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Wondering what dakka thinks on how to fix possessed in CSM?

They seem to perform pretty damn badly for their incredible 26 points each, but I absolutely love the fluff of these guys. Maybe Crimson Slaughter will give them a buff or something but in the meantime, I'm thinking a simple points decrease could keep them reasonable for friendly games. The question is by how much...

Can't they fly?

I played against my sons possessed, he had 5, I had 10 assault marines. He used cover well to get them in range of my assault.

I did what I always do and forget to ask what initiative they have. They left me with 2 marines. Only reason I killed two was I shot them before I assaulted

I would reduce them to 20 points apiece, add furious charge, and give them access to more CC weapon options (chain axes, lightning claws, power weapons, etc. for extra points).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Johnnytorrance wrote:
Can't they fly?

I played against my sons possessed, he had 5, I had 10 assault marines. He used cover well to get them in range of my assault.

I did what I always do and forget to ask what initiative they have. They left me with 2 marines. Only reason I killed two was I shot them before I assaulted

They cannot fly, but do have fleet....

Lower them to 25 points a piece, give them grenades. Boom, they become usable for once.

Make them 18 apiece. Same cost as chosen, gives up shooting completely for melee, give up having worthwhile squad upgrades for random dice rolls and 5++.

Alternatively, replace "mark of" with "daemon of," and they'd be forced to take one. (Probably have a lower base point to compensate.) I'd rather have Shrouded on them than +1 toughness, and I'd rather have Rending on them than +1 initiative. I'd rather reroll all failed saving throws of 1 than have 4++. Only possessed that'd lose out are ironically enough the best ones right now in Possessed of Khorne, but I'm willing to give up rage for not having to purchase an Icon of Wrath for furious charge.

Give them an extra point of toughness, give them access to ranged weapons (bolter/bolt pistol) and ccw's in the armoury.

Change the D3 Mutation table

1 - Vorpal Claws - Possessed re-roll all failed to wound rolls in CC

2 - Strength of the Damned - Unwieldy weapons strike at unmodified user initiative

3 - Supernatural Speed - Possessed gain +1 Attack, +1 Initiative

I like the idea of giving them the Daemon of X upgrade, but perhaps that's tweaked as some form of Exalted Mark that adds to the particular Mark of Chaos the unit has using the benefits gained from being a Daemon of X

I'd be all for the Daemon of X change aside from the fact Daemon of Khorne is so, so mediocre

How about allowing the squad to roll on the boon table at the start of the game? Daemon Prince etc would apply to the champion only of course - though seeing everyone take five man possessed mobs for that occasional five daemon princes would be boss

Do you guys think these fellas could qualify as beasts? Or get wings as a mutation to become jump? If theres one thing thats gak in this game its slow melee, and these guys are not fast thats for sure

Cheaper and slightly less killy to get more wounds per point.
Warpy shooting attacks.
Scout.
Deep strike homers.
A reason to take over any other assaulty infantry unit.
Any of those.

If you have Mark of Khorne and then pay a couple of points extra to get Daemon of Khorne or equivalent that wouldn't be so bad.

I think making them beasts would be better than making them jump infantry.

Can choose to re-roll Chaos Boon results.

Do away with the Possessed Champion and give each Possessed the Champion of Chaos special rule. Perhaps limit Dark Apotheosis result to one model per unit.

The choice of ranged weapons would need to increase if the Daemon of Nurgle rule is used. I'd suggest maybe some other shooting options like sternguard, but that's straying into Thousand Son and what Chosen should really have territory.

An attempt at making them reasonable. Since I only ever use Mark of / Daemon of Khorne I don't know how it would work with other gods. Legit pulled points costs out of my arse, input would be nice.

Whatever gets decided on in this thread is what I'll use in my upcoming apocalypse game. Since it's Apoc and for fun it doesn't matter if they're slightly imbalanced, compared to if this was 'how to fix them for tournaments herp derp'

Went the "more expensive but more powerful" route here, though cheaper and weaker might be better we might as well explore all the options

Possessed Pack

Possessed
WS: 5, BS: 4, S: 5, T: 4, W: 2, I: 4, A: 2, Ld: 9, Sv: 3+ (5++)
Possessed Champion
WS: 5, BS: 4, S: 5, T: 4, W: 2, I: 4, A: 3, Ld: 9, Sv: 3+ (5++)

Points Cost: 30 ppm
Unit Size; 4-19 Possessed, 1 Possessed Champion

Wargear; Claws, tentacles, and other such gifts (counts as a close combat weapon). Power Armour

Special Rules; Daemon, Fearless, Fleet, Vessels of Chaos

Must be lead by a Possessed Champion for 10 points. He may take two additional Gifts of mutation at +5 points per gift.

This unit must be dedicated to one of the Chaos gods. Dedicating the unit to a god will give it the Mark of X and Daemon of X rules for that god.
~Khorne; 3 ppm
~Nurgle; 4 ppm
~Tzeentch; 5 ppm
~Slaneesh; 3 ppm

Vessels of Chaos

The attentions of the Chaos Gods have endowed these warriors with all manner of mutations. At the beginning of the game, and then again every time this unit wins a combat, roll on the Chaos Boon table and apply the result to the whole unit. Results of Spawnhood and Dark Apothesis affect only the Possessed Champion. Re-roll results that you have already recieved.

This ability replaces Champion of Chaos. However, your Possessed Champion must still issue/accept challenges.

The reason I don't see "expensive but more powerful" being viable on them is you've still got Chaos Terminators which are only 5 points more a dude as Possessed already are, have +1 armor, a fairly decent shooting attack and come with power weapons AND can deep strike.

For possessed to be "viable" they need to be cheap, I think. They need to fill a roll not already filled by Terminators, Khorne Berzerkers, or Warp Talons.

Well, i've played fluffy chaos lists with possessed.
A power-lusting Tzeench cult - ~40-60 cultists, some of them with autoguns
Led by charismatic yet insane leader - Dark apostle [MoT, gift of mutation]
They were noticed and contacted by an aspiring 1000 son's sorcerror - Chaos sorcerror [MoT, Ml3, Sigil of corruption,Spell familliar, gift of mutation])
With his automatron bodyguards - ~6-7 rubrics with aspiring sorcerror [meltabombs, gift of mutation] in a rhino [havoc launcher]
And with Sorcerror's guidance and some chaos-worthy deeds they finally started to recieve 'gifts from a God of Change' - 2 squads of 9 Possessed + Possessed Champion [2 gifts of mutation on each champ].

Yep, there were much more cultists in the first place but ascendance to the state of mutated possessed is deadly even for space marines, not telling about regular humans.

That's the fluff part. The funny thing is that i managed to win a tau guy with a forgeworld riptide - the one with 4 large blasts and a dark angel player with landraider redeemer. But in that game i took a squad of generic marines in a rhino + more cultists instead of one possessed squad and the csm's aspiring champ rolled +1 bs for his gift of mutation and with a help of it managed to hit rolling a 2 and explode a venerable landraider redeemer with his multi-melta - the only one i had...and Possessed slaughtered vanguard vets but his chaplain was passing a 4++ save during 7 phases of close combat in a challenge against a sorc and eventually killed a sorc that had a 3++ rerollable thanks to the 'morale support' of possessed but than was wounded by a possessed champ and finished off by an apostle...Tzeench laughed hard that game.

Anywayz, overall i feel that possessed are horifically overpriced for what they do. Generic marines will be much more useful in almost every game. Within current ruleset, options and profile possessed should cost around 16 pts. No more in current edition. And even with such cost they're gona be plain mediocre. Firstly, they have absolutely no options except for overcosted gift of mutation that has something useful for them only in like 1/4 of time. Or less. And even when you roll something useful, it's not gona be worth 10 pts if it's not Crusader, Shrowded or at least + 1 wound. They have no rending. No grenades which is truly awful. Marks of chaos can be handy though. 19 pts guyz with t5 s5 for example. Even so, they're way worse than bikers but at least have some utility.

Currently, they have no role to fulfill, really. Mellee infantry with meq durability, no wargear, no ranged attacks, no dedicated transports, no grenades with 2 attacks...for how much?..Even fleet, daemon, s5 and d3 table can't justify that.

Or you can try to change their rules.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/90/565680.page#6483176

 Dakkamite wrote:
An attempt at making them reasonable. Since I only ever use Mark of / Daemon of Khorne I don't know how it would work with other gods. Legit pulled points costs out of my arse, input would be nice.

Whatever gets decided on in this thread is what I'll use in my upcoming apocalypse game. Since it's Apoc and for fun it doesn't matter if they're slightly imbalanced, compared to if this was 'how to fix them for tournaments herp derp'

Went the "more expensive but more powerful" route here, though cheaper and weaker might be better we might as well explore all the options

Possessed Pack

Possessed
WS: 5, BS: 4, S: 5, T: 4, W: 2, I: 4, A: 2, Ld: 9, Sv: 3+ (5++)
Possessed Champion
WS: 5, BS: 4, S: 5, T: 4, W: 2, I: 4, A: 3, Ld: 9, Sv: 3+ (5++)

Points Cost: 30 ppm
Unit Size; 4-19 Possessed, 1 Possessed Champion

Wargear; Claws, tentacles, and other such gifts (counts as a close combat weapon). Power Armour

Special Rules; Daemon, Fearless, Fleet, Vessels of Chaos

Must be lead by a Possessed Champion for 10 points. He may take two additional Gifts of mutation at +5 points per gift.

This unit must be dedicated to one of the Chaos gods. Dedicating the unit to a god will give it the Mark of X and Daemon of X rules for that god.
~Khorne; 3 ppm
~Nurgle; 4 ppm
~Tzeentch; 5 ppm
~Slaneesh; 3 ppm

Vessels of Chaos

The attentions of the Chaos Gods have endowed these warriors with all manner of mutations. At the beginning of the game, and then again every time this unit wins a combat, roll on the Chaos Boon table and apply the result to the whole unit. Results of Spawnhood and Dark Apothesis affect only the Possessed Champion. Re-roll results that you have already recieved.

This ability replaces Champion of Chaos. However, your Possessed Champion must still issue/accept challenges.

A problem is that many of the Gifts are ranged. Perhaps instead of the Boon table, they start basic but as they murder things (X number of kills per unit, perhaps - increments of the Marked god?) they gain a static benefit. Kind of like Pain Tokens for DE.

Stage 0 - as listed
Stage 1 - Shred, Assault Grenades (represented as warp spores, spikes ect)
Stage 2 - Rending
Stage 3 - Changes unit type to Beast
Stage 4 - Something something scary something

As an example. Not sure how this would work out, as they would probably be Dakka'd into oblivion before achieving any of the higher stages.

Hm. I think making them beasts on the first kill is gona be more interesting! Still, 30 pts is too much even with 2 wounds.

I think the biggest problem is simply getting them to the enemy. Even with fleet, there really isn't much for them. They can either foot slog it with a maximum distance of 12" per turn (if even that) or can ride in a rhino or land raider (restricting the size of the unit, one being very pricey, another being a bit of a risk). Granted costing how much they do, having almost no worthwhile upgrades, having no grenades, and randomness for sake of random doesn't really help. Even with beasts, they'd have to wait until around turn 3 or 4 to start killing. From there, they likely have already lost models and will continue to be whittled down.

I'd much rather make them scarier rather than cheaper. These should be some of the most feared units Chaos can deploy and be justified in their sacrifice of body and soul for the power they gain.
They also need something to differentiate them from Berzerkers and Chosen with regards to the 'melee dude in power armour' angle. Therefore:

- WS5
- 2 Attacks Base, plus 1 for 2 combat weapons
- Unit Type: Beasts

You basically create something similar to Flesh Hounds where the unit is fast, durable and shreds infantry. It also goes some way towards justifying the Wings on some models. FInally, it doesn't introduce any funky special rules or overcomplicating the unit,

Berzerkers- Slow, efficient melee bulldozers
Possessed- Fast, high-skill murderers

I actually came up with a set of possessed rules myself:

Possessed - 125pts

Possessed WS 4 BS 4 S 5 T 4 W 1 A 2 LD 9 SV 3+
Champion WS 4 BS 4 S 5 T 4 W 1 A 3 LD 9 SV 3+

Unit - 4 Possessed and 1 Possessed Champion

Unit Type - Beasts

Wargear - 2 close combat weapons, power armour, Flesh Spines (count as frag grenades)

Special Rules - Daemon, Fearless, Fleet, Vessels of Chaos
Options -

Up to 15 extra Possessed at + 23pts each

Marks as per codex CSM

Veterans of the Long War + 2 ppm

Icons

Icon of Flame 5pts

Icon of Excess 30pts

Icon of Blood (Khorne only, grants Rampage) 20pts

Icon of Virulence (Nurgle only, grants 4+ poisoned melee attacks) 25pts

Icon of Enmity - grants Hatred (all) 15pts

Vessels of Chaos

At the start of each fight phase, roll on the table below and apply the result to the Possessed unit.

1 - Strength of the Damned - Shred
2 - Supernatural Reflexes - + 1A + 1 I
3 - Warp Fire - Each model gains a range 12" str 4 ap 5 assault 2 shooting attack with the soul blaze special rule
4 - Iron Hard Skin - + 1 Toughness
5 - Brutal Charge - Hammer of Wrath (re-roll if the possessed are not assaulting this turn)
6 - Vorpal Claws - AP3 + Rending

The new icons were created because the Icons of Fear and Vengeance are useless on a Possessed unit as it stands as they already cause fear because of the daemon rule and they are already fearless.

The Icon of Wrath is partly useless on the codex possessed as they have fleet making the re-rolls for charge distance pointless and my version also has furious charge, making the other effect of the icon worthless.

These icons would also be available to other CSM units.

So, basically, more killy compared to spawns. Same speed. Now they have a role.

Spawns - fast ablative wounds
Possessed - fast mellee killing.

Though, it might be an overdose of fast things cause you can now spam all those beasts that are quite fast to be in mellee on turn 2-3. And 20 pts for them feels low now. Take away furious charge, add a few points and they're fine. Cause otherwise...zerks are in no comparison with them at all.

No love for boon table rolls for the unit? Because take the above profile, give them a boon roll and another per destroyed unit, and I'm sold

Likewise the pain token style power increase seems pretty legit. I'm just not a fan of the d3/d6 random abilities - they don't come across as something that mutates constantly like Spawn perhaps would as opposed to having random but permanent mutations instead

ok made the change to 23pts basic and dropped furious charge. I guess S6 on the charge for a whole unit is a bit nuts!

 Dakkamite wrote:
No love for boon table rolls for the unit? Because take the above profile, give them a boon roll and another per destroyed unit, and I'm sold

Likewise the pain token style power increase seems pretty legit. I'm just not a fan of the d3/d6 random abilities - they don't come across as something that mutates constantly like Spawn perhaps would as opposed to having random but permanent mutations instead

I agree with you! But as i've written above, boon table is usually pretty useless for possessed. I've tried to play games spamming gift of mutation on everything possible. Half of the time i ended up spending 50-60 pts for something like +1 ws on a possessed champ and other stuff like Hatred on apostle or hammer of wrath on a biker champ. Sometimes, guyz got some nice buffs like +1 armor, +1 wound. And rarely they got something really useful like crusader and shrowded. But to be honest, good buffs are like 3-4 and rather good ones are another 3-4 out of 30+. Though, if that's applied for free and not for 10 pts per try, it might be nice. I'm not a fan of paintokens. Basically, as my main army are orkses i've got a mentality of 1 to 1 exchange. They kill something and get killed in return. But on the other hand, it's not a bad idea also.

All in all, i'm in for the chaos boon table. It's their thing. No need to make possessed like dark eldar.

Eh, roll on the boon table but re-roll results X, Y, Z (ie gun morph). Simple enough.

Unit would get one free roll, another roll for X points (fairly expensive), and then earn more by destroying units in CC and/or if the champion or attached character wins challenges

That'd definitely give them a niche. Maybe not a super good one, but something fun and fluffy and a potential pain train with a few decent rolls.

In my mind the vessels of chaos rule as I have written it basically is like taking the results from the boon table that the unit can actually use and making another table out of it.

How would you feel about it expanding it to a 2d6 roll and including some of the actual results from the boon table e.g fleshbane for example?

I think there are too many units similar in function to Possessed and so there will always be clear winners and losers for that function. Marines, bzerkers, warptalons, raptors, and possessed are all units that basically wear power armor and need to get into close combat without a transport (unless you are going the LR route which totally defines your list already). Arguments can be made for bikes, plague marines, and noise marines as well but are generally good enough at shooting to not be desperate to enter cc despite their forced cc upgrades. There just doesn't seem to be enough variation, especially among the three non-jump ones, to allow all of them to exist. Possessed really need to be taken a drastically different route so they are no longer just PA seeking CC. I have yet to think of anything that does this without making them even more like raptors/warptalons or spawn.

I agree JubbJubbz, hence why my iteration of Possessed makes them Beasts.

I don't think there is a way to make possessed a non cc unit (it wouldn't make sense in the fluff either I think) but this way they are a cc unit that does not rely on a jump pack or transport to get there.

They can now be part of an assault wave with raptors, warp talons, bikes, maulerfiends and spawn and still keep up with all these faster units.

Beasts would certainly help them out, but they would probably end up in the FA slot then with everything else that moves 12". If that's the case, they are just gonna have the same problems but competing with bikes, raptors, warptalons, and spawn in similarity.

Fast units don't have to be in fast attack.

Triarch praetorians are elites for necrons and they are jump infantry.

I would keep beast possessed in elites so they can be part of a fast rush list with bikes spawn etc

Possessed should be a dedicated mellee unit.
Rerolling all useless results on a boon table does not sound quite right. What about:
"The unit of Possessed may reroll one result on a Chaos Boon Table. This is cumulative with Beseech the Dark Gods effect from Dark Apostle allowing up to two rerolls."

Now it's not making the boon table explictly profitable and doesn't wholy nullify the bad internal ballance of the current boon table rules. Probably like it should be cause chaos gift's usefulness is measured by Chaos Gods themselves and they have a slightly different approach on the matter.
Also, there might be some limitations that you can't reroll unworthy offering, spawnhood and dark apotheosis. But not necessarily.

On the whole, i really like this idea of utilizing the unique boon table on possessed. It's the Chaos thing. And it's supposed to be used. I'd like to see gifts of mutation to be cheaper. Like 5 pts for characters. But still 10 for HQ for ballance's reasons.

I'd really like them to be closer to their fluff. That is, Chaos Marines who kind of go into Daemon mode at will. They could go the way of the Incubus, a Legion of Everblight unit from Hordes which can replace any infantry model upon its death, although I'm not sure how this would work with them (because they're a squad unit and individually weak). Alternatively, they could start on the board as guys in power armour (possibly with a 5++ still, though), which would allow them to get in a transport. Either they could get a sort of WBB and resurrect as Possessed after getting killed, or they could turn into Possessed when the controlling player decides, or both. I'm not really sure on how this could work, but I want it to!

Also, in Dawn of War they had fire breath. Could give them a weak template attack that lowers initiative or something.

EDIT: They should all roll on the table, not just the Champion. Would a roll on the Boon Table for every unit they wipe out (re-rolling Spawnhood and Dark Apotheosis) be too much? I support the idea of a dedicated mutation table, which is a very rare instance of a time when random tables are actually a good thing (because Chaos).

EDIT: They should all roll on the table, not just the Champion. Would a roll on the Boon Table for every unit they wipe out (re-rolling Spawnhood and Dark Apotheosis) be too much? I support the idea of a dedicated mutation table, which is a very rare instance of a time when random tables are actually a good thing (because Chaos).

Been advocating this exact idea the whole thread