Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I recently saw a build for a chaos lord on a bike and I was wondering what you guys thought about it

Chaos lord on a bike 170pts
-lightning claw
-chaos bike
-sigil of corruption
-burning brand of skalathrax
-mark of nurgle

5 Chaos Bikers 145pts
-melta (replaced twin linked bolter)
-melta (replaced twin linked bolter)
-champion has lightning claw

I want to use the bikers to take out any pesky unit by driving up and using the burning brand and their bolters along with the meltas (if needed) and then move away as quickly as possible if they are caught in combat the biker champion will make the challenge instead of The Lord so The Lord can focus on killing the basic troops in the squad and survive to use the burning brand again

It's fine except for the lightning claw on the lord. Lords need fists, or stronger. No point wasting his awesome statline and wargear on mere S4 Ap3. You can leave a claw on the champ if you want for flexibility in challenges, but definitely give the lord some more serious killing power in close combat.

Power maul?

Why bother when for a few more points you can have the real deal?

MoN and a 4++ among all the other stats means a chaos lord is pretty likely to survive until I1. At which point, he beats up nearly everything.

What do you mean?

I believe what Mr. Ailaros is trying to suggest is that you replace the lightning claw with a power fist, has his high toughness and invulnerable save together make him incredibly durable, allowing him to largely mitigate the negative effects of using an unwieldy (Initiative 1) close combat weapon.

*edit*
Also, depending on how you/your group/half of the YMDC forum sees it, the Twin-Linked bolter on the bike could be swapped for the burning brand, allowing for the oh so juicy lightning claw/power fist combination, while still having that lovely ap3 torrent flamer.

I mean that you only need to spend an additional 10 points to upgrade S6 Ap4 to S8 Ap2 which is vastly superior against everything.

The only drawback that powerfists have is that it can be possible to see the model killed before it gets to strike, but in the case of a WS5 T6 W3 Sv3+/4++ model, that is very, very unlikely to happen. So you have basically only upsides to taking a fist here.

I understand what you mean here

The Lord should have a lightning claw and a power fist. That way he gets a bonus attack for having a pair of specialist weapons and can choose whichever is appropriate against specific enemies.

Actually it all depends on what you want your Lord to be doing. Unless your going to be assaulting armor with this squad the PF is a waste, and since you have two meltas I assume you just plan on shooting armor. The LC will be fine on the champ so long as he's not fighting terminators.

I can attest that a LC alone is not enough for a Lord. Too many 2+ saves in Challenges completely shaft the build. That's why I had to go back, snap off an arm, and give him an extra Fist, and he works MUCH better.

How would a power lance + power fist combo compare to a LC + PF or PM + PF combo? I understand the power lance loses alot if you arn't charging, but with bikers that shouldn't be a problem and I can't think of much without a 2+ save that wouldn't be easy to mop up the next round of combat.

+1S usually isn't as good as shred.

And the reason he's not going for a second melee weapon is because he wants the burning brand, and chaos lords can only take two weapons.

 Ailaros wrote:
+1S usually isn't as good as shred.

And the reason he's not going for a second melee weapon is because he wants the burning brand, and chaos lords can only take two weapons.

Not to mention that off the charge, the Power Lance effectively becomes an even more overpriced chainaxe while the claw is good to go all game long.

Hey, take both! The LC + PF combo is as versatile and powerful as it is popular.

assuming 7th edition doesnt modify defensive grenades you also want to get him blight grenades probably.
But yeah:
PF + Brand - Good
PF+LC - Good
Brand + LC - Bad, very Bad

I want to keep the burning brand on The Lord and Is there any other items or buffs I should give him

He needs the AoDG at the very least

I would give my MoN chaos lord blight grenades. Stealth within 8" and negating the +1 attack for charging on the enemy are nice.

Ok anything else?

jackflashultra wrote:He needs the AoDG at the very least

He's already bringing a sigil.

As for the anything else, not really. If you have points to blow, you could always give him a combat familiar, which will give you a couple of free "gotchya" attacks at full initiative before your powerfist swings. Hardly necessary, though.

The black mace is better than the LC + PF combo in my opinion. Since a chaos lord will inevitably be in a challenge first turn the black mace makes your attacks not go to waste, since when you wipe the character you're in a challenge with (and you should have enough fleshbane attacks to easily kill 3+ and 2+ characters) enemy models within 3" take the toughness test or lose a wound WITH NO SAVES OF ANY KIND ALLOWED. This is the most efficient way to run a nurgle lord in my opinion as he will eat through anything.

Take Spawn instead of bikes to escort Lord....

 Ailaros wrote:
+1S usually isn't as good as shred.

And the reason he's not going for a second melee weapon is because he wants the burning brand, and chaos lords can only take two weapons.

Why not just swap out the kraks for a LC?

 herpguy wrote:
The black mace is better than the LC + PF combo in my opinion. Since a chaos lord will inevitably be in a challenge first turn the black mace makes your attacks not go to waste, since when you wipe the character you're in a challenge with (and you should have enough fleshbane attacks to easily kill 3+ and 2+ characters) enemy models within 3" take the toughness test or lose a wound WITH NO SAVES OF ANY KIND ALLOWED. This is the most efficient way to run a nurgle lord in my opinion as he will eat through anything.

In 1 weeks time this will no longer be the case and wounds will carry over from challenges into the rest of the unit.

Ashiraya wrote:Why not just swap out the kraks for a LC?

Tell me where in the codex it says "May swap out krak grenades for one of the following..."

herpguy wrote:The black mace is better than the LC + PF combo in my opinion.

Good, but better?

It's fleshbane, but it's only Ap4. It's cursed, but it's only Ap4. It has demon weapon which sometimes means a bunch of attacks, but sometimes means a few extra attacks, and sometimes it reduces your weapon skill to complete crap.

I mean, it's not BAD (for its huge price tag it better not be), but it's not as reliable as a smaller number of attacks that just work at good Ap. Plus, that +1S and Ap2 are nice for vehicles as well.

I guess the main reason to take it here is because it just takes up a single weapon slot, meaning you can take the mace AND the brand at the same time.

You can have a lord with LC and PF and burning brand IF they are on a bike. The bike has twin-linked bolters, giving you another weapon to swap for the brand.

It's one of the better lord builds.

Also, your bikers say they can take meltaguns, they don't replace their T/L bolters.

lol. Cute.

I hadn't thought of a bike mounted chaos artifact before. I suppose there's no reason you couldn't do it for a melee weapon, either. Have a burning brand/murder sword/black mace bike lord.

Would be insanely expensive of course. It would provide some... interesting modelling opportunities as well. I'm imagining a murder sword welded to the front armor piece as a ramming prow...

Am i the only one who thinks that brand's not worth it on a mellee-oriented lord? It's not bad on a barebones lord that's not very eager to go in mellee vs tough opponents. For example, slaanesh lord that's taken to unlock noize marine troops. But if you kit your lord as a mellee monster with sigil, pf/lc and a tough mellee-oriented retinue like spawns or bikes, i'd avoid taking brand. Not only it's expensive, but it also kills closest models and might force a ld check. So if you kill too much you might get screwed.

I don't think the brand is worth it hardly ever, personally, melee unit or no. Like the bale flamer it emulates, it's only particularly good against things you're already going to be good at and don't need any help with, while taking up points and weapon slots better used on things you do. I mean, if we were talking about a hellhound in a guard army, that would be a little different, but for CSM, you should hardly be having problems against MEq even without specialized equipment.

It's good for rule of cool, of course, and there is a grab bag of fringe uses where it would come in rather handy, but otherwise... well, it competes with things like butchering stuff in close combat.

Which, yeah, becomes much harder to do with a burning brand.