Chaos Space Marines Legions Summary and Analysis Part 1

Hot off the heels of last week's Codex Space Marines, Codex Chaos Space Marines is already on it's way (I heard pre-orders on 4th August in the shop last weekend, but that seems to not be accurate). This week Warhammer Community has been dropping Legion Tactics on us... and they're shaping up to be very powerful indeed!

Chaos Undivided by Fernoll

Before we go into each individual legion, some bits and pieces:

• Possessed have gained a wound.
• Power fists have dropped from 20 to 12 points.
• Cult marines get access to Legion Traits 

In this we'll be looking at the Emperor's Children, the Iron Warriors, the Night Lords, and the World Eaters. I also have a little on today's Black Legion reveal, but a fuller break down will be done next week.

Emperor's Children

The Emperor's Children, whilst having embarrassingly dated models, have been a powerful force on the table top in nearly all their incarnations. They are literally Space Marines on steroids (and a cocktail of other drugs), and literally rock their opponents like a hurricane with sonic weapons.

So let's see how they've turned the idea of Noise Marine up to 11 this time.

Always fight first, and if charged take turns

For those who don't get the mouse over shot, back in an older edition of Warhammer Fantasy battle the High Elves had a rule which always let them hit first in combat. They were very much the Eldar of their battle system, and had some ridiculous rules to go with them (best spear men, arguably best archers at one point, fastest cavalry, and dragons... oh Asurmen the dragons).

Slaanesh seems to have inherited this now, making the Emperors Children one of the most balanced forces imaginable. Not only do they have some of the best cover ignoring shooters with their Noise Marines, but anyone assaulting them is going to find themselves getting as good as they give.

Needless to say, this helps with assault units a great deal. Raptors and Terminators deep striking in are going to find any counter charge they receive much easier to deal with, making them a very good harassment unit.

Regular Chaos Marines become quite good defensibly too... whilst I wouldn't necessarily suggest it, a 5-man squad with a flamer and combi-flamer make a very reasonable objective camper. The enemy will need to take them out in an alpha strike, or else risk taking a lot of casualties against their overwatch and subsequent melee rounds.

Spend a command point to shoot again

The Slaaneshi stratagem seems tailor made for Noise Marines and Havocs, being able to shoot twice in the same turn. However, as an alternative consider using this on bikers in Rapid Fire Range. Each one of those is going to be shooting 4 shots each alone with their bolters, and doubling that before a charge is going to make that flank assault that much better! That's not even including the extra special weapon attacks you can pile in!

Another neat trick would be for use in a somewhat dire melee. If you have your pistol armed units firing again in assault, in conjunction with the legion trait, you can tip the balance in your favour.

Feel no pain. Nice. 

A bit of a step down from the army-wide Feel no Pain of 7th Edition, but Nurgle was getting a little bit annoyed about Slaanesh stealing his gimmick. Great used for back line units, deep striking elite harassers, and possibly even Hellbrutes (if they carry the Slaanesh Heretic Astartes key words?).

Really well balanced army here, but I think the general theme is Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain. This gives you devilishly evil tricks to play on your opponent. In the same turn you can gleefully pile on the shooting, giggle incessantly as all your units go first in combat, and then scream "Hurt me!!" when your units pass their Feel No Pain rolls.

Basically, if you don't go to the battlefield laughing hysterically, you're probably not in the full spirit of Slaanesh!

Iron Warriors

Otherwise known as Chaos Fists.

I'm probably being a little unfair to the Iron Warriors, but their crunch isn't really that inspiring.

No cover save bonus, and can re-roll to wound against buildings.

Just to make it easy for you...

No cover save bonus, and can re-roll to wound against buildings.

Fair enough really, as the Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists both have a strong professional as well as personal rivalry going on. As I mentioned with the Fists, the bonus might not seem all that thrilling at first, but this makes the cheapish cover camping squishy units much easier to clear out with regular firearms.

This is what you want to remove those pesky Guardsmen hiding behind bushes, or those Scout snipers at the back who think they're safe in that building. It ensures your big guns stay strong, and whilst it might not be exciting a buff it may well be one of the strongest in matches.

I'm not sure which is better though, being a Lord or a Master. They'll have to duke it out themselves on the battlefield.

This is where the similarities end though, as the Imperial Fists focus on being as Space Marine as possible, whereas the Iron Warriors can use Chaos Marks to really make themselves different. Here's an interaction suggested by Warhammer Comunity, but i think that's really a case of putting in a Tzeentch power without needing the Thousand Sons around:

Add 1 to invulnerable saves

Good on Terminators, but weirdly not ideal with Thousand Sons. Whilst it gives Rubricae a 3+ invulnerable save against D1 weapons, it does mean they can never get their Re-roll of 1s offered by their generals (any 1s becoming a 2). Strange little quirk of interactions there... statistically better to cast the spell, but it makes that expensive Exalted Sorcerer redundant.

Other psychic powers from marks may be better, and I think the Icons offered by wearing those marks will make the Iron Warriors flexible.

This next relic is obscene:

Living metal over organic parts

A 2+ armour save on a T6 Demon Prince is better than the old cheese of Nurgle bikers, and this one hits back significantly harder. Regaining a wound back at the start of your turns sounds good, but remember that will translate to about 6 extra wounds, and only if the Demon prince isn't focused down by melta fire.

The Iron Warrior warlord trait is useful, but again I'd need to check the key words for cultists before I say it's amazing:

Pass morale checks within 6-inches

If it does work with them, park your general in a cloud of 20 cultists, and enjoy your new 20 ablative wounds that don't run away.

These are perhaps as vanilla as the Chaos Space Marines will get until we learn about the Black Legion or Renegades. The Iron Warriors offer decent amount of synergy with all the marks, and have a flexible enough trait to be useful in most situations.

Easy to paint too, if you're not fussed about doing hazard stripes!

Night Lords

When someone at Games Workshop said "Let's make a Space Marine bat man!", someone took them too literally... and thus the Night Lords were born.

Conrad Kruze is one of the more interesting Primarchs to emerge from the Horus Heresy fluff. Coming entirely from a stand point of Lawful Neutral, he used terror tactics and fear to keep the citizenry of his home planet in line. There's also a little bit of a rumour that he grew up eating gangsters in the underhives, and absorbed all their memories of committing murders and worse. 

He's essentially one of the more Grim Dark elements of the game... whereas Peterabo and Fulgrim have some petty and poetic falls from grace, Konrad started off in the gutter, and saw no reason to elevate himself for a people who were gutter trash like him.

Really Grim Dark.

His legion aim to literally be the stuff of nightmares. Drawn from the gangers and criminals of his home world, Konrad never really liked his gene-sons. When he was killed by an assassin, they just drifted apart, continuing to spread terror since the Long War began. 

But enough of the fluff, let's look at the crunch!

Subtract 1 from Leadership for every unit within 6-inches

The Night Lords had this in 7th Edition... but here it means much more. Unlike in previous editions where this could mean them breaking and escaping, in 8th Edition this translates to 1-3 more models being removed. That's really good!

At a quick calculation, most elite multi-wound units can manage leadership 8. To get to morale checks, you need to do at least 1 casualty (Leadership 7). Add on the bonus for Night Lords, and you get to Leadership 6. This means that if you push the casualties up a little, or increase the number of Night Lords units around, you can even get Terminators to break and run!

Obviously the best interaction is with Raptors, a unit which is only going to get better and better in this edition. Barring any Mark restrictions, a 10 point Icon of Fury means you can get some reliable charges in from Deep Strike (re-rolling failed charges like they were Black Templars), and stacking their morale debuff with the Night Lords trait means you might even wipe out what you hit in the first round!

Put it this way... three Raptors landing and assaulting a gun line can get the whole thing to break under their shots and charge!

Really good lightning claws

This relic is fairly strong, and basically gives you the Chaos equivalent of the old Raven Guard Murderwings Chapter Master. In this edition it also gives him a reasonable chance of tearing up tanks and monsters! Especially when used with this...

+2 Strength, +1 Attack

...and this!

Essentially a free command re-roll

Taking the idea of scary Raven guard isn't quite enough to describe this. They're somewhat of a one trick pony though... if you find fearless enemy around (such as Pox Walkers), then they're really just regular Chaos Marines.

The saying goes, the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself. That accurately describes this Legion. If you can manipulate fear, you'll win. If you can find some way around it... you should be okay.

World Eaters

I was tempted to get an army of Black Templars, as I was looking for some power armoured nut cases to just run at the enemy. But then I already have my Field Police as my Space Marines. So what about Blood Angels? Good, but everyone I know has them. Space Wolves? Well I like them, but I don't really like the more wolfy units.

So I was stuck.

I can't believe I forgot about the World Eaters.

In their 7th Edition version, they combined all the fun of charging Blood Angels with the Counter Attacking of Space Wolves. In 8th, they take the best bit of re-rolling charges from the Black Templars, and then go berserk when they get there:

One additional attack when you charge

It's the old bonus for charging! That's three attacks per Chainsword Marine on the charge (hitting first), re-rolling their charges with the near mandatory Mark of Khorne. I don't know if this applies to Khorne Berserkers yet, but that will certainly leave a mark. Especially if you use this:

Immediately fight again!

So Khorne Beserkers get to attack twice in the Fight phase anyway. Then you use this. So they get 4 chances to hit. With 4 attacks each. At Strength 5. Or strength 6 AP1 at only 3 attacks each if you want to use chain axes (and honestly why wouldn't you?).

Blood for the blood god, indeed.

Good old Path to Glory rules are present here, making your general more powerful with each monster or character he kills:

+1 Strength and Attack on killing a shiny model

Start small with soft a squishy characters, or just go head hunting and use the boost to tear up the remaining troops!

Whereas the Black Templar shrug off psychic attacks due to sheer force of will and faith in the Emperor, World Eaters do it by being really, really angry.

Like, furious.

Deny the Witch on a 4+

It's the same Stratagem, and it does the job of protecting them from psyker shenanigans. They have a little more help from relics though:

Deny like a psyker, but causes Perils of the Warp

This gives you that mind bullet protection offered by most psykers, and you'll have it on a platform that's carrying a great big axe for honest combat. They actually work a bit better, as putting this guy near your enemy psyker will make them think twice about even attempting to manifest a power!

Overall, a really strong and choppy army. You will want to put the Mark of Khorne and the Icon of Fury on everything... and since you're World Eaters that makes perfect sense.

They may seem like an unsubtle army, but Khorne appreciates smart combat. Use Raptors and Terminators to pin down your enemy where they are whilst the rest of your horde rushes up. Take some Heldrakes with you to take on the FLY units that will try to intercept your relentless horde.

And be bold. Practice shouting "Blood for the Blood God!" and all that.

That's all for now, despite the Alpha Legion coming out today. They're actually my favourite Legion by far, and I can't wait to talk about them with my second and third favourites, the Black Legion and Renegades. I'm going to have to wait until next week for that though!

Oh, and we'll also talk about the Word Bearers.

Until next time!

Edit: The Black Legion trait has just been uploaded today, but I have to say I'm not impressed at all. I'll include the trait here, but I'm going to need some time to really see how it's useful.

+ 1 Leadership. Can advance and shoot 

At a glance, this helps your army become a faster moving Chaos force. The old Veterans of the Long War bonus is there, and it's clear there's meant to be symmetry with the Ultramarines chapter tactic.

But here's the thing... auto-bolt rifle armed Intercessors with the Ultramarines Chapter tactic can do exactly the same job as Black Legion Chaos Space Marines for 30 points cheaper AND get to shoot Falling Back from combat. They also get an extra shot.

Apart from the Chaos Space Marines getting to use Plasma Guns as an Assault weapon (of dubious advantage since they'll be exploding on 1s and 2s), there's no benefit to this trait. And if you wanted that, the Hellblasters have an assault gun anyway!

Very unimpressed, as the Black Legion were starting to become a really good Deep Strike, hyper aggressive Legion in 7th. Disappointing to see them come back to being vanilla but worse than Loyalist again.

Hopefully I can get more out of it from a closer analysis.

Until next time.

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