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After being reunited with my first love - Chaos, I have noticed a bit of love for the black legion supplement.... The 2000 point list I'm currently running is a dual FOC list with 3 FMC DP's each with a different daemon weapon. I also have kharn, 2 squads of bezerkers, 2 squads of cultist, 2 land raiders and a maulerfiend! Is it worth the cost? Can it add anything to a khornate CSM list? I'm reluctant to pay the money for it if I'm going to gain very little!

It offers little for your list more than likely. Instead of berserkers you could take chosen as well as obtain access to different relics which are debatably better or worse that the codex's list based on your opinion. Since you play DPs then more than likely the codex ones are better for you.

- chosen as troops
- requires any unit that can take Votlw to take such.
- allows terminators to be upgraded for a fee if Abbadon is your HQ
- new relics (can't take Codex:CSM relics)
- new Warlord Traits (can't take Codex:CSM warlord traits)
- lots of fluff
- special missions
- stratagem for Planetstrike and Cities of Death battles.

For a standard 40k game, it offers 4 pages of rules and that is it. This is the trend for most supplements also.

The Black Legion supplement is pretty horrible overall. I would not suggest using it.

I saw your lists in the army section. I think it would be good for you in the terms that you have one squad of cultists that you can use as the troop choice and you can change out that Murder sword you have on your DP. When I think DP I think of having ton's of attack's due to the base amount + daemon weapon. So you can replace the DP with the murdersword with a DP with spineshiver (+1 I, deamon weapon) and even skull of kergnr if you wanted to make him EW and have AW

 chillis wrote:
I saw your lists in the army section. I think it would be good for you in the terms that you have one squad of cultists that you can use as the troop choice and you can change out that Murder sword you have on your DP. When I think DP I think of having ton's of attack's due to the base amount + daemon weapon. So you can replace the DP with the murdersword with a DP with spineshiver (+1 I, deamon weapon) and even skull of kergnr if you wanted to make him EW and have AW

The Black Mace is still by far the superior option.

the black mace is, the murder sword isn't in my view since the ID is restricted to one model that you call out. I'd rather kill any model with a multitude of high strength attacks at AP2

The Black Legion is a good option if:

- You want to build an army based on Chosen, but don't want to use Abaddon. You don't mind that the Chosen are a little bit more expensive for the privelege.
- You want BS5/WS5 Terminators and are happy to pay out the nose for it, and don't mind if Abaddon tags along for the party.
- You don't want the Burning Brand, Black Mace or Jugger-Lord, but would instead prefer to have Eternal Warrior on your Daemon Prince, an AP3 Daemon Weapon that isn't dependant on Mark, a Psychic Nova with silly range that Blinds people, or an Orbital Strike that hits vehicles hard.
- You want to use 4 Fast Attack Slots and/or 4 Heavy Support slots from a Chaos Codex, and don't have any better plans for your Allies slot.


These are the only relevant differences. Unless you love Chosen, want to try the new Artefacts or want to spam out on Chaos units outside the usual FOC limitations, you are probably better sticking with the normal CSM book and saving yourself a bit of cash, plus points spent on VotLW.

I play Black Legion, the supplement is a lot better than most people give it credit for. While the differences seem small, you get a very different army that needs to be run differently than one from the standard dex. This isn't easy for people to get their heads around, but it's a lot of fun if you take your time to figure out where your strengths are and optimize accordingly.

The real differences are all about your HQ and troops options.

Artefacts make your vanilla HQ options incredibly strong. You can get a CL with a Daemon weapon, invulnerable 3+ save that rerolls 1s, I6, eternal warrior and +1 to your Deny the Witch rolls. You can get a large blast weapon that strikes anywhere in LOS and automatically causes d3 penetrating hits to vehicles.

Chosen become your best troops. You can have squads with 5 plasmas / flamers / meltas / etc. They become scoring units as well, which is the most valuable thing about them.

To give you a sense of how this changes things, I usually play a jump pack MoT CL loaded with artefacts, a Sorcerer with the large blast weapon, and several squads of MoS Chosen with the IoE and various other units. I have the CL move up aggressively, camp the Chosen on objectives, and have the Sorcerer snipe the enemy's biggest tank(s) as soon as possible to gets First Blood. The CL gets aimed at the enemy's nearest, weakest units to rack up VPs while I wait for my opponent to come to me and try to unseat the Chosen. If I can get my CL into cc with the enemy commander, I do it because I usually win that combat in 1 turn. I try to have the CL near my enemy's deployment zone by turn 5 to give me a chance for Linebreaker as well, which has other impacts on the game as well.

These changes affect my list choices significantly. To support this core, I use a lot of MoS bikers, havocs, NMs, raptors and laspreds (will be bringing forgefiends soon). Long range firepower and highly mobile units are more important here because you absolutely have to keep the CL from getting tarpitted. Having a squad of bikers where the champion can take challenges is important for keeping up the offense, having something to hit tanks before they can get to your chosen is also essential. Things like Heldrakes go down quicker than normal because the enemy eventually realizes the CL shrugs off almost everything and they need something else to shoot at. Also, it's not generally a good idea to keep lots of things in reserve. Which is why Obliterators don't really have a place in a BL list. As much as I love them, it's better to have a squad of havoks with 5 lascannons shooting every turn. Stay away from cultists or MSU spam because you want to take away as many VP opportunities from your opponents as possible.

If you think about it, this addresses some weaknesses associated with armies coming out of the standard dex. Instead of rushing infantry up the board in unreliable transports that tend to get shot up, it's a more more defensive game concentrated on scoring VPs every turn. I mean, a lot of the games I have lost with the standard Dex are because someone was shooting up my Rhinos, but I don't need them the same way I did. You can be successful just by avoiding your enemy's strongest units and picking off the weak ones, and you don't have to be rushing into melee to do that.

The big downside to this supplement is you are getting 1 HQ who is a tank, and only 1. Double FOCs don't do too much for you, so there's probably a drop off in effectiveness around 2000 points. You are not going to table anyone with a BL army, you are going to be picking off some of an opponent's units and need to choose your targets carefully. This generally means going after the weakest, smallest ones, and it's hard sometimes not to go after their biggest, toughest ones. Another thing to realize is this supplement affects who you are going ally with. While I don't play Daemons, I can see how they would have less synergy with a BL army than a standard CSM army. I am looking at an Ork force for allies because nob bikers are potentially a lot tougher than my CSM ones.

One other thing to think about: while the CL is a tank, he is vulnerable to psychic powers the same way as other units. I lost to an Eldar player who made it so he could not attack most of the game. He never took a wound, mind you, even with all their rerolling, but he wasn't able to actually strike. You do have a single point of failure with builds like this, just remember that.

But, seriously, think about how many VPs you score in your standard 40k game when judging the supplement. I usually have a 3-0 advantage in VPs by the end of turn 3 playing a BL list without really trying too hard. My CL usually adds about 3 VPs in the next 2 turns after that. Forgetting about the Chosen for a minute, a 6-1 or 6-2 VP advantage 5 turns in is incredibly hard to overcome for most players and it's not that hard to achieve when you bring very tough units who don't give your opponents many scoring opportunities. I think this is the way to look at what Black Legion lets you do.

@techsoldaten what is the set up of your chaos lord? I just figured a setup for a BL HQ that I think is as tank/aggressive as it gets- but I used a sorcerer (not sure if its worth the points or not)

340 points
HQ:
Sorcerer
Mastery level 4 (artefact)
Last Memory
Force Weapon
spell familiar
MoT
SoC
Terminator Armor
Skull of Kerngr
Hand of Darkness
VotLW

Crazy expensive and would have to run with a terminator squad. But it optimizes the ability to roll on the boon table with last memory, has 2+/3++ save, and has multiple ways to ID or destroy a tank, Also EW and having 3+ DTW
75 points more expensive then Abaddon, and 80 more points then a winged DoK DP with murder sword and power armor

@chillis - I take a CL with MoT, the Spineshiver Blade, Crucible of Lies, Skull of Ker'ngar, melta bombs, jet pack, Sigil of Corruption and VotLW.

I have tried him with the Hand of Darkness but found the I6 and meltabombs more than make up for what I could do with it. I have had some additional success giving him combi-weapons, but I don't really need them when I am focusing on taking out smaller, weaker units. I have also tried giving him a bike, but found it's better to keep him unable to join other units by design. The worst thing you can do with your HQ is surround him with other models, it just makes them a target.

It would be fine to use a Sorcerer instead, but I fear failed Perils of the Warp tests. My HQ has to stay in the game for my strategies to work. I usually take 1 wound from a failed DW roll plus one failed invulnerable wound per game. Anything more is putting the big offensive strength of my army at risk.

Yes, the HQs in a Black Legion army are very expensive. The tradeoff is survivability and VPs - I know I am getting a model that can wipe out any small units and is going to be tough enough to get into CC no matter what. The bonus to running the jump pack CL is that he draws a lot of fire, from which my other units benefit. It's just too tempting for opponents to shoot at him when he's all alone in the middle of the field, and it usually takes a few rounds for them to figure out he's almost impossible to wound.

I played with this guy against SW yesterday. My opponent brought a bunch of blood claws, long fangs and grey hunters in drop pods. I had my Chosen kitted out with flamers and 2 squads of NMs with full sonics. The Chosen and NMs were able to do a lot of damage just through overwatch, but the CL was the MVP. He killed 3 units on his own, consolidating close enough for a charge after each assault. He had more kills than the rest of my army combined.

 techsoldaten wrote:

Chosen become your best troops. You can have squads with 5 plasmas / flamers / meltas / etc. They become scoring units as well, which is the most valuable thing about them.

[...]

The CL gets aimed at the enemy's nearest, weakest units to rack up VPs while I wait for my opponent to come to me and try to unseat the Chosen.

The problem with this is that they are still Power Armour, not Terminators. They may be deadly if charged, but 5 man in power armour will still die quickly against a decent amount of bolter fire or against MEQ-killing specialized weapons (Blastmaster and Baleflamer, just not to change codex). Three such units are 495 points (don't forget mandatory VotLW) for 15 bodies that are completely useless from 13". It is extremely effective in some situation, but if you consider that 2*7 Plague Marines with 2 Plasma + Rhino are 466 pts.. I believe they are a better option: more resilient to small arms fire (T5, Rhino, defensive grenades), more range, more mobility, more versatility and the possibility to hold back MCs for a little while. And if you don't want the Rhino due to First Blood... well, then you can have 2*9 PMs, so still more resilient due to the higher body count.


All that said, I can see it as a viable option against Orks, SM, Tyranids and so on, but completely useless against IG and DE, not to mention Eldars and Taus..

Do you love the black legion? If so then yeah it's okay.

Otherwise you can ignore every single rule in the book because they're pretty awful..all you NEED to know is that the black legion supplement allows you to take +1 unit of cultists, +1 Heavy and +1 Heldrake/spawn unit for the cost of +1HQ as an allied contingent.

THat's the only rule that matters :p

 Kirasu wrote:
Do you love the black legion? If so then yeah it's okay.

Otherwise you can ignore every single rule in the book because they're pretty awful..all you NEED to know is that the black legion supplement allows you to take +1 unit of cultists, +1 Heavy and +1 Heldrake/spawn unit for the cost of +1HQ as an allied contingent.

THat's the only rule that matters :p

and artefacts!

 Sasori wrote:
The Black Legion supplement is pretty horrible overall. I would not suggest using it.

a supplement that makes the already lackluster and expensive CSM troops more expensive. Great!

Diablix wrote:

The problem with this is that they are still Power Armour, not Terminators. They may be deadly if charged, but 5 man in power armour will still die quickly against a decent amount of bolter fire or against MEQ-killing specialized weapons (Blastmaster and Baleflamer, just not to change codex). Three such units are 495 points (don't forget mandatory VotLW) for 15 bodies that are completely useless from 13". It is extremely effective in some situation, but if you consider that 2*7 Plague Marines with 2 Plasma + Rhino are 466 pts.. I believe they are a better option: more resilient to small arms fire (T5, Rhino, defensive grenades), more range, more mobility, more versatility and the possibility to hold back MCs for a little while. And if you don't want the Rhino due to First Blood... well, then you can have 2*9 PMs, so still more resilient due to the higher body count.


All that said, I can see it as a viable option against Orks, SM, Tyranids and so on, but completely useless against IG and DE, not to mention Eldars and Taus..

Right, and I would be more concerned about the power armor if I was marching the Chosen up the board. Instead, I am usually camping them out on objectives, in some kind of cover or out of LOS.

The reason this works is the Chaos Lord, he's typically got a third of my opponent's forces tied up in a way where they can't really attack the Chosen. When you tie up 33% of a Tau army, turtling becomes a pretty effective option for BL (still getting my head around Eldar, have lost 2 games to them recently).

I don't use my Plague Marines anymore, mostly because of what Noise Marines can do. But yeah, I could see them as a way of doubling down.

Black Legion book is not worth it unless your a person that wants a actual book in your hands. Otherwise DL the rules and use them if you want to.

Very little love! It was kind of expected. Surely the black legion was the least 'different' legion to the standard dex! An iron warriors, of word bearers, or even world eaters would of been much better!

 Khaine's Wrath wrote:
Very little love! It was kind of expected. Surely the black legion was the least 'different' legion to the standard dex! An iron warriors, of word bearers, or even world eaters would of been much better!

Yea. I hope the rumors are true that other supplements will come out even though that's yet another $40 GW will charge people for another 2-4 pages worth of rules.

I ended up playing this weekend against a local guy who has been exploring BL a lot recently. Necrons vs BL CSM. Normally, I win against him pretty decisively since CSM infantry doesn't do much damage against T4 models. I would focus on taking out the forgefiends, heldrakes, and HQ and that would be most of the points of his army and there wouldn't be enough power to overcome me after that. This past weekend was a much closer game - instead of a custom, generic Chaos Lord or sorcerer, he ran Fabius in a rhino with possessed along with 3 units of chosen in rhinos. 2 forgefiends and an autocannon heldrake. He went first and took out 1 of my 2 barges and my triarch stalker first turn. 2nd turn my second AB was dead and his units were in my lines getting ready to assault me. Dirge Casters removed overwatch and between the 3-4 attacks the chosen get in close combat, the buffs possessed get, and Fabius' instant death he was taking out my Necrons in close combat instead of usually stalling out and just tarpitting.

This isn't to say that our friendly game reflects a really competitive landscape; however, him exploring BL has made him shift his play style a bit to overcome the walls he was hitting with just normal CSM. While he loves the bale flamer, our local meta has a number of wave serpents, rhinos, and AV13 players and having the extra anti-air/armor with the 360 degree hades auto cannon with daemonforge has been pretty massive for him - especially if he goes first and can alpha strike with just his forgefiends. He's no longer putting 300+ pts into his HQ and spreading such out to the troops playing a more melee-focused approach and it's working for him. He has said that he doesn't see himself using Abbadon and definitely doesn't see a point for spending more points on running specialized terminators. So for him, BL is just a way for him to get better troop choices that can actually kill something instead of take a few shots and then tarpit a unit (or get decimated in the case of cultists).

So BL isn't worth the money in my opinion; however, does provide an option that can shift an aspect of your army.