're getting into when your champion is in assault. Somewhat paradoxically, the general lessened focus on CC this edition means that, if you give your Champs some upgrades, you'll most likely win combat against those naked sergeants that everyone brings now. Then you can start getting some use out of the boons, as unreliable as they are.

With regards to specific upgrades, generally what minigun said. on Noise Marines or Slaaneshi Marines, at least one Claw -- two if you really want to go crazy, but that's a bit heavy investment for just a champion. On Plague Marines, get an Axe, or use one of those Power Fist champions that many people have lying around from last edition. As you're striking after I4, usually last, getting that extra power is often worth it, especially as Plague Marines are very survivable.

With Champions, you either want to keep them naked to save points for other stuff, or you need to have them built to win combat against other sergeant-level dudes, and then conserve your assaults. If anyone can start cascading worthwhile boons, it really can get things done.

I didn't mention aspiring sorcerers because you can't do much beyond a melta bomb and berserker champs will take a weapon because assault is what they do.

It's really CSMs that are debatable. The common sword champion is likely to kill his mirror while dying at the same time so you could argue the points are worth it to keep the mirror leader from hacking into the squad.

For what its worth, I'd rather take a power weapon over giving my squad a ccw.

I only take meltabombs on champs. Only one naked champ has ever won a challenge to a terminator w/ TH/SS and got a crappy boon.

I just give meltabombs and occasionally combi-weapons to my champions. In this edition, I try to avoid cc honestly.