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So, I'm mostly a fan of the Chaos Warband, and wanted to know how other folks here have been using it. The only real drawback is that you have to pay a tactical tax, but compared to the Demi-company, only having to take 2 mandatory Marine units is easier to deal with.

I first tried it with Chosen for my Elite tax, but gradually moved towards using Termicide. While I ran Bikers mostly as disposable Melta-teams, I gradually found myself drawn to using them for close combat, and I eventually moved towards Helbrutes for my HS.

The thing I found about the Warband is if you try to fight Marines in a straight up slugfest, their formations give them more. A free round of rerolling to-hit with Bolters for every Tactical Squad has the potential to do a lot more than a free roll for a Chaos Boon. If you don't emphasize melee options, you aren't taking full advantage of your hatred bonuses either.

Obsec Bikes are very nice to have, but Obsec is more a situational bonus for Terminators (though it can be hilarious to get an Obsec Land Raider, however nonviable that is vs Haywire/D/Grav). The fact you can take Spawn as a tax-free auxiliary is awesome as you can really ramp up the emphasis on Fast Attack, and attaching one Obsec Lord/Sorcerer to such a unit is also awesome.

More than anything though, Favored Scions is more useful than it gets credit for. Aside from it giving you insurance against your Lord or Sorcerer from turning into a Spawn at the worst possible time, it lets you use Path to Glory to buff Aspiring Champions to be capable of taking out small squads, or to grab "more units" out of the deal. When a Champion becomes a Prince or Spawn, he detaches from his unit, so any unit can potentially become a monster/mini-monster vector in one go.

It costs 6 points to give a 3-man Biker unit the Mark of Slaanesh. 15 for a Power Lance. You Hate Imperials, and do 4 S5 AP 3 attacks on the charge. 6 boons make you deadlier, either adding +1 strength, attack, weaponskill, fleshbane, shred, or poison. And if you accidentally become a prince? At least it wasn't your Lord, and a DP gets Fleet out of it, which matters most since you won't get wings.

How have you been running the Warband for yourself?

IM going to a bigger tournament, and this is my take

CSM CAD

Kharn
2 units cultists
Helldrake
Sparatan Assault tank
Sicarean tank

Chaos warband
Juggerlord with axe
BIkes, 2 melta
Helbrute
Termicide
1 unit of CSm with rhino and Melta
1 units of CSM

Lord with bike and PFLC and bike
3 spawns

1850

Plan is to have 3 scary units in CC, Juggerlord goes with spawn, and BIke lord follows bike. Kharn rides with cultist in assault tank. i have decent shooting, and some realy nasty cc. I have alot of OBJ sec units. and also some threats that are real problem solvers. and decent backfield defense with helbrute 1 group of cultist and CSM. I prey for the Deamon Prince transformation on some champion. if i get a prince, ill try to buff a lord of some sort. Give me your 2 cents.

How does a prince let you buff a lord? They don't come with mastery levels or anything.

If i get prince, and he gets whatever you have on him. Since my model have Wings and power armour, the prince i summon get wings and power armour.
I start using the boon on the lords, since i already got a prince and i only have one model. The prince does not do the buffing, he just keeps whatever buffs the champion has from before.

heavybtakingowa wrote:
The prince does not do the buffing, he just keeps whatever buffs the champion has from before.

Iirc you just get a bog standard daemon prince that looses all wargear and other buffs - including active psy powers - but retains a mark.

YOu missunderstand me
I start out with using the extra chaos boons on a regular Champion. when he becomes a DP*, i start using the extra rolls on a lord to buff him.
* Some luck reqired

But the extra rolls are hard to use properly. but you do get alot of them.

My general priority is:

Path to Glory Buffs go onto Bike Champions. They have the speed to take advantage of said buffs, and if they transform, it's not as big a loss as on my Lord.

After Bike Champions, then either my Lord or Sorcerer get some buffs, or any Terminator Champions that may have survived the Termicide drop.

The Prince is hit-or-miss. Sadly, no Wings, Psy powers, or other options carry over. That said, he still keeps Power Armor, and any "Marks" become corresponding "Daemon Of" rules. It's one of the reasons I like the Mark of Slaanesh; Fleet means you're more likely to get the charge off in the first place. "Daemon of Nurgle" doesn't have as much traction without wings, since Shrouded depends so much on Jink.

Daemon Princes don't have the Champion of Chaos special rule. So you can't give them boons.

Some interesting ideas on free boons.

Let's discuss different options on who and when to buff first.

I prefer to buff my lord at start as he's the one most likely to get the most out of the table - other than dp or spawn, obviously.

I'm liking the Warband but still learning it. Need to play more to see what synergizes with its benefits.

Ran this list and was fun:

CSM Warband

- Chaos Lord -Tzeentch, Disc, Burning Brand of Skalanthrax, power sword, Sigil

- Chosen - Champion with Power Axe, 2 chosen with plasma guns, , 2 chosen with power swords

- Chaos Bikers (5 bikers + champ) - Nurgle , Champion with PF and LC, 2 melta guns

- Warp Talons

- Havocs (stock)

- Chaos Marines - Champion with Melta bomb and combi bolter, Rhino with Havoc Launcher

- Chaos Marines - Champion with Melta bomb and combi bolter, Rhino with Havoc Launcher

Hellforged Warpack (Auxillary)

- Warpsmith
- Maulerfiend
- Maulerfiend
- Helbrute

Spawn- (Auxillary)

- Spawn X 3 Nurgle

- Spawn X 3 Nurgle

- Spawn X 3 Nurgle

1850


I used my boons on my lord and it worked out pretty well. I also pondered the termicide option but in the end, the Chosen foot slogging wasn't a bad choice since they were basically ignored for the first part of the game. The range of the plasma definitely made them relevant. Overall I agree, next time I play, will be using boons on a biker champ since enough boons will basically make the model into a lord-like unit for free.

My current build is:

++Black Crusade++
+Chaos Warband+
Tzeentch Lord on Disc w/ Sigil, Claw&Fist, Scrolls and Familiar - 235 [Warlord]
Sorcerer on Bike w/ ML 3, Staff and Familiar - 145

5 Marines, Meltagun, Combi-Champ - 95
-Rhino w/ Dozer Blade and Dirgecaster - 45
5 Marines, Meltagun, Combi-Champ - 95
-Rhino w/ Dozer Blade and Dirgecaster - 45

3 Terminators w/ Axe and Combi-Plasma - 112
3 Terminators w/ Axe and Combi-Plasma - 112

3 Bikers of Slaanesh w/ 2 Bike-Mounted Meltaguns, and Champ w/ Power Lance - 111
3 Bikers of Slaanesh w/ 2 Bike-Mounted Meltaguns, and Champ w/ Power Lance - 111

Helbrute - 100
Helbrute - 100

+Spawn+
2 Spawn - 60
2 Spawn - 60

++Daemon CAD++
+HQ+
Disc Herald of Tzeentch w/ Paradox, ML 2, and Exalted Locus - 145
Blue Scribes - 81

++Troops++
11 Horrors - 99
11 Horrors - 99

Total: 1850


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I feel this gives me a good distribution of small threats across the board, some redundancy in tossing out Melta or melee, and enough psychic presence for summons and utility.

When generating powers, my Horrors roll Malefic first to see if I get the powers I want (Incursion or Sacrifice). If I get either power, my Herald will not roll for powers and just take Summoning and Prescience. Otherwise the Herald also does Malefic. My Sorcerer will usually fish for Ghost Storm or Soulswitch on Ectomancy, and generally save a slot for Psychic Shriek.

My Horrors are either bubblewrap, or they might Deep Strike. I occasionally run Terminators on foot if it's a very dense board, but they usually DS too. I feel that if this combos right with Master of Ambush that the army can do pseudo-null to some degree.

Why would you ever purposely give your Lord the scrolls? Use something that's actually reliable like the Brand or Mace...

To try something different mostly. Also, I like splitting off HQ models to run solo whenever possible for general MSU-ish purposes.

My views are that I'm less worried about S10 than about stuff like Grav, Bladestorm, Monofilament (especially Skatach Deathshrouds), etc. So a 3++ means more than T6 anyway. 10 points means an extra attack and Jetbike movement, which on an obsec character can have its utility for Maelstrom or other missions.

The Scrolls are definitely not an efficient or reliable option but I felt there were enough other units that I could risk losing 2 Spawn instead. Mostly it's another Warp Charge, Deny buff, and lets my Lord be a "backup" caster (and still keep Favored Scions, unlike grabbing a 2nd Sorcerer). Plus with the FAQ saying yes to Psychic Focus and Chaos Psychic Focus stacking, I get a reasonable chance of a solid primaris on my first roll (only if I roll Pyro or Tzeentch for my first power am I bummed).

I rationalize the 45 points as 25 for the ML/WC, 20 for the extra powers and having an unusual Psychic vector. And 20 points for 6 powers is definitely more entertaining than 20 points for one extra power (admittedly, the GSC Crouchling lets you choose a discipline first and comes with 2 Rending attacks, but still)...

Plus most disciplines have at least one worthy spell worth taking. Getting Iron Arm is the ideal dream but even stuff like Perfect Timing or Psychic Maelstrom are nice.

Is it efficient or competitive? Usually nope. Is it potentially awesome? Chaos yes! Half of Chaos is about risk versus reward ayway.

You don't want potentially awesome you want reliability. I don't care if you want to run the Lord as MoT; after all, you did give him the Disc and Sigil. HOWEVER, the Scrolls are always going to be a trap because of the unreliability. The Brand has fluffy stats (Flamer with AP3 and Soul Blaze), so I recommend going that route. The Claw can be lost for that.

I generally go with a core warband of

Termi lord, 4 termis in a LR
2 squads of csm in rhinos and a special
Squad of 5 bikers w/ melta
Helbrute.

While my meta isnt cut throat, i find this to be a solid core of around 1250 pts dependent on upgrades.

What i have found is taking nurgle spawn in squads of 1 each. The speed and the ability to negate wound overflow has allowed me to tank twc for afew turns, swamp tanks and engage devastators and heavy weapon teams quickly

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You don't want potentially awesome you want reliability. I don't care if you want to run the Lord as MoT; after all, you did give him the Disc and Sigil. HOWEVER, the Scrolls are always going to be a trap because of the unreliability. The Brand has fluffy stats (Flamer with AP3 and Soul Blaze), so I recommend going that route. The Claw can be lost for that.

I get that. The Brand is arguably the best vanilla CSM relic (the Black Mace and Axe of Blind Fury are both awesome but more restrictive on who takes them), and is even more fun with certain shenanigans (double-tapping with the Terminator Annihilation Force).

The big issue with the Scrolls is the cost, plus the need for a Spell Familiar. But considering that the army is also taking Blue Scribes (aka "free random Malefic power each turn"), and is a Black Crusade with a Favored Scions core...reliability is secondary to adapatility in this case. (Skavenriffic)

If it was something like Lord Huron's Hamadrya, I would nope the Scrolls so hard. But keeping/remembering the powers rolled, as well as generating the power at the start of movement means I can at least determine what I want to do based on if I get an appropriate power.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You don't want potentially awesome you want reliability.

I'd pick potentially awesome over reliably mediocre.