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@SRSFACE; yep, Dreadclaws can fit a 'Brute. Will let you know how that goes!

Ailaros, I've read your Helbrute re-model commission piece; what's your opinion on the new kit they've released?

Tried the Plasma/ML and the cheapness is awesome but the TL-Las is just so much more reliable for both hitting and penetrating.
So obvs no buff to Helbrutes in Crimson Laughter, but the Helbrute Dataslate out on the 22nd says it has 3 formations.
The names alone make me want to pay the 4$, and are further proof that GW is trying to beat the Murder Sword for silliest name ever;
-Mayhem Pack
-Helcult
-Helfist Murderpack

Sounds interesting, but the fundamental flaw won't change! Their stat line is just dreadful! Read the fluff in the dex, and then see if their frankly pathetic 2 attacks stands up to the story. He's also supposed to be a daemon...and yet gains no daemonic bonuses.

Give him It Will Not Die, 3 attacks basic, a D6 attacks daemon weapon upgrade, and an eldar battle focus rule where it can run then shoot, or shoot then run and then I MIGHT be interested. Even at a higher points cost. And that's a MIGHT. But I need it to fit the background story, and it doesn't!

Khaine's Wrath wrote:Give him It Will Not Die, 3 attacks basic, a D6 attacks daemon weapon upgrade, and an eldar battle focus rule where it can run then shoot, or shoot then run and then I MIGHT be interested. Even at a higher points cost.

Yeah, lol. That would raise the base price of a hellbrute to ~175-195 points. No one would take it then.

Laughingcarp wrote:Ailaros, I've read your Helbrute re-model commission piece; what's your opinion on the new kit they've released?

Well, it's not longer a two-piece snap-together, so that already makes it better. That you can pose it in some other way than it's ultra-derp also greatly helps.

Still not my favorite model, though. Were I to run hellbrutes, I think I'd buy one of those kits and one of the regular SM dreadnought kits and then bash the two together to make a pair of hellbrutes. Unlike the helldrake or maulerfiend, which do a nice job of balancing flesh and metal, the hellbrute is too fleshy for my taste. Needs more steel. Needs to look more like a dreadnought.

That I'd be able to do said kit-bashing without needing to kill myself, of course, is an improvement.

Laughingcarp wrote:-Helfist Murderpack

Damn you GW! How dare you make something so silly that I'd have no choice but to field it!

 Ailaros wrote:
Damn you GW! How dare you make something so silly that I'd have no choice but to field it!

Truth.

Good to hear you'll live through the process! If you ever get around to those conversions, please post pics!
I like the fleshiness of the 'Brutes but to each his own. I should add I really dig how you changed up the front of the Dread model you converted. Looks much more solid, and the spellbook is a nice touch.

Khaine's Wrath; maybe an extra attack or two, Daemonforge and Daemon, but then they'd really have to bump the points cost. Right now I believe it's exactly on par with Loyalist Dreads, with the exception that they get a free storm-bolter, searchlight, and smoke launcher.
I'm not saying that everything Chaos Space Marine should just be spiky loyalist copy-pastes, but that if two things are the same shouldn't they be priced similarly? Give us the Daemon rule (Or at least IWND) instead of the storm-bolter, searchlight and smoke, and call it square.

What about just editing the Crazed rule to be not a penalty to whatever way you try to build a Helbrute? Leave the rest of it as-is, keep it 100pts.
1-Not immobilized, only that it must fire both weapons twice at blah blah blah targets if unengaged.
2-Same, ignores shaken/stirred adds rage
3-Rage & Fleet, don't force it to run.

Suddenly much more viable, and not strategy-gimping.

Just giving it demon for +15 or points would be enough to fix it. Hellbrutes don't need to be monstrous creatures, they just need to follow the same rules as the other demon engines in the codex.

According to the previews I've been reading through the digital editions Facebook page it kooks like one of the formations will allow for teleporting a group of Helbrutes on to the battlefield. Another formation grants a 5+ invuln save to a group of Helbrutes.

Deep Strike for the Mayhem Pack.
Possibly joining with cultists (and occasionally eating them), with a minimum formation of 20 cultists and 1 'Brute for the Helcult.
Alpha Helbrute gaining Character type and 5++ for Helfist Murderpack.
These are the hints thus far.
http://www.blacklibrary.com/new-at-bl/Brutes-from-Hell.html
Nice catch l0k1, didn't know about that page.

Ran two Helbrutes in my match tonight. 2x PF/HFlamer got blown up before it could do anything other than area denial, but saved one of my forgefiends from being targeted.
ML/PC reliably took out two Iron Hands bikes/turn, earning back his points and saving my cultists and forgefiends from double-tap plasma and CC.

 Ailaros wrote:
Just giving it demon for +15 or points would be enough to fix it. Hellbrutes don't need to be monstrous creatures, they just need to follow the same rules as the other demon engines in the codex.

Daemon would be much more fitting with how they're described, yes. And a 5++ can save your bacon.

As for the Helfist murderpack...that is one of the most over the top goofy names I have ever seen in 40k and I absolutely love it. That's like naming your villain Goretalon Spineripper Murderdeath.

 Laughingcarp wrote:
Deep Strike for the Mayhem Pack.

I don't care there aren't any locator beacons or teleport homers for Chaos anymore. 10/10, would field.

Teleporting in some melee-ish oriented Helbrutes while also running a pack of Maulerfiends... MUST. DO. MUUUSTTTT.

I know, so much hilarity will ensue.

I'm actually optimistic about this!

I imagine the conversation went:

"So Bob, how are our Helbrutes doing? I'm so proud of our scultpts team these guys look mean! and so many weapon options, I bet we sold a hundredweight of them right?"

"We'll sir we sold 15"

"15 hundredweight? 15 thousand what?"

"No sir... we sold 15"

"WHAT?!?!"

"Well it could maybe be to do with the fact that the entire Dark Vengence chaos collection only costs £30... or maybe it's because Helbrutes are terrible?"

"Ok.... let's issue a FAQ giving them Independent Character, that should fix it... but only if they have the thunder hammer! don't want that Dark Vengence issue biting us like you say."

"... um... well I guess we could do a Dataslate"

"YES! Excellent idea, slap on some artwork, a bit off fluff and we can start raking it in"

If I had deep striking helbrutes I'd try fit in a disc riding lord with dimensional key.

No idea if it would work well but zipping forwards to tear a whole in reality and pull out a bunch of angry dead guys in killer robots is surely FTN FTW*!!

*

wtnind wrote:

"... um... well I guess we could do a Dataslate"

"YES! Excellent idea, slap on some artwork, a bit off fluff and we can start raking it in"

Amount I have spent on Tyranid dataslates:
$0

Amount I have spent on Lictors, Gargoyles, Crones, etc due to the occurrence of "free" dataslates:
DEFINITELY NOT $0

Dataslates are a great idea in my opinion...but there's really no reason to charge for them...even for your business model.

Yeah it's a cash grab, and yeah they're not necessarily game-changers.

But for guys like me, who bought two extra helbrutes off ebay for 5$ each after just getting into 40K/starting my CSM army/before I knew what I was doing, it'll be a nice callback to the early days!

well regardless of how they get to the conclusion, the Helbrutes needed to be better.

Hey guys, got the dataslate and just wanted to share the available options with my fellow crazed Chaos players:

Mayhem Pack
-3 Helbrutes
-It Will Not Die
-Deep Strike (one roll for all 3)
-Tormented Terrors (must roll on Crazed table at the start of each movement phase)

Helcult
- 1 Helbrute, 2 units of Cultists
- Apocalyptic Fury (Helbrute has Rage, hits Cultists on To Hit rolls of 1)
- Living Idols of Chaos (Fearless Cultists if Helbrute alive, Zealot if dead)
- Human Shields (3+ cover saves from Cultists, remove one if save made)

Helfist Murderpack
- 5 HELBRUTES
- Counts as a single squadron
- One is nominated as a Champion Character (AoDG, LoS!), not Champion of Chaos!
- If the Champion is alive, for any Brute that has a crazed marker you can choose the result instead of rolling and this applies to the whole squadron.
- If the Champion dies, all others get Rage

Sounds like fun, especially for those with piles of Brutes from DV

Having read the Helbrute Dataslate (review is in my sig), I have to say that the Helcult is the most amusing formation, and thus the one I'm more likely to field, while the Mayhem Pack is likely the most practical.

Helfist Murderpack is for dropping 500+ points of 'Brutes on the board because the game is that big, because you need an excuse to own that many or you just want to really screw with someone in a 1.5k point game with that much armor in a massive formation. Not practical, possibly entertaining and I see it getting some mileage with some people, but not everyone.

So, been looking through the Helbrute dataslate... seriously this is a solid effort to make Helbrutes "good enough" to play, and thats all I was hoping for.

Mayhem Pack; deep striking makes up for their crap movement. Relatively cheap instant multi melta to the arse of any vehicle. Have to all be nuked immediately or will have DCCW running about

Helcult; the cultists are fearless as long as the helbrute is alive. I see this being used for shenanigans. Could also be good scoring for anyone who is AoC with Chaos and needs fearless blobs, if I have my allied dataslate rules right (ie, take any you want)

Murderpack; anything that lets me put five helbrutes on the table totally gets my approval. Its also not that bad. The biggest problem with it IMO is that having five big gun hellbrutes with super shooting from the crazed table shooting just one target is gonna be a big waste of firepower

Honestly if this is what they have in mind for their dataslates, I'm actually fairly impressed.

 Dakkamite wrote:

Helcult; the cultists are fearless as long as the helbrute is alive. I see this being used for shenanigans. Could also be good scoring for anyone who is AoC with Chaos and needs fearless blobs, if I have my allied dataslate rules right (ie, take any you want)

If the helbrute dies then the cultists get Zealot which is Fearless + Hatred. So the question is do you want to spend 100 points to give 2 large blobs fearless and optionally hatred, I say yes!

Now you don't need Typhus to drown the board in cheap fearless bodies although I guess you might be limited to 1xHelcult formation (unless you can take one under csm and one under black legion).

I recently asked GW DE about if you could take a formation using the Supplements (as I was asked about Tau signature systems for Riptides from the Farsight codex supplement being used in the Formation) but I've yet to get an answer. When I do I think that'll cover if/how we pair these dataslate formations up to their armies.

I know this sounds crazy but, those rules actually sound... fun.

wtnind wrote:

 Dakkamite wrote:

Helcult; the cultists are fearless as long as the helbrute is alive. I see this being used for shenanigans. Could also be good scoring for anyone who is AoC with Chaos and needs fearless blobs, if I have my allied dataslate rules right (ie, take any you want)

If the helbrute dies then the cultists get Zealot which is Fearless + Hatred. So the question is do you want to spend 100 points to give 2 large blobs fearless and optionally hatred, I say yes!

Now you don't need Typhus to drown the board in cheap fearless bodies although I guess you might be limited to 1xHelcult formation (unless you can take one under csm and one under black legion).

As far as I can tell, you can literally take as many formations as you want as long as you fill 1 HQ 2 Troops before that.

Though it looks like a fair few TOs are homeruling otherwise. Which is a pity because they're punishing cool formations like these because of gak ones like the Firebase

Here's a question - would the helcult formation contribute towards the 2 obligatory troops choices?

The Mayhem pack really is the first bang for your buck. 3 Dreadnoughts w/ Feel No Pain, Ability to Deep Strike , and have to roll on the table? That's not terrible. Although it can kind of mess you over.

The 'Brutes in a Mayhem Pack have "It Will Not Die" not "Feel no Pain".

I don't think mayhem pack is good at all. Deep striking is pretty unreliable and moreso with a giant dreadnought base with no protection. IWND is useless on Helbrutes because it's not like they survive subsequent turns, and they can easily be blown up anyway. Plus a MM with no TL deepstriking is extremely unreliable.

I think the Helcult looks really good because you can get two cultists blobs with "free" fearless. The 3+ cover is also very nice and could get your opponent to waste some shots on a low priority (and only 100 point) model.

Finally I think the 5 helbrute formation could be surprisingly good. 500 points for a pretty good deathstar that will be very hard to chew through with the current meta (not impossible by any means). I would like to playtest this one because it seems like it could be good. They're slow as anything but I would probably give all 5 plasma cannons.

Helcult is absolutely happening, more often than not.

@ Khaine's Wrath; Nope the Helcult's cultists DON'T COUNT as your two mandatory troop choices. Formations exist outside of the FOC, so you still need 2 troops & your HQ. But having 4 scoring units is far from a bad idea.

The Mayhem Pack will also see table time.
Questions are twofold:
1-What would you kit out the Mayhem Pack helbrutes with? Heavy Flamer? Or keep 'em cheap?
@herpguy, "A walker that moved can still fire all of its weapons in the subsequent shooting phase." p.84.
Walkers don't have to snap-shot when they deep strike since they don't have a cruising speed they could have moved at that would force snap shots.

2- More importantly, how does the Deep Strike work with the Helbrutes in this formation?
Deep Strike each one individually?
Deep Strike them as a vehicle squadron?

They 'Brutes aren't a squadron, and the rules don't say the Deep Strike together, just that they all come onto the table at the same time, so I'd say they Deep Strike seperately as they operate as individual models and can't Deep Strike as a unit.

Laughingcarp, I never said they had to snap shoot. 1 BS4 shot is not reliable at all.