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Ayy renegades will get some new rules, only problem, you will need to shill another 35£ for that.

https://whc-cdn.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/CSMPreview-Mar17-BlackLegionSpread7gz.jpg

"Mere mortals : Chaos cultists units do not gain the Black Crusaders legion trait."

So, it looks like Cultists will lose access to Legion traits with Vigilus Ablaze. Unfortunately, the trait is still limited to Daemon Prince, Infantry, Helbrute and bikers (you can read it in the blurry picture above). I'm quite disappointed, to say the least...

OOF. I really, really hope they bring Cultists back down to 4. Otherwise that's a massive kick in the balls.

Running Black Legion without Abaddon is one of the worst suggestions I've heard for competitive play. Please don't listen to Red Corsair on that one.

 SHUPPET wrote:
Running Black Legion without Abaddon is one of the worst suggestions I've heard for competitive play. Please don't listen to Red Corsair on that one.

I don't play tournaments, period. I play pick up games, and thats about as far as I take the game. I still play proper missions with proper lists, but i'm not facing loyal 32 or castellans every game.

 SHUPPET wrote:
Running Black Legion without Abaddon is one of the worst suggestions I've heard for competitive play. Please don't listen to Red Corsair on that one.

I'm of the opinion Black Legion would be a better army if CSMs where like Grey Hunters and could have a boltgun AND CCW. it'd synergize with their trait pretty well

someone know how new Abbadon will be? The way you will play new black legion will depend a lot how he will change.

 blackmage wrote:
someone know how new Abbadon will be? The way you will play new black legion will depend a lot how he will change.

I suspect he won't change too much his stats are pretty damn good as they stand

BrianDavion wrote:

 blackmage wrote:
someone know how new Abbadon will be? The way you will play new black legion will depend a lot how he will change.

I suspect he won't change too much his stats are pretty damn good as they stand

Let's hope he doesn't end up like the new Oblits (which might still be playable but not as good as they were for their points).

Heaven forbid we fix Calvary units to get the Traits. Juggerlords would be just too broken with an extra attack on the charge I guess! Oh and those pesky Steed of Slaanesh Sorcerers striking first in combat!

Hmmm, that new chaos gate thingy terrain piece which gives invul to those near it. Could be a consideration to run alongside a trio of three chaos predator tanks.

Predator tanks have always suffered from being fragile. Now they get an invul from that terrain piece. Its not bad. Further more, a sorceror nearby gets his psychic casting buffed? That's a good candidate for prescience too.

Will we finally see kill shot come into play?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Heaven forbid we fix Calvary units to get the Traits. Juggerlords would be just too broken with an extra attack on the charge I guess! Oh and those pesky Steed of Slaanesh Sorcerers striking first in combat!

Why are you even talking about index options like they care about them? Those are 100% legacy units that will never see updates.


And on the note of Abby, let's all hope he gets a big buff! Like gaining a whole 3 wounds, putting him up to 10! Because GW thinks thats a buff!

vaklor4 wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
Running Black Legion without Abaddon is one of the worst suggestions I've heard for competitive play. Please don't listen to Red Corsair on that one.

I don't play tournaments, period. I play pick up games, and thats about as far as I take the game. I still play proper missions with proper lists, but i'm not facing loyal 32 or castellans every game.

High level play or not, the answer to the question is still the same.

Have a look at what Black Legion gives you.

First Among Traitors is a match up specific Warlord trait, that isn't worth taking on a generic Lord.

Let The Galaxy Burn is a low-impact stratagem with very niche usage anyway since the army already has re-rolls easily available.

Eye Of Night is a pretty meh relic.


The Legion Trait of run-and-gun is the only semi-useful thing other than Abaddon but still not something that will have much impact on a list each game, and Abaddon's Fearless aura is just better than the LD +1 buff.


If you're taking Black Legion, take Abaddon. Pointless Legion choice without him.

BrianDavion wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
Running Black Legion without Abaddon is one of the worst suggestions I've heard for competitive play. Please don't listen to Red Corsair on that one.

I'm of the opinion Black Legion would be a better army if CSMs where like Grey Hunters and could have a boltgun AND CCW. it'd synergize with their trait pretty well

No doubt.

Honestly though, what IS good as far as legions go for competitive anymore at baseline?

Renegades, Night Lords, Emp. Children, World Eaters, and Word Bearers are all fringe at best, garbage at worst, and the other 3 are ok at best from what it sounds like.

I mean all the Legions are mediocre to okay, it's CSM dex. But you take the best stuff from your Legion and build to it's strengths or else you're even worse than THAT level. Black Legion with no Abaddon may as well be legion-less. With Abaddon it's actually pretty decent.

Okay, I see your point. It's like playing World Eaters with no Berzerkers, or Night Lords with no raptors. Without playing to its strengths, the legion stays mediocre.

As for what is good, I think Iron Warriors, Alpha Legion and Black Legion are the best, and World Eaters and Emperor's Children are decent alternatives if you want to do what they do.

Well, I am not sure if a perfect list exists out there that can destroy any and all lists. Lots of lists have counters. Harder lists are often more specialisted, and counters do exist.

Take the Castellan, imperium soup list. So, we run Abaddon in black legion with tons of lascannon havocs and basic CSM squads with lascannons as well. Add on Ahriman and his castor buddies as a supreme command.

Now, the castellan has zero good targets to shoot at. We have Ahriman to cast death hex at 24 inches on it to remove its invul, and then mass lascannons to take it down to zero health.

Is it a "competitive" list? I am sure there are other lists out there that will stomp such a list for sure. But its an example of a list tailered to fight the Imperium soup Castellan list and its uses Abaddon and black legion to good effect.


As an aside. I just realised that Tzeentch possessed and obliterators can now get a 3++ invul save. Cursed earth from Master of possession and weaver of fates from a Tzeenth sorceror. That's pretty tasty. It might be worth considering for a 3 Obliterator unit. I mean, they are going to attract a lot of attention for their sheer firepower. Even without cacophony, 3 oblits will throw out 18 shots per turn. If they are deep struck into cover and given a 3++ from those two psychic. That's a 1+ normal save along with a 3++ invul save... on a T5 unit. Its gonna take a LOT to whittle that down. Your opponent might even focus so much on trying to kill that unit that he forgets everything else.

 SHUPPET wrote:

vaklor4 wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
Running Black Legion without Abaddon is one of the worst suggestions I've heard for competitive play. Please don't listen to Red Corsair on that one.

I don't play tournaments, period. I play pick up games, and thats about as far as I take the game. I still play proper missions with proper lists, but i'm not facing loyal 32 or castellans every game.

High level play or not, the answer to the question is still the same.

Have a look at what Black Legion gives you.

First Among Traitors is a match up specific Warlord trait, that isn't worth taking on a generic Lord.

Let The Galaxy Burn is a low-impact stratagem with very niche usage anyway since the army already has re-rolls easily available.

Eye Of Night is a pretty meh relic.


The Legion Trait of run-and-gun is the only semi-useful thing other than Abaddon but still not something that will have much impact on a list each game, and Abaddon's Fearless aura is just better than the LD +1 buff.


If you're taking Black Legion, take Abaddon. Pointless Legion choice without him.

BrianDavion wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
Running Black Legion without Abaddon is one of the worst suggestions I've heard for competitive play. Please don't listen to Red Corsair on that one.

I'm of the opinion Black Legion would be a better army if CSMs where like Grey Hunters and could have a boltgun AND CCW. it'd synergize with their trait pretty well

No doubt.

more to the point I'm convinced whomever designed the legion traits belived they WHERE boltgun and CCW equipped. the trait is great for an army that wants to run up and get in your face quick. Black Legion would proably be the best Legion if their CSMs had the chain sword to be effective in melee combat. run em up the field advancing and then take a turn to get a rapid fire shot off before charging. effective and VERY CSMy

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Well, I am not sure if a perfect list exists out there that can destroy any and all lists. Lots of lists have counters. Harder lists are often more specialisted, and counters do exist.

Take the Castellan, imperium soup list. So, we run Abaddon in black legion with tons of lascannon havocs and basic CSM squads with lascannons as well. Add on Ahriman and his castor buddies as a supreme command.

Now, the castellan has zero good targets to shoot at. We have Ahriman to cast death hex at 24 inches on it to remove its invul, and then mass lascannons to take it down to zero health.

Is it a "competitive" list? I am sure there are other lists out there that will stomp such a list for sure. But its an example of a list tailered to fight the Imperium soup Castellan list and its uses Abaddon and black legion to good effect.


As an aside. I just realised that Tzeentch possessed and obliterators can now get a 3++ invul save. Cursed earth from Master of possession and weaver of fates from a Tzeenth sorceror. That's pretty tasty. It might be worth considering for a 3 Obliterator unit. I mean, they are going to attract a lot of attention for their sheer firepower. Even without cacophony, 3 oblits will throw out 18 shots per turn. If they are deep struck into cover and given a 3++ from those two psychic. That's a 1+ normal save along with a 3++ invul save... on a T5 unit. Its gonna take a LOT to whittle that down. Your opponent might even focus so much on trying to kill that unit that he forgets everything else.

I too think that's actually a decent way to run Black Legion. Just spamming CSM squads, but maybe with Plasma over Las since it synergises much better with their trait. TSons allies. I saw a list like that in here a little bit ago.

EDIT: Chosen synergise well with this gameplan too.

I've got back into 40k for 8th, used to be a chaos player from 2nd-4th but money issues made me sell my army. I'm looking at a chaos army next (AdMech are my main) and I'm thinking this kind of tactic could be useful, anyone care to tell me if/why I'd be wrong?


Renegade chapter

10berzerkers in rhino, Daemon prince with wings (none Khorne) and warptime.

Get berzerkers out of rhino (3") advance, advance up Daemon prince, warp time zerkers for another advance and can still charge. That's 16-27" then they can still charge. With being able to fight twice that's an easy distraction carnifex in the opponent's face while I can actually do something with the rest of my army.

I'd appreciate someone to CC the strat. I considered the same but a drill but the drill would lose them 7-12" of movement so wasn't sure if it's worth it. (Warp time could negate this but waiting till T2 could hinder the rest of the list having no huge distraction)

Also, can you have a Daemon prince of chaos undivided? Quick reading says no.

 laam999 wrote:
I've got back into 40k for 8th, used to be a chaos player from 2nd-4th but money issues made me sell my army. I'm looking at a chaos army next (AdMech are my main) and I'm thinking this kind of tactic could be useful, anyone care to tell me if/why I'd be wrong?


Renegade chapter

10berzerkers in rhino, Daemon prince with wings (none Khorne) and warptime.

Get berzerkers out of rhino (3") advance, advance up Daemon prince, warp time zerkers for another advance and can still charge. That's 16-27" then they can still charge. With being able to fight twice that's an easy distraction carnifex in the opponent's face while I can actually do something with the rest of my army.

I'd appreciate someone to CC the strat. I considered the same but a drill but the drill would lose them 7-12" of movement so wasn't sure if it's worth it. (Warp time could negate this but waiting till T2 could hinder the rest of the list having no huge distraction)

Also, can you have a Daemon prince of chaos undivided? Quick reading says no.

Well you would need to get the Berzerkers out of the rhino without disembarking, in order to make an attack move if i am not mistaken.

As for the daemonprince i think not. There is only Belakor that is completely unaligned.

Renegade zerkers can do some pretty nice stuff, for sure. Your big problem is going to be reliability of warptime - a DP has no cast buffs available, can be denied because he's in the middle of the board, and if he fails your 200pts of zerkers and your 72pt rhino are wasted.

Ahriman would synergise well with this plan - he can warptime from 9" away, avoiding denial range. He also has the cabal strat, giving him +3 to cast if accompanied by 2 DPs or 2 minimum squads of Rubrics.

Having said all this, it sounds like a turn-1 bumrush tactic, and those tend to be met with very easy screening counterplay.

It works. You disembark 3", move advance 6+d6. Then warptime them for another 6+d6. So, your zerkers would have moved 15+2d6 up the board. And then the renegade legion trait allows them to advance and charge.

It works for just one unit, but it does work.

If you want a more extreme version of this. Get a bastion. put it on the edge of your deployment line. Stuff 20 zerkers into it. Then use the above stated strategy. You will have potentially 20 zerkers in a first turn charge into his lines. On his part, he will have to blow up your bastion to get at your Zerkers, and that's no mean feat.

they may just get into a screen, but the fact they're there and taking attention away from a lot of the other things in the army is the purpose, not to win the battle alone, but to force the opponent to focus on them.

I use my dragoons for AdMech to fill this role and find that having a fast a powerful threat helps me then focus my fire where its needed.

I'll reread the Ahriman sheet and see if that would work for me.

Thanks for the tips.

Pretty annoying that while the long standing "Chaos can't have nice things" has drastically improved on the models front in recent years we keep getting kicked in the ass rules wise.

Got to reign in those OP Cultists. Wouldn't want to get within spitting distance of the balanced Guardsmen dominating tournament play.

To be fair, cultists were supposed to be mainly just cannon fodder for CSM. They weren't supposed to be the key things that win you the battles for CSM.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
To be fair, cultists were supposed to be mainly just cannon fodder for CSM. They weren't supposed to be the key things that win you the battles for CSM.

TBF that would require the basic CSM to actually be capable of winning battles in the first place.

As it stands, if this changes goes through and BL isn't the only one that get's shafted that way we have a serious problem. Inbetween the newblits price hike and the further nerfing of the only decent troop choice left the only thing we still have is DP and they are done better by the other CSM legions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Eldarain wrote:
Pretty annoying that while the long standing "Chaos can't have nice things" has drastically improved on the models front in recent years we keep getting kicked in the ass rules wise.

Got to reign in those OP Cultists. Wouldn't want to get within spitting distance of the balanced Guardsmen dominating tournament play.

Conveniently you forgot the 25% pts budget Knight that get's to gobble all the Cp the guard generates that the guard incidentaly has no good use for.

These days, with imperium soup being so popular. A lot of lists are running lots of dakka in order to handle all those infantry guardsmen and other horde. In that kind of environment, I am really not sure if having cultists who have a 6+ save are really all that wonderful anymore.

Picture an imperium soup list that runs 6 squads of infantry and 6 heavy mortar teams (hidden out of sight of course). Its quite probably that will kill one 40 man cultist squad per turn. You won't even get to use tide of traitors... If you run two such squad. He will just kill it over two turns. One in each turn.

Its great in casual games, and if your opponent is a newbie and isn't expecting tide of traitors. But if you are facing an opponent who has been on the receiving end of mass cultists before. He will know how to handle them.

"6 heavy mortar teams " Nobody runs heavy mortars mate, way to pts expensive.

Secondly all the dakka good against Cultists or guardsmen is even better against PA so huray.

Third: There is a thing called CP, you might heard of it, and how it is conected to cheap Troop choices. You know what troop choice isn't cheap? CSM marines. You know why this is especially important for us CSM players? Because we need more CP then other armies due to our stratagems needing to compensate our lackluster efficency.

Therefore CSM won't get played until they get more efficent at generating CP, cheaper (also more efficent) or get broken rules.

So this atm is just a pure nerf for an codex which is more MEH than good.