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Anyone tried a bunch of turkeys in a Slaanesh rushdown list? If half your Chaos Daemons are hitting the line turn one, that could get interesting. Especially if Fiends are preventing fall back.

 lindsay40k wrote:
Anyone tried a bunch of turkeys in a Slaanesh rushdown list? If half your Chaos Daemons are hitting the line turn one, that could get interesting. Especially if Fiends are preventing fall back.

Never seen them in a Slaanesh list, but a friend of mine used to run 3 Heldrakes with his World Eaters and trust me, Heldrakes are *trash* in this edition. I'm not saying they can't kill anything or lock anything in CC, but they're too random and way too overpriced for what they do. They should double the cost on the Baleflamer (30 to 60), give it 2d6 instead of 1d6 shots and reduce the base cost of the Heldrake by 30pts (to make the Autocannon drake more appealing).

Distraction Carnifex is the only thing they do really well this edition (people are always disproportionnally affraid of them).

Well to be fair, Distraction Carnifex is a very important role for many up close and personal assault armies. All of the Daemon Engines are great for this in the Chaos Dex as because of the 5++ and infernal regeneration they can be surprisingly resilient to anti tank weapons. If you can goad your enemy to shoot at the big scary Heldrake that flew into his face, it may be all you need to get your Berzerker filled Rhinos up the field and into position.

That said, the Heldrake could use some work. As always, the Auto Cannon are completely useless, and its really inconsistent for what it does. S7 is a really bad threshold for its melee, it doesn't have a lot of attacks, and outside of being a psychologically intimidating model with a history of being one of the scariest models in the game since its inception... Its a far cry from what it needs to be for the points you pay for it.

Here is how I would fix the heldrake:
Remove the +1 to hit flying targets from the claws, instead make this a special rule for the whole model, called something like
"airborne predator : This model ignores the penalty for moving and shooting heavy weapons. Additionally, when attacking models that can fly, you may add one to the hit roll"
This would only help the Auto Cannon, as the +1 to hit flyers is currently baked into the Claws, and the Baleflamer obviously doesn't care about rolling to hit. Now at least the Auto Cannon can be fired on the move with some semblance of accuracy (typically be hitting on a 4). Its still not great, and probably not up to par with the Baleflamer but at least you'd be able to use it to dogfight other fliers.

Heldrake Claws: buffed to Strength User +1, AP -2, Damage 3. This turns them into a melee weapon you would expect to see on something like a Dreadnought- which it should be. It also means it can now legitimately threaten flying vehicles on the charge. Its not like the Heldrake has that many attacks anyway. Its kind of sad right now that for all of the pictures of a Drake landing on a plane and tearing it apart in the air, they are so hampered by bad AP, low strength, and inconsistent damage that they will often fail completely to do anything. Letting their claws actually deal damage like other combat walkers would do a lot to justify their price and lack of super sonic.

What is the optimal way to run zerkers? Do you need to run a DA and Exalted Champ with them? I tried 9 the other day against shining spears. He failed his quiken and got stuck in the mid - i unloaded rhino warped in the zerkers and proceeded to not kill a single model as i attacked with power fist and battle axe/chainsword into lightning fast reflexes. Wound up hitting on 4's and wounding some on 4's and soem on 3's - with a 3 up save one wound communicated (chainsword felt like garbage even with the extra attack and the axe going to a 4+ wasn't instrumental). He then used 2 CP to interrupt between the "second zerker fight" and killed them all as spears have -4AP and even with 3 str on like 20 attacks in melee it didn't matter...

To be fair he's used 2cp for lightning reflexes and another 2 on counter with a very good cc unit. They can tear through stuff but you need to make sure what you charge you're gonna kill. Shouldn't you have been wounding on 3s with all your hits tho? Str5 and 6 against toughness 4?
The DA and EC do obviously help with rerolls. I prefer a lord to the apostle personally.

Sounds like you just rolled really poorly. You should have killed between 2-3 bikes on average dice in your first charge activation. That would have reduced incoming damage when your opponent interrupted too.

Berzerkers are perhaps the best ‘bully’ unit in the game. They absolutely annihilate anything against which they’re already the overdog. The instant they pick a fight with something that can tank a lot of AP-1 D1 and deal damage in return, or which has some really good overwatch, they may as well be a Tactical Squad.

The real utility of BFtBG is in getting a free 6” pile-in at the END of the fight phase. (@orkswubwub - your opponent didn’t need to use a stratagem to get their attacks in before BFtBG - it already has strikes last.) Firstly, this can be used to envelope a victim unit so the survivors cannot fall back. (Not always a tall order against a screen - you’ll often kill a lot of holes in a blob unit.) Secondly, you can try to execute your charge moves so that you’ll be able to use your 12” (!) of pile-ins to tag a load of units with horrific overwatch but rubbish melee (remember, you can’t ATTACK units you didn’t declare the charge against, but restrictions on who you MOVE within 1” of only applied in the charge phase). They can’t pile in and attack your T4 W1 3+ zerks this turn - it’s the END of the fight phase - and you’ve shut down their shooting with a unit that basically cost about as much as some Heretacs.

I suspect Renegade Zerks may be even better than World Eaters, as when they Warptime into the enemy +2D6” might be better than a potential +2A. As for delivery: be Alpha Legion, or else field several units in Rhinos with a support character in each. Maybe a Spartan party van - but if AP-5 mega guns are locally endemic, maybe not. (Unless you can get Delightful Agonies on it.) Warptime nerf has hit our drop pods hard, and if you already used them then your meta has probably adapted around you already with screening etc.

Warhammer community just dropped a free index for traitor knights!

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/06/22/22nd-june-you-asked-for-chaos-knights-you-got-emgw-homepage-post-1/

It is definitely great for those who have Chaos Knights, and its a smart move by GW as it opens up potentially more sales of their Dominus and Armiger kits from people who play Chaos in addition to those who play Imperial. Its a good move.

So as compared to Imperial Knights, we are back on parity of points, they have a *lot* more special rules and abilities, warlord traits, etc while we have maintained the superior flexibility of options on the Questor Knights. We also got the crusader buff, so we can run melee knights as efficiently as Imperials. The Warlord Trait seems good, ObSec on a Knight, and counts as 10 models is a great ability and helps your Knight claim an objective even from other Obsec troops. Rotate Ion Shields and Trail of Destruction are solid buffs as well. I feel that Imperial Knights will ultimately be more competitive with their selection of house traits, and much wider selection of relics. However its nice to see Renegade Knights get some sort of parity. Definitely makes me want to get building my knight and try him out in a detachment.

Ultimately however, I think the lack of keywords will spell the real doom of chaos knights. Especially compared to the Lord of Skulls which benefits so much from being able to be buffed.

the_Jakman wrote:
Hey guys, quick opinion request here. Can you help me decide between these two options? I'm building an all infantry army including a battalion lead by Abby. The plan was to take maximum advantage of the Black Legion trait to get advancing assault plasma guns marching up the board, with reroll misses. But I'm thinking just taking more cultists might be better.

Spoiler:

Abby
5x CSM with combi-plas and plas
5x CSM with combi-plas and plas
24x Cultists with autoguns
10x Havocs with combi-plas and 4x plas

or

Abby
59x Cultists with autoguns
10x Havocs with combi-plas and 4x plas

The rest of my army includes,
Jump Sorc
Winged DP
20 Noise Marines (infiltrating)
10 Cultists
2x3 Oblits

Cheers heaps,

I'm assuming the rest of the army is Alpha Legion, since the Noise Marines are infiltrating?

The choice is between 30 Cultists and 10 CSMs. Given everything else in your list, I think you need bodies more than a few plasma shots a turn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Abaddon303 wrote:
I mean a laspred should take about 7 wounds off an enemy predator. Is that better than tying that enemy predator up for a round of shooting? Okay, the helldrake can tie up more than one thing if you're fortunate with deployment.
I think I'd rather take the 7 wounds and let your opponent fire back at 4+.

How often is that Heldrake really going to be able to tie up a Predator on first turn? Most armies I face screen their big guns. It's a lot more likely that Heldrake is going to tie up 1 or 2 chaff units for a single turn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 akaean wrote:
It is definitely great for those who have Chaos Knights, and its a smart move by GW as it opens up potentially more sales of their Dominus and Armiger kits from people who play Chaos in addition to those who play Imperial. Its a good move.

So as compared to Imperial Knights, we are back on parity of points, they have a *lot* more special rules and abilities, warlord traits, etc while we have maintained the superior flexibility of options on the Questor Knights. We also got the crusader buff, so we can run melee knights as efficiently as Imperials. The Warlord Trait seems good, ObSec on a Knight, and counts as 10 models is a great ability and helps your Knight claim an objective even from other Obsec troops. Rotate Ion Shields and Trail of Destruction are solid buffs as well. I feel that Imperial Knights will ultimately be more competitive with their selection of house traits, and much wider selection of relics. However its nice to see Renegade Knights get some sort of parity. Definitely makes me want to get building my knight and try him out in a detachment.

This is good news, but it could have been great news.

I'm not complaining, this is an Index not a Codex and there's room for improvement. Some Marks of Chaos would have been nice.

 lindsay40k wrote:
Anyone tried a bunch of turkeys in a Slaanesh rushdown list? If half your Chaos Daemons are hitting the line turn one, that could get interesting. Especially if Fiends are preventing fall back.

Yes i do, but without the turkeys. I think they could be fun with a herald support (as i do with Lasherfiends) but i also think that 555 points is quite the big commitment for 3 T1 charges though. Maybe Skarbrand & 2 turkeys in order to 'crash and burn' any flyer units. Fiends i found
somehwat lackluster - especially since armies with lots of 'fly' units aren't exactly rare. Something hilarious though is a Possessed blob (15 is what i opted in for) with MoS, IoE, buffed with Prescience & the Masque in the same combat. Give their target the +1 to hit from the Masque
and suddenly the possessed are causing exploding DttfE dice against <Imperium> (on a 3 iirc, since its a +2 from the Masque and Prescience while being 5+ from IoE), add Locus of Grace-Stratagem put on the Masque for good measure and you gonna need a bucket for all the dice.
Very niche, but also exceptionally funny.

I'm not sure about the Turkeys though - maybe some H&R Hellhounds and some Hellflayers instead. Not quite as fast, but also S8 and D2 for the bladed axle - and overall just a ridiculous amount of attacks (9+D6 per model). Maybe running 3 Drakes with a Slaanesh Deamons DP,
add wings, Celerity of Slaanesh, Mark of Excess & he can somewhat keep up with the Turkeys (18-19" move on average while giving re-rolls of 1, Advance & Charge to guarantee charges for the Drakes, maybe add symphony of pain to deny any overwatch).. but 735 points for 4 T1 charges, dunno. Souns excessive.. so exactly what slaanesh wants.

Great changes. Re-rolling all misses is super strong for a shooty Knight and 2CP is a reasonable price. The warlord trait is great and the -ld relic is interesting. Chaos can stack a ridiculous amount of -ld now and have some tricks like Treason of Tzeentch and the Forbidden Gem that could make it worthwhile.

Loyalist Knights have better detachment rules, better wl traits, better relics, vastly more good strategems and access to endless supply of cp via allies, but this is free stuff for chaos, so eh

Not sure there will be room for renegade knights after the obligatory 6 daemon princes, but it does at least open more options, even if chaos has no real ways to support or buff their knights, unlike loyalists.

lack of any mark i guess will hurt a lot, but at least now they might be playable, but doubt they will find any place in any chaos list,

 blackmage wrote:
lack of any mark i guess will hurt a lot, but at least now they might be playable, but doubt they will find any place in any chaos list,

Besides the loyal equivalent, is Chaos Dominus close to the best super-heavy vehicle unit in the game?


However, lack of relics and traits left a gap between the two.

 tokugawa wrote:

 blackmage wrote:
lack of any mark i guess will hurt a lot, but at least now they might be playable, but doubt they will find any place in any chaos list,

Besides the loyal equivalent, is Chaos Dominus close to the best super-heavy vehicle unit in the game?


However, lack of relics and traits left a gap between the two.

I'm debating this question with myself right now.

I think the answer is no. It's certainly very tough but I sense flaws.

Can't wait for the inevitable point reduction for Blood Slaughterers since a "melee" Armiger is 164 and the "shooting" one is 174 while a Blood Slaughterer remains 180. Come on FW / GW / whoever is running the 2018 Chapter Approved: drop the Slaughterer down to between 160 - 170. One Blood Slaughter should compete with an Armiger with whoever gets the jump getting the advantage.

I don't think the intention is to make a chaos RIK pure list be that great, but they have everything they need to be as/more effective allies now, with rotate ion shields, the new strat, and the ability to double up on the best weapon options.

I think the Dominus has serious competition from the Lord of Skulls. Lord of Skulls is a very good super heavy that gets better in CC as it takes more damage, it has a good combination of shooting and assault, and it has both the Heretec Astartes and Daemon keywords for syenergy with both CSM and Daemon codexes. Dominus Knight has the Volcano Cannon and a better Invulnerable Save vs ranged if you use Rotate Ion Shields (at 3 CP a pop). Lord of Skulls has access to much better internal synergy. Heretic Astartes psychic powers work on him. Here's to you Prescience and Warp Time. He is a Daemon Engine so he can use DAEMONFORGED which lets him re-roll all to hits and to wounds for a single CP... His 5++ doesn't go away in melee, it has infernal regeneration and can be healed by a warp smith. Finally, he has access to Warp Surge if your army includes a detachment of Daemons thanks to his Daemon keyword. Warp Surge being 2 CP as opposed to Rotate ion shields 3.


Ultimately, I think the Dominus Knight can be a better shooter with its Plasma and Volcano Lance. And its durability vs ranged is quite good- although will tank your CP. But the Lord of Skull's access to keywords I feel gives it a solid edge on a Dominus in the context of Chaos. If Chaos had access to something like Ion Bulwark it would be closer. The Dominus has a slight edge in terms of CP generation as its easier to fit into a super heavy detachment with a pair of armigers. however as a one off super heavy choice, you are better off with a Lord of Skulls or a FW Daemon Lord.

We had been talking about Scorpius' in this thread. Wanted to share an additional thought for anyone thinking about taking them: they are overwatch beasts, especially for Black Legion.

In a game against Blood Angels, I had a pretty big hole in my screens. A squad of Death Company and a squad of Sanguinary Guard dropped in. Abaddon was nearby.

The Death Company charged first, charging all 3. ~25 shots of overwatch (with the rerolls for Abaddon,) 8 hits, 6 wounds. They missed the charge. The Sanguinary Guard went next, ~18 shots of overwatch, 4 wounds, missed the charge.

The remaining models went down to bolter fire from 20 CSMs. Abaddon was pleased.

Admittedly, I rolled well for hits / wounds, but I rolled very poorly for the number of shots. The Blood Angels were charging into 18d3 shots from the multi-launchers. Had that gone better, both units probably would have been wiped.

 tokugawa wrote:

 blackmage wrote:
lack of any mark i guess will hurt a lot, but at least now they might be playable, but doubt they will find any place in any chaos list,

Besides the loyal equivalent, is Chaos Dominus close to the best super-heavy vehicle unit in the game?


However, lack of relics and traits left a gap between the two.

lack of legion and/or mark is a gap too wide, loyal Ik has Kw imperium, renegade has not mean that can be boosted by auras and/or psy powers, for me mean<------- stay on the shelf, i take lord of skull if i would

 blackmage wrote:

 tokugawa wrote:

 blackmage wrote:
lack of any mark i guess will hurt a lot, but at least now they might be playable, but doubt they will find any place in any chaos list,

Besides the loyal equivalent, is Chaos Dominus close to the best super-heavy vehicle unit in the game?


However, lack of relics and traits left a gap between the two.

lack of legion and/or mark is a gap too wide, loyal Ik has Kw imperium, renegade has not mean that can be boosted by auras and/or psy powers, for me mean<------- stay on the shelf, i take lord of skull if i would

Dominus is I agree not THAT good for Chaos...However, the standard knight shines now. Double gatling is hilarious now that it went down to 75 per gun, and for 2 cp you can reroll all 24 shots. All melee without a carapace gun is now highly considerable as well as a super harsh distraction

 akaean wrote:
Finally, he has access to Warp Surge if your army includes a detachment of Daemons thanks to his Daemon keyword. Warp Surge being 2 CP as opposed to Rotate ion shields 3.

You cannot Warp Surge your Lord of Skulls.

ah ha,
You are right. I was looking at my codex and not the FAQ. I forgot they Errata'd the Lord of Skulls to lose Daemon from the Faction Key Word Line... and moved it to the keyword line.

Good lord. So it was legal, until they removed the keyword I needed. I also think its funny that they FAQ'd death guard to be able to use the Codex CSM Familiar Strategem or tide of traitors, but took away the ability of Oblits or the LoSkulls to use Warp Surge.

Good ol' games workshop.

 akaean wrote:
ah ha,
You are right. I was looking at my codex and not the FAQ. I forgot they Errata'd the Lord of Skulls to lose Daemon from the Faction Key Word Line... and moved it to the keyword line.

Good lord. So it was legal, until they removed the keyword I needed. I also think its funny that they FAQ'd death guard to be able to use the Codex CSM Familiar Strategem or tide of traitors, but took away the ability of Oblits or the LoSkulls to use Warp Surge.

Good ol' games workshop.

For a single game I was able to deepstrike turn 1 my Lord of Skulls.

The errata was ABSOLUTELY needed.

Dominus is I agree not THAT good for Chaos...However, the standard knight shines now. Double gatling is hilarious now that it went down to 75 per gun, and for 2 cp you can reroll all 24 shots. All melee without a carapace gun is now highly considerable as well as a super harsh distraction

yes then you find de/eldar with their -1/-2 to hit and (been there done that) your 400+Ik become useless also with re roll (which cost 2cp's and we dont have the farm cp imperial lists can have), you cant give it free re rolls with character auras, you cant use powers like prescience no warptime for melee Ik...is just cheaper nothing more, a double gatling costs now 469 before costed 548 about 80pts less but lacks any sinergy with any chaos list, 3cps for +1 save? Seriously?

So been out the game a while thinking about getting back in are noise marine based lists viable in 8th ?

 blackmage wrote:

Dominus is I agree not THAT good for Chaos...However, the standard knight shines now. Double gatling is hilarious now that it went down to 75 per gun, and for 2 cp you can reroll all 24 shots. All melee without a carapace gun is now highly considerable as well as a super harsh distraction

yes then you find de/eldar with their -1/-2 to hit and (been there done that) your 400+Ik become useless also with re roll (which cost 2cp's and we dont have the farm cp imperial lists can have), you cant give it free re rolls with character auras, you cant use powers like prescience no warptime for melee Ik...is just cheaper nothing more, a double gatling costs now 469 before costed 548 about 80pts less but lacks any sinergy with any chaos list, 3cps for +1 save? Seriously?

Here's a suprising feature: STATISTICS!

Let's say you're getting a -1. It will just happen the most often, which is good for finding the median situation. You fire all 24 shots, let's say you shoot at a Pheonix. Real big wounds, good toughness, and hard to hit. Good example.

24 shots (all rerolled) on a 4+ goes down to 12, rerolling the failures to net another 6 on average. 18 Shots, wounding on a 4+, going down to 9. Pheonix is rocking a 3+ save, -2 from the Gatling to a 5+. Saves a third of the wounds, leaving you with 6. That Pheonix is down to 4 wounds, and is all but useless now.

-1 to hit rarely means jack if you build right, and mass shots is A REALLY good way to negate that issue.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Crimson-King2120 wrote:
So been out the game a while thinking about getting back in are noise marine based lists viable in 8th ?

Eeeh...They give a lot of shots, but honestly unless you're using them specifically for the fact they can be troops in EC, don't bother. Usually I will still say go with it if there is something only slightly better, but there is FAR better options.

good luck playing ur knight against Alaitoc.

 blackmage wrote:
good luck playing ur knight against Alaitoc.

Jokes on you, I don't even own that knight!

I JUST LIKE MATH!