Welcome back for what you really wanted to read about, the rules. Before I get into what Traitor’s Hate gives to Chaos armies, I want to talk for a second about what it doesn’t give. Ok, maybe rant is a better term.
First, there are no special Characters. There were so many named characters in the story, Xorphas, Kranon, and the Word Bearer dude(he actually has a name) and none of them got a character profile. Why? Huh Gee-Dubs, tell me why Xorphas didn’t get a set of rules but every other campaign set that has been put out since has seen a host of characters or new units added to the game? That’s not all, there are no new Relics, no new Warlord Traits, and a hand-me-down set of psychic powers. Way to phone it in guys. Very disappointing.
Well now I feel bad, so let’s get positive and look at what we did get. We finally got our formation detachment and it’s not terrible. It’s not great, but it has potential. The command benefits are pretty good, if you can optimise them. First, you get to re-roll your warlord trait if you roll on the chart in the Chaos codex. Second, every model in the detachment gains Hatred(Imperials) and if they can take VotLW, can take it for free, of course since you have Hatred(Imperials) VotLW is only useful for the Ld buff it gives but don't fucking say you don't get anything for free. If you load out your Chaos Warband everyone getting free VotLW tallies up in the hundreds of points. Finally, each turn you can choose a Character in the detachment and they can roll on the Boon table. Now, that might not seem that great, but as I said before you have to know how to optimise these benefits and it starts with the first Core formation…
…the Chaos Warband. The Warband is Chaos' version of the Battle Company and Demi Company rolled into one, but with more flexibility. More flexibility in the available units and the number of units needed makes it a strong choice. You can fill it up and make it your entire army or you can min-max it out and have it cost 500-600 points. Like the Battle company, everything in this formation gains Objective Secured, plus each time a character earns a roll on the Boon table, you can roll twice and apply one or both of the results. That means that if you take this formation as part of the Black Legion Detachment then each turn a character from the Warband can roll on the table twice and can keep one or both results. Now lets add a Dark Apostle to that unit. What does that do? Haven't you ever taken a Dark Apostle before? Oh, of course not. Well, he lets you re-roll all rolls on the Boon table. That means that you get at least 4 chances each turn to get a Daemon Prince, or at least get good rolls to turn your Chaos Lord into a serious bad ass.
How do you get a Dark Apostle, funny you should ask because the next Core formation is The Lost and the Damned which is 4-9 units Cultists and a Dark Apostle. What makes this one great is that it's the cheapest Core choice sitting at a minuscule 305 points for 21 models. The second thing is that each time a Cultist unit dies, it goes into ongoing reserve on a 4+ and gains outflank. The Dark Apostles Ld bubble becomes a Zealot Bubble. Pretty good.
The third Core choice is the Maelstrom of Gore which is Kharn or a Lord with a FREE Mark of Khorne, and 4-8 units of Bezerkers. Everyone gets Fleet, +3" to their charge move and once per game, DURING THE MOVEMENT PHASE, each unit locked in combat may pile in and attack with no retaliation from the enemy unit. They may then attack AGAIN in the assault phase as per normal. Not bad huh? They still need some way of getting in to combat though even with an entire army running across the table. In today's meta shooting and killing MEQ's is a staple of the game plus it adds a really strange situation. How do you deal with the morale check at the end of the movement phase when the Bezerkers have killed 25% of the unit they are in combat with? Can the Bezerkers overrun the enemy? Does the enemy flee? Can the Bezerkers consolidate if the enemy did run? Can the Bezerkers charge another unit if the enemy does flee?. That's a lot of fucking hassle and weird questions. I don't see this one getting used a lot.
On to the auxiliary formations, and we will start with the Helforged Warpack. A Warpsmith and 3-5 Helbrutes, Maulerfiends, Forgefiends, or Defilers in any combo. One model (not the Warpsmith) can be nominated as the Alpha and becomes a character and gains a 4++, if it is killed all the other models gain Rage. The other rule is worded kind of weird and I can't exactly figure out it's exact meaning. Basically, if the Warpsmith is still alive, any model who has used it's Daemonforge ability may use it "for a second and/or subsequent time." Does this mean they can use it more than twice? Anyway, the rule to focus on is the Alpha. Taking a full formation of Maulerfiends and running the Alpha right into the face of danger just to give the rest of the formation Rage is pretty nice. I don't see any other unit being used really, if you wanted Helbrutes the Helfist Murder Pack and Mayhem Pack are better.
So, 4 Heldrakes is good right? Add the ability that stacks up Ld penalties for being near 2 or more and you got yourself a pretty nifty bonus. Heldrakes are awesome, adding more shit to what they can do only makes them better. They also inflict D6 vector strike hits against units that are pinned, gone to ground, or fleeing. Now if you've had some time to think about it, you might have realised that this may be harder than you originally thought. Well, this book actually adds more ways of getting enemy units to take morale checks in the movement phase. I believe if you look up 2 paragraphs I have the term movement phase is all capital letters. I'll let that sink in for a minute because I'm not done. The Terminator Annihilation Force allows deep striking terminators to shoot right after they deep strike, that's right, in the movement phase. Plus there's tank shocks and destroyer blades, all ways of adding morale checks during your movement phase.
Since I already mentioned it, lets change up the order and move on to the Terminator Annihilation Force. This one tickles me pink let me tell you. This formation is 1 Chaos Lord or Sorcerer with free Terminator armour and 3-5 unit of Terminators and before deployment you can choose an enemy unit as their target. All units in this formation gain Hatred(that unit) and may make a shooting attack IMMEDIATELY after deploying via deep strike, they may then shoot again in the shooting phase at any target. Once the target is completely destroyed they may then select a new unit, and when it's dead another unit and so on. The wording is a little funny, but lets look at it the way I see it. Lets say you are fighting Battle Company with Rhinos or Razorbacks. You choose one of the vehicles to be your target and on the second turn you get 2 of your 3 Terminator units from reserve. You deep strike the first one and immediately shoot the 4 combi-plasma/melta guns killing it, you then choose a new target and deep strike the next unit near it shooting it and probably killing it. Then in the shooting phase you unleash your heavy flamer on the poor bastards who just got out.
Ok, so maybe you aren't playing Battle Company, maybe you are playing Tau. Well guess what, Riptides hate getting shot with Plasma guns. Especially if they didn't nova-charged their shields and did't take FNP cause it's too expensive AND YOU CAN SHOOT BEFORE THEY INTERCEPT because intercept happens at the end of the movement phase, that was a run on sentence. Or maybe you are playing Eldar, well those sneaky bike units can't hide from you now cause you can just deep strike right in their face and shoot them up. And you can do this on a budget. 3 units of 3 termis and combi weapons is under 120, plus a cheap ass lord with combi weapon is like 80 points, shit go crazy and give him the Burning Brand of Skalathrax and he's still under a hundo. So you are looking at 10 terminator models all with combi weapons at under 500 pts. While it's not hard to kill terminators, they aren't exactly slouches either. I really like it.
The Cult of Destruction on the other hand is lacking in zip. 1-3 Warpsmiths and 3-5 units of Obliterators or Mutilators in any combo. At the start of the movement phase a Warpsmith may nominate one of the unit in the formation within 8" of it and that unit may shoot or attack twice. That sounds awesome right? Except that you can't use the same weapon for each attack, you can't shoot at a different target, you can't use a weapon you used last turn(which means if you used this ability last turn you are missing 2 weapons this turn) and the Mutilators don't get to pile in again so if they happen kill all the enemies in base contact with them they are then forced to choose a weapon with unwieldy so the enemy can pile in and attack to get someone in base contact. Combine that with the fact that the Warpsmith has to be within 8" makes it almost impossible to get the Mutilators into combat without a Land Raider. Sure, they can deep strike, but the Warpsmith can't.
The Fist of the Gods sounds cool, but it isn't. A Warpsmith (man GW is really pushing this guy) and 3-5 units of Predators, Vindicators and/or Land raiders in any combination. The benefits, the vehicles get a 6++ if they are within 12" of the Warpsmith and he gets +1 to fix them. It's not good even with the new Vindicator and Predator unit rules. They can now be taken in units of up to 3 and if there is 3 in a unit they get a special rule. Vindicators can choose to join all their shots and fire a single Apocalyptic Blast that ignores cover. Predators gain Monster Hunter and Tank Hunter. The bad thing is that it's pretty easy to kill vehicles now-a-days. But you could potentially take 3 units of 3 with a 6++ and a Warpsmith to repair them. Sure it's gonna cost over 1000 pts but it'll be worth it right? RIGHT!?!?!?
But how bout that Raptor Talon eh? That's a gooder right there. A Chaos Lord (free jump pack) and 3-5 units of Raptors and/or Warp Talons in any combo. What makes it good? IT CAN ASSAULT FROM DEEP STRIKE, but they count as a disordered charge. Seriously? WTF guys, Raven Guard and the Skyhammer formation are good to go but we Chaos players just gotta get the shaft right? Regardless of this handicap, this formation is still really strong and it gives Warp Talons a reason to see the table top. Units of Raptors armed with tank killing guns dropping down and assaulting whatever comes out. Warp Talons dropping down and tearing pretty much anything to shreds and with the Lord added to the formation you can give him an AP2 combat weapon giving the Warp Talons some threat against 2+ armour saves. Also, if 2 or more units from the formation assault the same unit, it will have a -2 Ld penalty at the end of the turn.
Our last formation is the Favoured of Chaos. This is a Daemon Prince and 3-5 units of Possessed. If the Possessed are within 12" of the Prince in the fight sub phase they get all 3 abilities from their mutation table. That's cool and all, but once again we have a close combat dedicated unit that has no way of getting into close combat. Now since the Possessed get their boost in the fight sub phase, I wonder how it works with Crimson Slaughter Possessed who roll on their table at the start of their turn. I'm not buying it, especially since the Black Legion book did it so much better making them WS and I 5 and rending, ALL THE TIME. Just take that formation as a separate detachment.
There is also a formation of Khorne Lord of Skulls, and a Knight detachment, but I'm going to ignore those because no one will use them in a normal game and I'll move right into some tactics and the winners that I see.
However, the Chaos Warband is a close second with it's ObSec and Favoured Scions. Getting to roll twice on the Boon chart for no damn reason is really awesome as you can sent your Lord into beast mode pretty quickly while keeping the bad rolls at bay. We all know how strong the Battle Company is, well now Chaos can have one and they can trim the fat. We don't have to take 2 assault squads or 2 devastator squads, which leaves us some room to add in some really juicy stuff. Not that Havocs are really that bad, unlike the Dev squads we can take special weapons in ours. 4 Plasma guns in a Rhino is pretty good for 2 ObSec units at 170 points. I prefer to only take 2 special weapons making them less of a target, able to soak some damage while not losing any power, and it saves some points for the auxiliary formations.
Speaking of which, the top 2 Auxiliary choices are the Terminator Annihilation Force and the Raptor Talon. Now I know the first thing that comes to your mind is that they both have to deep strike and Chaos has no way of modifying the reserve roll or any way of limiting scatter. Well, you are wrong. With the Crimson Slaughter we gain access to Divination and the Scriers Gaze power which lets you re-roll reserve rolls as well as Outflank rolls (If you are also running the Lost and the Damned formation). True, you are not certain to get it, but it's pretty good odds with 3 rolls, don't forget Tzeentch Heralds as allies and a bastion or ADL with the Coms Relay.
Deep strike scattering on the other hand is a little trickier but there is something that can help. It's called the Dimensional Key. You probably never heard of it because no one has ever taken it. It's 25 points, and once the character holding has killed a model in close combat the keys power unlocks and that point on every friendly unit from the Chaos Space Marine Codex no longer scatters...at all...anywhere on the table...even if the character holding it dies...for the rest of the game. Do you get where I'm going from? Granted, it's tricky getting into assault on turn 1, but if you can keep as many units off the table with Scriers Gaze or the relay coms there is a high chance you can kill something in the second turn especially if you put your guy on a bike. Go after a weak infiltrating unit, or someone in the back lines. Move and turbo boost as deep as you can away from your opponents kill zones and try and kill a single model. If he gets aggressive on you all the better.
As a second option, Cursed earth works for the Warp Talons as they are daemons.
I am currently looking at running a Chaos Warband, but not entirely sure if I want to take a large Warband with one auxiliary choice (probably the termi death squads), or to keep it small and take both the Annihilation Force and Raptor Talon and double down on the deep striking.
List Idea #1
Lord, Chosen with Plasma, Bikes with Melta, Havocs with Plasma, 2 Marine squads with Melta.
Lord with Melta, 3x5 man Termi squads, 2 with melta, 1 with plasma, each with a heavy flamer.
Lord with Axe, 2x5 man Raptors with Flamers or Meltas (undecided), and a unit of Warp Talons
That's 6 units deep striking with still a sizable force on the table. I have variations with more squads of terminators and no heavy flamers, or just 3 squads of 3 with more meat in the Warband.
List Idea #2 is less developed but it's basically the same as above with one of auxiliaries dropped and making the Warband stronger. More guys, a Sorcerer, etc etc.
Ok, so I have been writing for a while now and I have already seen several posts about Traitors Hate and the formations so I better get this one out there. Mines better anyway.
Next up I'll talk psychic powers, not that they haven't been talked to death already, but in the eyes of Loyalists who have no imagination.
Until next time, keep them dice rollin.
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