Ok, so I’ve been gone a while, but I’m back now and ready to take on a whale of a
project. I’m predicting that this is possibly going to be the longest episode so far so hang
on to your butts. Today I’m talking about…
Now, I am not legally allowed to print exact points costs for the items so I will be giving
a lot of comparisons. As much as ________ will be used quite a bit so if you don’t know
your army points then you might be a bit lost. All references will be made to the Chaos
Space Marines codex, so most of you who care will know what I’m talking about.
Lets get started with the Warlord Traits. Black Crusader is back giving every one near
the warlord Preferred Enemy Space Marines, as is the re-roll on the Chaos Boon table.
You can also pick up a fancy little one use template weapon called Gift of Balefire, It will
not Die, the ability to cause Instant Death on a to-wound roll of 6, and a Stubborn bubble.
Personally I’m not a fan of one use items/abilities, and my warlord is not a close combat
monster, so the balefire thing and re-rolling the chaos boon table are not high on my wish
list. I am a big fan of the last 3 though, and Black Crusader is always a great boost if
you’re playing marines.
On to the army wide rules! The biggest one is that Chosen have become troops. Many of
you think that Chosen are too expensive. Well, you’re right, but they are not that much
more expensive compared to regular Chaos Marines. I did some math and took a 10 man
squad of each making them as close to the same as possible. I gave them each a lightning
claw champ, 2 melta guns and VotLW, and I gave the marines close combat weapons.
The difference is only 32 points. I say only because for that 32 points you are getting 9
extra attacks and a solid Ld of 10 across the unit.
Not only that, but you also pay a premium for the ability to take 5 special weapons
regardless of the number of models. These can be close combat weapons, ranged
weapons, and one can be a heavy weapon. This means you can put out a very decent
MSU army with lots of elite flexible units.
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| You're hired...for whatever. |
Another rule that boosts your MSU capability is the Bringers of Despair. Sounds scary
huh? It’s actually not that great. It allows you to upgrade a single unit of terminators to
have +1 WS and BS. The catch is that you have to take Abbadon as your warlord AND
pay an additional 6 pts per terminator. While having “supernators” at your disposal is
pretty cool, paying 300 points to make it happen is not.
Alright, alright, alright…
…the moment you have all been waiting for. THE LOOT!
The first item up for bids is the Spineshiver Blade. I really like this weapon because it’s
halfway between the Axe of Broken Friendships and Mace of Eternal Arguments, and yet
cheaper than both. While it is only AP 3, and it’s only special rule other than being a
Daemon Weapon is that is boosts you I +1, it really boosts the killing power of your
characters for only the cost of a terminator and you don’t need to be marked to a specific
god.
Next is one that I quite like, despite it’s huge point cost. For just under the price of a
Mutilator you can get a weapon that has the following rules: 2xS, Fleshbane,
Armourbane, Instant Death, AP1. The catch is that you only get to make a single attack
with this weapon. That right there means that you may not want to buy this for your
tooled up super killy Lord, but if you find that your Dark Apostle is writing checks he
can’t cash, this might be the tool for you. The Hand of Darkness is ideal for low attack
models that may be looking into the eyes of any big nasty monster. As mentioned, the
Dark Apostle is ideal for this item because he has a decent WS and Hatred so he has a
good chance of hitting you. He also has a 4++ so he has a decent chance at surviving if
your opponent goes first, and he can be given I5 with the Mark of Slaanesh so he may be
going at the same time or sooner anyway.
Next on the docket, and possibly the biggest deal, is The Skull of Ker’ngar. This item,
equal to the price of 2 bikers, gives the model Eternal Warrior and Adamantuim Will.
This is the only surefire way for Chaos Space Marines to get Eternal Warrior, and with
the amount of S10 and Instant Death weapons in the game today it’s getting more and
more important to protect your Characters. The question is, is your character worth
saving for 40Pts? If it’s a Demon Prince, it could be. It also boosts his Deny the Witch
to a possible 3+ if your Prince is souped to the nuts.
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| If your Daemon Prince looked this cool you'd want to protect it too. Well the Skull of Ker'nger is like Armor-all. |
Now since I run a level 3 Sorcerer in my army on a consistent basis, this next item is my
favorite. The Last Memory of Yuranthos is an item priced the same as the Spineshiver
Blade that is only available to a psyker. It gives him +1 to his Mastery Level, making my
Sorcerer a lvl 4, but, instead of rolling for a power, it automatically generates the
Sunburst power from the Pyromancy discipline which is a 6” Nova power that does 2D6
S4 AP5 hits that ignore cover and cause Blind. There are 2 other things that are
significant to this item. You can boost the range of the spell by 6” twice, up to 18”, by
spending another Warp Charge. If you boost the spell and fail the psychic test, your
character DIES, which makes the spell familiar a must. So really this power is the price
of The Black Mace because I don’t see you taking this item without the Spell Familiar. In a recent game I played agains "big" Wes this power killed 4 Imperial Guard Squads ranging from 4 models to 9 models, in 1 shooting phase.
We are now at the bottom of the barrel with The Crucible of Lies and The Eye of the
Night, costing the same points as a single Plague Marine and a whole fucking squad of
Chaos Marines, respectively, AND the latter being a one use only item. The Crucible of
Lies is the cheapest item in the list and for good reason, in fact, they could have made it
FREE and it would still suck. This beauty lets you re-roll failed INVUL saves of a 1, but
lowers your toughness by 1. In this book, the best you can get is a 3++ and your still
failing 20% of the time, and now an Assault Cannon can kill you. You can counteract
this by giving the character a bike or a Disk of Tzeentch, but that only puts you back to
what you had. I mentioned before that I’m not a fan of one use only items, especially
when I can get a whole second unit for the same price, but The Eye of the Night, while
not good, has it’s perks. It is a weird version of a Hunter Killer Missile in that is has
unlimited range but with a couple, very key, special rules. It is only S5 AP4, large blast,
and ignores cover but it’s coupe de’ gras is the fancy named rule Haywire Maelstrom that
AUTOMATICALLY inflicts D3 penetrating hits on any vehicle or building touched by
the blast. GW really dropped it here, they should have either left it at it’s ridiculous
points cost and made it a regular shooting weapon that can be used every turn, or leave it
at one use per turn and cut it’s cost in half. Although I could see it having some uses in
Apocalypse games if, for some reason someone parks a couple superheavies right next to
each other.
So lets sit back and have a look at some army ideas and some uses for the changes and
upgrades that the Black Legion supplement brings us.
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| TACTICS!!! |
As mentioned before you can build one heck of an MSU style army with each unit armed
to the teeth for bear. You can take units of 5 marines and get a heavy weapon AND/OR
multiple special weapons which is one of the reasons Plague Marines are strong. Bear in
mind you will want to keep more models without upgrades than ones with upgrades
because you want to have the spare models for allocating wounds.
Along with your MSU of elite and expensive units you can carry on that tradition with a
tooled up Daemon Prince. Giving him the Skull of Ker’ngar and the Spineshiver blade
along with all the other typical goodies he gets will be equipped with and it turns him into
a god damn blender. Of course he will attract a shit ton of incoming fire, so you have to
also provide other targets that are just as big and scary to pull some fire power away from
him.
Other than that, everything works pretty much like the regular Chaos Space Marines.
Thanks everyone for reading, Happy New Year and Happy Gaming!
PS: If anyone has any other units out there that they want me to write an episode on leave a comment.
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