CYCLOPIAN CABAL: KNOW YOUR ROLE

With the re-relase of the Black Legion supplement book, and the more current release of the Traitor Legions book, came a host of new formations, few of which are getting as much playtime as the Cycloian Cabal.  So lets take a look and see exactly what makes this formation so damn popular.

It's all about the psykers

This formation consists of 3-5 Sorcerers.  That's it, no garbage units, and the only "tax" is that they have to have VotLW.  Just 100% psykery goodness.  Typically you'll see these guys in 2 rolls, all levelled up to ML3 with Spell Familiars, and with the new bevy of psychic powers (see my Traitors Hate post) these guys have a barrel of tricks up their sleeve, or kept cheap and used just for the special power that comes with them.  The former you'll typically see in Death Star builds, the other will be more likely in an MSU style army.

The special rule that accompanies this formation is a special psychic power that one of the sorcerers may cast, and he will get bonus warp charge dice equal to the number of Cabal psykers within 12" of him.  The power is called Shroud of Deceit and it allows you to pick a non-vehicle enemy unit within 30" and lets you shoot it as if it was in your army.  This is pretty strong against lots of armies these days as a good portion of the meta is leaning towards shooting heavy armies.  Any Grav heavy unit like Devastator squads or Centurion squads, Dark reapers, Vaul's Battery, Tau suit Death Start with all the USRs, Stormsurges, Obliterators (preventing them from shooting that weapon in the next turn also), Flying Hive Tyrants...you get the idea.

This is pretty damn powerful as Chaos Marines tend to lack in the overwhelming firepower department.

With the Traitor Legions book, there is an additional facet to this formation as the Black Legion Detachment has an additional trick, the turn 1 deep strike.  So what you are essentially able to do, is take a series of Sorcerer's in Terminator armour and attach them to a Terminator Annihilation Force, roll to Deep Strike them on turn 1 and hammer the shit out of your opponent with his own guns after shooting them out of their transports with combi weapons BEFORE they can Intercept you, and then shoot them again with your bolters.  Or add them to a unit of Oblits form the Cult of Destruction.  Then you can use the Sinistrum movement shenanigans to get your guys in position and shoot them twice!

Any time you can do something twice for free, do it.

To top this off, the new Tzeentch Chaos Discipline contain a power that is very similar to the Shroud of Deceit with a slightly shorter range.  3 level 3 Sorcerers, plus the Sorcerer that comes with the TAF means you could potentially have 5 chances to steal an enemy unit to shoot his own units with.  If that doesn't make you re-think taking that unit of 2 Stormsurges, I don't know what will.  Now there will, of course, be the required allocation of warp charges, so you won't likely get more than one of each power off as you'll likely need to toss 7 dice at it to successfully cast it, and more if your opponent has a bonus to Deny the Witch.

As for the Death Star, it's pretty self explanatory.  Take all them powers that let you not die, put them on bikes and slide them in a unit of tough fast moving units like Bikes, Khorne Dogs from KDK, Spawn, and then attach a killy Lord to the unkillable unit and tally ho!  All while still yelling "Stop shooting yourself, stop shooting yourself!" to your opponent until he starts to cry.

Something deadly on a bike.

So this post on the Cyclopian Cabal was pretty straight forward.  Good luck and have fun...

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.

TRAITOR LEGIONS: MY WETTEST DREAMS COME TRUE

Oh. My. God.  It finally exists.  It took so long for it to happen that I thought GW had some sinister plan for the future of the Chaos Space Marines, but at long last we finally get our Legions back.

So I suppose I could take a couple minutes to talk about all 20-some pages of "fluff" found in the 134 pages of this book, but we both know it all already.  There isn't any thing in there that's mind blowing or crazy.  It gives a quick description of what the Legion did prior to the attack on Terra, during the attack, and after it's failure their flight into the Eye of Terror.  So I guess I can skip all that jazz and go right into the good stuff.  The rules...

Each of the 9 Legions got their own Detachment, special rules, Warlord Traits, and Relics.  As with my other reviews, I'm not going to go through every single thing, but I will discuss the best, or at least favourite items.

LEGION III: THE EMPEROR'S CHILDREN

Yeah, boobs and stuff!

Ok, so as with all the other legions there is a list of shit that a Detachment needs to meet in order to be called an Emperor's Children Detachment.  Only have the Mark of Slaanesh, no unique characters except Lucius, etc etc.  If you wanna know them all look for yourself.  I have better shit to talk about, like if you follow all those restrictions then every model in the Detachment gains FNP 6+ (4+ with Icon of Excess) and Fearless.  Yeah, a whole army Fearless.  Well get used to it cause the EC ain't the only ones.  On top of that, if a model is killed in assault BEFORE it gets to attack, it can make a single attack before it's removed.  And Noise Marines are troops, which is only really useful if you're still using a CAD.  So last week...
Cause now we have the Rapture Battalion Detachment which grants a roll on a table, the effects of which affect all the non-vehicle units in the army, and all the results are good.  Some are better than others, but they are all still good.  All the typical formations are available, with the addition of a new one called the Kakophoni.  It consists of a Lord and 3-6 units of Noise Marines who's sonic weapons gain Shred and if you take all 6 units, the sonic weapons also gain +1 Strength.

The warlord traits aren't stellar, the best being Eternal Warrior, or gaining +1A for each wound lost, the worst being 3D6 Fear.

Their Relics however, are pretty good.  First up is the Intoxicating Elixir which grants the user D3 rolls on the Combat Drugs chart, this is cumulative with the roll should the model be part of the Rapture Battalion.
Next up is the Shriekwave.  While 20 points is a little much for a one use item, it's D6 S8 AP2 shots at 12".  At least 3 shots with this item will make it worth the 20 pts, particularly if it's wielded by a Lord or Prince with BS5.
The Soulsnare Lash is a great weapon is that it's actually 2 weapons.  It has a shooting and combat profile, and they both have a sudo-super Rending that also causes Instant Death (but nothing vs vehicles).  Again this weapon sees best use on a Lord or Prince with their high BS and WS making sure to score as many hits as possible.
There is also bolter rounds that have Blast, Ignore Cover, and Pinning.  Give these to a guy on a bike.
Finally, there is the Blissgiver.  I'm not 100% sold on this one as it requires you to actually inflict a wound first.  Once you do, the model, if it survived, must make a Ld check and is removed from play if it fails.  Removed from play is great, but AP 3 and needing a failed Ld check isn't.  It's also a Daemon weapon, so that's a plus.

Last, the new psychic powers.  There are a couple to make note of, Delightful Agonies gives a unit FNP 4+ for WC1, Aural Onslaught is an 18" Beam that's S8 AP2, but Symphony of Pain is an old power that gets new life when combined with the boost that the Sonic weapons get making them S6 and S10 with Shred.

This is a great boost for the Emperor's Children.  Giving all the sonic weapons Shred, and boosting them up +1S really makes them dangerous.  I can easily see armies showing up loaded with sonic weapons using the new Formation rules which easily comes in under 1000 points with all the upgrades leaving plenty of points for auxiliaries.

LEGION IV: THE IRON WARRIORS

Iron within, Iron without!

If you want to play Iron Warriors, you may not take any units that have a mark of a god, nor can you give any units the mark of a god, you also can not take any unique characters.  You can still take a Prince and dedicate it to a god though, so that's something.  If you can abide by those restrictions then each unit with VotLW gains Eternal Hatred vs Imperial Fists, FNP 6+, re-rolls on armour pen vs buildings, and Havocs, Oblits, and Mutilators gain tank hunter.
The Iron Warrior Grand Company has all the typical formations to choose from plus a formation that consists of 1-3 Fortifications as an Auxiliary choice.  Units in this Detachment can re-roll the scatter dice for Barrage and Ordinance weapons, gain Stubborn, and gain Fearless when they are in or on a fortification.  I'll be honest, it's not the strongest especially since Chaos has no Barrage weapons except for the couple found in some of the Fortifications, and potentially in some of the Imperial Armour books.

The Warlord traits are, like so many others, hit or miss.  FNP 4+, Allowing your Oblits to fire the same weapon they fired last shooting phase, and Split Fire are the top, the worst being Fearless.

Unfortunately, the relics don't make up too much ground.  2 of the items are Warpsmith only, which shouldn't be too hard to get because you will likely be taking the Cult of Destruction.  One gives you the ability to grant a nearby vehicle the Daemonic Possession upgrade, and the other potentially gives his attacks Instant Death.  There are 2 weapons also, both are also meh.  One is a master crafted Power Axe with armour bane, the other is a Power Maul that can do a "Smash" attack.  They do have 2 good ones though, armour that gives a 2+ and IWND, and then theres the Cranium Malevolus.  This delightful 30 pt upgrade deals a Haywire hit to all enemy vehicles within 2D6" during YOUR OPPONENT'S SHOOTING PHASE which ignore cover.

This army is one of the lower tier ones in this book.  A lot of their rules are "fluffy" but not particularly strong.  See this army sporting tons of Obliterators with the Cult of Destruction and a smattering of Fortifications.  Should the tourney your in allow multiple fortifications, look for Iron Warriors to take a handful of the Vengeance Batteries and Wall of Martyrs sets and look to set up a gun line, keeping their units Fearless.

LEGION VIII: NIGHT LORDS

Oooooh, spooky and stuff.

The restrictions for the Night Lords is the same for the Iron Warriors, no marks, no unique characters, Princes are still good to go.  For that you get Fear with a -2Ld penalty, Night Vision, Stealth, and Raptors become Troops for those CAD takers.  Well, Stealth is good.
The Murder Talon is where shit gets real.  The Raptor Talon becomes a Core choice for the Detachment.  The Command benefits are re-roll failed charges, and you can choose for the game to start with Night Fighting with no need to roll.  Now I know your thinking "That's useless cause you already have Stealth..."  Well, GW thought of that because if Night Fighting is in effect you just get a standard +1 to your Cover save.  So at the start of the game you get a +2 to all cover saves.  That's good.  There isn't too much to really think about for this Detachment, you're all jump packy and scary with Raptors being the main focus with a bonus to your cover saves.  Fairly straight forward and fluffy.

The Warlord Traits are all good.  Every one of them is useful in some way, although none of them are game breaking.  Theres Hit and Run, Hatred, re-rolling failed cover saves, and Rampage, to name a few.  Most of them, if not all, feel like they would be really really strong on a Daemon Prince.

Speaking of which...lets talk about the Stormbolt Plate.  This armour is 20 points and gives a 2+ save and +1 to his cover save.  Think of this on a Prince of Tzeentch.  2+ armour, re-rolling 1's, and a 2+ cover save when you Jink, re-rolling 1's.  On a Daemon Prince.  I'll let that sink in for a bit and go on to something else...
The Vox Daemonicus gives you some reserves manipulation with a -1 penalty to the enemies rolls.  It's 30 points, which is a bit much perhaps, but if you happen to be lucky enough to get the Warlord Trait that does the same thing it would be pretty good against the right army.  The rest are really kind of meh.  Really useful on Daemon Princes, but not too much else.

I don't see a ton of these lists making the scene, but if you do see one I reckon that is is loaded down with Raptors and Warp Talons and Tzeentch Daemon Princes.  There are so many relics that make a Prince either super durable or super dangerous.  Good luck.

LEGION XII: WORLD EATERS

Kill, Maim, Burn!

I'm sure you can guess what the restrictions are, all Khorne all the time and NO PSYKERS.  This is a minor issue as you can simply take another detachment and add those models into the Khorne units, so it's not really a big deal unless your are restricted to a single detachment.  Meeting those you get Fearless, Furious Charge, Adamantium Will, and Bezerkers become Troops.  That's all good, but it gets better.
The Butcherhorde Detachment gives every non-vehicle unit a 2D6" move before the first turn starts and you can re-roll failed charges.  It doesn't seem like much but this is a thinker and it involves some math...

Which I will actually get back to in minute, but I have to move on to the Warlord Traits or I will break the order I've established which makes no fucking sense cause I have to flip the pages of the book all over the place.  They are all good.  Really good, so good I have 4 favourites and hate that I can only get one.  First, each time you get a roll on the Boon table, you can instead choose to get an extra attack, this includes the GoM you can buy at the start of the game.  Combine this with the Warband and every time you kill a Character you get 2 extra attacks.  It gets better because the next one allows you to declare a charge at the end of YOUR OPPONENT'S CHARGE SUB-PHASE.  Yeah, you can fucking charge during your opponent's turn, as long as the target of the charge is also in combat, and you count as charging so you get Rage and Furious Charge.  There is still more because you can also get Eternal Warrior and FNP while your Warlord is locked in combat.  And finally, my favourite, your warlord and any friendly units with the MoK within 8" of him may roll 3D6 and choose the 2 highest for charge rolls and that rolls right into the next thing I want to talk about...

The Talisman of Burning Blood.  Yes, there are axes and glaives and Gorefather, and they are cool.  Super killy weapons to go on your Jugger Lord or Prince to make them even more blendery-er, but this talisman makes some magical shit happen.  It adds 3" to the movement, run, and charge distances.  Underwhelmed?  Let me paint you a picture.
Your Butcherhorde is going to be made up of a Maelstrom of Gore(MoG).  Yes, Bezerkers are overpriced, but you get to add 3" to your charge move and once per game you can make close combat attacks at the start of the movement phase and your opponent can't retaliate.  Back to my point.  You line them up on the line, ready to linebacker their  way right into the quarterbacks face.  Before the game starts they move 2D6".  With a half-dozen or so non-vehicle units there should be a handful that get a good roll, you can also use this move to spread them out a bit cause you packed them tight to get each model as close to the enemy as fucking possible.  Then your Lord (from the MoG), who is on a Jugger, or a Bike, has the Talisman, so he gets to move 15".  Then in the charge phase he can charge (hopefully) 3D6 pick 2, +6"(3" from MoG and 3" from the Talisman) giving you a grand total charge threat range of 25"-45" ON TURN ONE.

He charged me from this far away on turn 1!

That's right, I said a MINIMUM CHARGE RANGE OF 25" ON TURN ONE.  Holy fuck that is amazing.  Even the units in the MoG that aren't mounted and not in the unit with the Talisman still have a charge threat range of 13"-33" and the Warband's is 10"-30"
There is also a plasma pistol that doesn't get hot.  Pretty sweet eh?

I pretty much laid out a battle plan above, centred around the Talisman, but there are other things to consider.  Mostly which huge weapon to give your Daemon Prince, since MCs ignore Unwieldy.

LEGION XIV: DEATH GUARD

Hey Doc, can you have a look at this?

All the Nurgle, only the Nurgle.  For your trouble Papa Nurgle blesses your Marines with Fearless, FNP, and Relentless, with an additional cost of -1 Initiative.  So you basically get cheaper Plague Marines (minus some minor wargear).
Now, add those benefits to the ones granted by the Death Guard Vectorium Detachment, re-rolling FNP rolls of 1 and Stealth when being shot at from more than 18" away, and you have a durable army.  We are not done yet though because the Death Guard got their own new formation, the Plague Colony, the rules just keep stacking.  A Lord and 3-7 units of Plague Marines have a funk about them that dishes out a 7" bubble that knocks down the enemies I and WS by 1 in the Fight Sub-Phase.  If you take 7 units of Plague Marines your opponent also loses a point of T (which is the only real special rule that is directed at killing the enemy).  That is a shit ton of rules that directly affect the survivability of your units.

This theme continues into the Warlord Traits, with only 2 of them that don't actually harden your Warlord, and both are not that great.  One boosts the power of a units poison weapons, and the other dishes out hits at I10 in the assault phase.

There are a bunch of decent relics, weapons that are poisoned, other weapons that are poisoned, and a thing that Fear scarier, but there is one that stands out above the others, and if you like Typhus's zombie horde, you'll like the Poxwalker Hive.  At the start of each of your turns, you may nominate one unit of Cultist within 7" and basically turn them into a Plague Zombie.  So why would you take this over Typhus and just make them zombies from the get go?  Well, Typhus is 230 points while the Poxwalker Hive is only 20.  Second, the Plague zombies can't take any upgrades, which means they don't have the MoN so are stuck at T3.  The Cultists that are turned have T4 because they have to take the MoN in order to be in the Detachment.  This makes them significantly more resilient.  Once the Cultists are infected, at the start of each turn, each unit within 7" get D3 slain models back.  Now, it doesn't say that the Cultists need to be part of the detachment, so I've been thinking of the Crimson Slaughter formation Cult of Slaughter in which D6 slain Cultists models are put back on the table.  Of course you could just take the Lost and the Damned and have outflanking zombies.

There are also a couple new powers to add to the stunted set in the Codex.  Fleshy Abundance regains D3 lost wounds to a model with in 14", Blades of Putrefaction gives, or boosts Poison, and finally Curse of the Leper is both a Blessing and a Malediction.  If it targets a friendly unit they gain +1 to S and T, and if it targets an enemy unit it gets -1 S and T.  Combined with the Plague Colony, you could put a -2 T penalty on your enemy.  There are a couple other ways to drop a models T and if you can manage it you will straight up kill a whole fucking unit of T3 models if you drop them to 0.

So I see a shit ton of Infantry in the future.  With them getting all those abilities that keep them alive a little longer and Relentless, look to see a Warband and/or a CAD loaded with Havocs.  Lines of unkillable troops marching forward laying down a hail of bullets, lascannon shots, and plasma blasts blocked by a wall of cultists slowly turning zombies and getting back up.

LEGION XV: THOUSAND SONS

Is this your card?

So I am not going to go into as much depth with this legion as with the others as there have already been several in depth reviews with the release of the Wrath of Magnus, but I'll do my due diligence and go through it quickly.  As with the other god specific legions, it's all Tzeentch and nothin but.  For that, you get Rubric marines as troops, Eternal Hatred vs Space Wolves, but the big one is that any time a unit with VotLW has a blessing cast on it, it gets a +1 bonus to it's invul save.
They have a bunch of new data sheets, a bunch of new formations, and new Detachment that doesn't look anything like all the others in this book.  This frustrates me a little, but I'll get into my likes and dislikes at the end of the post, so keep reading.
The big bonus that is provided by the Detachment is that all psykers are able to cast one additional spell.  Not that big of a deal, but combined with all the bonuses that each of the individual formations provide it could do a thing.  Maybe.  The Grand Coven Detachment is not like any of the others, and doesn't have a single formation in common with the other 8 detachments, so there really is no common ground between all of Chaos and the Thousand Sons, which adds to some of my frustrations.  It's not even very good granting the ability for psykers to cast one power above their psyker level.  This is usually a moot point for me as I either run out of dice or good powers to cast before I reach my limit, although this may affect Magnus as he has 15 powers to choose from being the entire disciplines of Tzeentch and Change as well as the Gaze of Magnus D-Beam.

The Warlord traits are not very exciting either, Eternal Warrior and an additional power being the best ones in my eyes.

What they lack in Warlord traits, they make up for in wargear.  Their wargear is not particularly strong, but they really shore up some of the glaring weaknesses that this army has.
For example, this army is slow.  Slow and Purposeful on most of the units, and the ones that don't have it are cannon fodder or characters you want to keep alive.  So what do they do?  They give them the Astral Grimoire that lets them choose a nearby unit and give it the Jump type.  Yeah, it's not even the carrier's unit, it's any unit nearby.  That's awesome and really lets you move some of those dangerous units with the warp flamers and bolters into range.
Next, this army really has very little close combat punch other than Princes or characters.  So how do you make those characters you have even more deadly?  Give them the Seer's Bane.  It's an AP2 Daemon weapon that uses opposing Ld scores for wounding, but still uses the enemies T for Instant Death.  So your S10 is now wounding everything on no worse than a 4+ and doubling out nearly every other infantry model.
I mentioned Slow and Purposeful before, well that brings me to the second problem it creates which is overwatch.  With the Helm of the Third Eye, it's not any longer.  This item allows you to Overwatch even if you have SaP and allows you to Overwatch at BS 2 if you didn't.
We're not done yet, as since you have all this great shooting, most of it being AP3, you don't really want to get into combat.  So here is the Staff of Arcane Compulsion which is just a Force Staff most of the time but it also subtracts 2 from enemy units charge roll.
Lastly, to stick with the massed psychic power phase this army has, the Athenian Scrolls denies a Deny the Witch roll when the successful psychic test has 2 or more of the same result.  So if you throw 3 dice as a WC1 power and get a 4, 1, and 1, they can't deny it.  This is a HUGE boon to this army as you can use this caster to focus on all the witchfire's and damage dealing spells which are typically easier for the enemy to Deny, particularly if they are a psychic heavy army as well.

Moving on to the upgraded Discipline of Tzeentch we have 3 new powers, like the other 2 disciplines, they are pretty good.  Syphon Magic is a power that you'd cast at the start of the phase, then each successful power that is cast from another psyker within 18" of him give him a bonus Warp Charge dice that he can use later in the phase.  This is awesome, especially if you have Magnus nearby slinging powers like a boss on 2+, or even a War Coven casting powers on a 3+.  Baleful Devolution is a S6 AP2 shooting attack that creates spawn.  But the grandaddy of them all is Treason of Tzeentch, which is basically a Shroud of Deceit with a slightly shorter range, but you can have multiple of them...

Yep, I said multiple Shroud of Deceits

So, I know most of you see tons of psykers and powers and shit and think "Death Star".  However, in this case I'm going to have to disagree.  With the number of powers your going to be generating, I think it might be best to spread the powers out a bit.  Why would I do this?  Because a unit can't cast the same power twice.  So if you have 2 Sorcerers with Treason of Tzeentch in the same unit, they can only cast that power once.  Now the good thing is that you can generate your powers before you deploy your army so you can really mitigate overlapping powers in a unit, but its still going to force you spread your Sorcerers around.  Combine that with the fact you got nothing to actually put in a Death Star, your gonna want to spread the wealth.  Moving on...

LEGION XVI: BLACK LEGION

Who remembers this Codex cover page?

The only real restriction that this army has is that the only unique character that can be taken is Abbadon.  For that you get Eternal Hatred for all of the armies of the Imperium, and both Terminators and Chosen become Troops choices.  That's cool, I love Terminator troops, even if they aren't very good.  This allows you to play an entire Terminator army which again, might not be good, but it would be super fun and fluffy.
And the Terminator fun just gets better with the Speartip Detachment.  This detachment allows you to start rolling for reserves on Turn 1, and if your Warlord can Deep Strike, he can choose whether or not to auto pass his roll to arrive on the first turn.  Now, in this detachment, you can't actually do a 100% terminator force as the 2 Core options are the Warband and the Hounds of Abbadon.  However, you can take Terminators on the Warband and you can really limit the other choices to minimise the "tax" paid.

The Warlord Traits and Wargear I am actually going to skip entirely.  These are all just rehashed from the old Black Legion supplement that has been out for ages.  All the formations from it are in this book also available only to the Black Legion and as part of their Detachment, so the Cyclopian Cabal can all get Terminator armour and null deploy along with the Terminator Annihilation Force deep striking in Turn 1, or how about that Raptor Talon formation coming in Turn 1 and assaulting.  Give the Lord in that formation the MoK and the Axe of Broken Friendships and let the fun begin.

And that is pretty much how I see this army working.  A token force on the table to start with waves of Deep Striking units showing up right from the start of the game.  I see a dozen cheap 3-man termi-cide squads landing all over the place unloading their combi weapons and penning in armies that castled up to keep safe from the onslaught.  I can also see this as a hard counter to Genestealer cults and their shenanigans as they have to start with enough on the board to not get wiped from the initial drop, but also keep enough in reserve to respond to the Deep Strikes, and now that you are close enough to them they can't run away into the shadows.  But beware of rending as it will melt your army and seems to be gaining popularity in the armies in general.  Tau Riptides, Eldar everything, Genestealer Cults, Space Marine Assault Cannons and the Storm of Fire Warlord Trait, I could go on but you get the idea.

LEGION XVII: WORD BEARERS

Amen!

So most of the typical restrictions apply, no unique characters, no cult units but units can take marks. For this you gain Possessed as Troops, Eternal Hatred Ultramarines, casting Conjuration powers from Malefic Demonology on a 3+, and Dark Apostles have a 6" Zealot bubble to all Word Bearer units.  I gotta say, I'm a little disappointed.  If Demonology spells could be cast with only Perils on double 6's would have been a much better ability than harnessing on a 3+.  The Zealot bubble is strong, but Dark Apostles are expensive and kind of squishy.
The Grand Host detachment is just as underwhelming granting free rolls on the Boon table the same way Traitor's Hate granted except that each Character can only benefit once, and each non-vehicle unit gains Crusader.  Not good.  Actually, I may list this Detachment as the worst of the 9.  Lets see if their Warlord Traits and Wargear can make up for some of this suck.

Well, the ones that aren't bad are actually pretty good.  Your Warlord can become a Psyker and generate a Malefic power, he can hand out one of a list of USRs to a unit within 12", and he can modify the second dice result of a Boon roll by 1.  He can also get Fearless and Adamantium will...woo.

The Relics are...ok, one grants you an extra Malefic power, one gives you D6 extra Warp Charges once per game.  The 2 really good ones are the Baleful Icon and the Cursed Crozius.  The icon forces the enemy to re-roll successful charges, and if the re-roll is still successful the charging unit does not gain any bonus attacks.  This only weapon available is a Power Maul that's AP3 and gives Preferred Enemy armies of the Imperium, for 35 points.  It's good, but not 35 points good considering a Power Fist AND a Lightning Claw is 40 points.

As for lists, I don't see you facing one of them.  Perhaps a CAD or specific formation with the intent to ally with Daemons in order to summon more...but Daemons alone do that so much better and the Marine bodies just don't being a whole lot to the table.  Perhaps the Lost and the Damned formation for cheap outflanking units and the Cursed Crozius on the Dark Apostle, but I don't see it becoming mainstream.

LEGION XX: ALPHA LEGION

I am Alpharius

Here we have the final legion, but I think I may have saved the best for last.  As with the other non-god specific Legions, you may not take any cult units or give any unit a mark of a god.  You may still take a Prince and align it to a god though.  For that trade off you gain Chosen as a Troops choice and Chosen, Chaos Marines, and Cultists gain Infiltrate.  That's really good, but we haven't even gotten to the best part yet.  Many Heads of the Hydra allows you to choose a new Warlord, and generate a new Warlord Trait the moment your current one dies.  This can happen multiple times and the enemy does not score Slay the Warlord until all of your characters are dead.  This might not seem like a huge deal, but when you know that your opponent isn't going to score a rather critical point, you can really use this knowledge to your advantage.
The Insurgency Force adds a level of defence to the Alpha Legion in the way of unending Cultists and Turn 1 Shrouding.  The turn 1 Shrouded is pretty self explanatory, but the unending Cultists needs a little more discussion.  Basically, all the Cultists in this Detachment gain the same "place an identical unit into reserves on a 4+" that the Lost and the Damned get, but without gaining outflank (I'm not going to discuss whether the LatD get outflank here, so cool your jets).  So, if you take the LatD formation as the required Auxiliary, you would get 2 rolls to put an identical unit of Cultists into reserve on a 4+ potentially getting 2 units.  Scary.

The fun doesn't end there, as the Warlord Traits are chocked full of happy fun time goodness.  You can get Infiltrate, you can get Stealth, you can get Acute senses and Outflank, you can give all Cultists within 12" Furious Charge and FNP(6+), but there are 2 that are mind blowingly amazeballz. Once per game, at the start of any of your turns, you can choose another Character, with the same unit type, on the table and then swap places with your Warlord.  Made a bonehead move and really need your Character on the other side of the table, no fucking problem...POOF!  There he is.  This does bring up a couple issues though, like what the fuck is my Cultist Champion doing in that unit of Chosen?  Why is there one Terminator Champion in the middle of my Cultist squad.  If that cultists squad dies with the Terminator in it, does he come back with the Cultists if I roll a 4+ for the two unending Cultists rules?  So many questions...but I digress because we still have one left.  At the start of each turn, starting on turn 2, pick a unit in reserve and it passes it's reserve roll.  So simple, so brilliant.  This just takes chance right out of the equation and makes that Helturkey a re-liability instead of a liability.  Does that even make sense?  Who cares cause we still have more awesome shit to talk about...

Relics!  There are some good ones.  The Blade of the Hydra is pretty simple, and only AP5, but it's a Daemon Weapon with Rending and exploding 6's to hit.  That means for each 6 you roll, roll another attack, and if those are a 6, roll another attack.  Now, if you put this on a Prince, they are all AP2 regardless, but it gives him some serious bite against vehicles.  The Viper's Bite is a S5 AP2 Bolter.  The Hydra's Teeth give a Bolter Blast, Ignores Cover, and Poison 2+.  There's an Icon that gives Cultists within 12" Zealot.  There is also a set of armour that grants a 2+ save, ideal for your Prince as it's only 5 more points that the normal armour for him.  And finally, THE good one, not that the other ones were bad, but they were shit compared to the Mindveil.  At the start of your movement phase, you may choose to move up to 3D6" instead of moving normally.  This may take you out of combat and the enemy unit can not consolidate.

I'm not entirely sure that you'll see too many full on Alpha Legion armies, but you will definitely see a detachment just to get the Mindveil, but don't count out the Insurgency Force.  Being able to get right up in someones face with Infiltrate and tons of shooting is strong, and if you don't have the first turn you can Null deploy and outflank the lot keeping a token force on the table and hide them to keep them alive.  There is also the Cultist overload and while not specifically dangerous, floods the table with models and simply doesn't die.  There is some controversy on the LatD formation as it gives units in ongoing reserves Outflank, but Outflank specifically states it can't be used by units in Ongoing Reserve.

So, there we have it, the last Legion is this long awaited book, and they did not disappoint, and yet I have something to bitch about.  Now, before I go into Debbie Downer land let me reiterate, this book is fucking awesome and bring so much life to Chaos that you will definitely see a resurgence of Chaos Space Marines on the table.  Some of them might still be a little dusty but that will wipe right off.  But in order to give a fair review, I have to discuss the couple things that I dislike.

First and foremost, they basically made the Traitors Hate book useless.  Almost every detachment in Traitor Legions is better, and the only thing that is missing is the Renegade Knight detachment.  Now I bought the Traitors hate book, and I even did a review on it, and I liked it.  But it was a waste of $60 for me now that this book came out, and this book was cheaper.  I can't help but feel like I was taken for a sucker...
But at least I didn't buy Wrath of Magnus.  That set is over $100 and is essentially pointless now as that entire book (less the daemons) is in the Legions book.  Even the Tzangors are in it.  Why GW, why?  This has got to feel like getting bent over for some of those guy who bough Wrath of Magnus, and we all know that most of us gamers are on a budget, including me.

Magnus brings me to my next point.  Why is there such an inconsistency in rules?  I see that look on your face, and let me point you to the Maelstrom of Gore.  If you look at all of the other god specific formations, the Thousand Sons from WoM, the Plague Colony, the Kakophoni, they all have a special extra rule if the full number of units is taken from the formation.  Why didn't they add that to the MoG?  It would have been easy and kept in theme with ALL OF THE OTHER FORMATIONS!  Speaking of Magnus, where the hell are the other Primarchs?
Why would you put the rules for 1 Primarch in a book that is essentially dedicated to the life works of said Primarchs?  What now happens in 6 weeks when they come out with the next Black Crusade book and that book has Angron or Mortarion in it?  I'm forced to buy that book to get those rules.  Which is a good sales strategy, but fuck does it suck for the consumer.  And I know they don't have models for the other Primarchs yet, but I will tell you honestly, I will kit/bash/scratch build a model, then buy the actual model that they com out with because their models are fucking top notch.

Ok, I'm done.  If you take a look up, the good far outweighs the bad.  I am greatly appreciative of this book and all that it presents.  Take a look for yourself.  It makes Chaos great again.

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.