To Field a Chaos Legion, Part 2: World Eaters

Kharn's Butcherhorde. The end :D

JUST KIDDING!! Welcome back everyone, Matt here again from Blood God Gaming (bloodgodgaming.blogspot.com) with the second installment of "To Field a Chaos Legion", this time focusing on the World Eaters, the blood-crazy servants of Khorne.

Now, jokes aside, Kharn's Butcherhorde is a legitimate way to field a World Eaters army if you want to go with a pure marine-only force. That will not be the focus of this article, however. This article will focus on a mixing and meshing of the Chaos Marine and Chaos Daemon books to create a force that Khorne himself might actually smile at. As with the Thousand Sons, in order to properly field them, we'll need to look at what the legion looks like today, and how that factors into what we have available.

The World Eaters became a fractured mess after a battle in which Kharn scoffed at the idea of self preservation and burninated everyone with a souped up flamer that may or may not be a Tzeentchian weapon (the tricky bugger). Battle of Scalathrax aside, we will be looking to build an army list built around the martial prowess of a Khornate champion. So let's begin.

As the warlord of a World Eaters warband, martial pride is everything. You are going to have the biggest and best toys, followers, mounts, etc, because you fought your hardest and shed your blood (for Khorne) to get it. Getting it doesn't end things either, you then have to fight, tooth and nail, to prove that you are still worthy to hang on to everything you've taken. So, given this, we're going to want a warlord not only with potent skill in close combat, but also with great wargear and great modelling opportunity. Khorne warlords spare no expense in proudly declaring their prowess through any and all means, so we need to reflect that.

In this build, we will be going with the Juggerlord Build: a Chaos Lord with the Mark of Khorne, The Axe of Blind Fury, a Sigil of Corruption, Veterans of the Long War, a Juggernaut, and a Gift of Mutation. So this gives our warlord +1 wound, +1 Attack, and converts him into cavalry for a brutal 7+D6 attacks on the charge, with Hatred vs. Space Marines. Ouch! For his Retinue, it could go one of two ways. Spawn make great meat shields (literally), but for this list we're going to do something different and stick him with ten Chaos Bikes with the Mark of Khorne, two Melta Guns, and a Power Lance on the Champion (for S5 Ap3 on the charge). We'll also throw in Veterans of the Long War for that extra Hatred bonus. If you have the points, an Icon of Wrath could be a nice extra, as well. Your bikes can then jink for a 4+ cover save to better protect your lord (who needs cowardly bullets anyways?) and I DARE you hobbyists out there to convert your bikers as Chaos Knights with fire breathing steeds ;)

From here, we will need a core. Our Lord and retinue are tough but not invincible, and he's going to need troops to help him out and a way to distract enemy fire away from him (Khorne generals are reckless but not stupid. They know standing at full distance from a Leman Russ will get them killed). Since we're doing a CC Khorne army, we're going to take two units of ten Khorne Berserkers with an Icon of Wrath and a Power Lance (S6 AP3 on the charge with the champ's 5 attacks). We're going to be transporting each unit inside of a Chaos Landraider with Extra Armor, Dirge Casters, Destroyer Blades, and Dozer Blades. This ensures they stay moving, they don't eat your passengers, they can punch enemy squads, and they deny overwatch. They also can draw fire from your squishier (relatively speaking) units, and can turn into stationary gunboats once they've deposited their payload. We'll be throwing in a Helblade as well so that you have something to throw at flyers.

For the next step, we're going to dip into the Chaos Daemons book to shore up the list.

I don't know about you, but this army needs anti-psyker defense, and your badass Juggerlord needs some equally badass war-hounds to accompany him into battle. So we're going to start by adding Karanak for his anti-psyker bubble, paired with a group of 10 Flesh Hounds to run with him. To fill out our allied detachment, we're going to take a squad of 17 Bloodletters with a Banner of Blood and keep them in reserve as a distraction unit. Now let's take a look at our army list.

World Eaters Combined Arms Detachment with Chaos Daemons Allied Detachment: 2,000 points.

HQ:

Chaos Lord

-Axe of Blind Fury

-Sigil of Corruption

-Juggernaut of Khorne

-Gift of Mutation

-Veterans of the Long War

Karanak

Troops:

Khorne Beserkers

-5 Extra Berserkers

-Icon of Wrath

-Power Sword

Khorne Beserkers

-5 Extra Berserkers

-Icon of Wrath

-Power Sword

Bloodletters

-7 Extra Bloodletters

Banner of Blood

Elites: 

Fast Attack:

Chaos Bikers

-7 Extra Bikers

-2 Melta Guns

-Veterans of the Long War

- Power Lance

-Mark of Khorne

Helblade

-Helstorm Autocannons

Flesh Hounds

-5 Extra Flesh Hounds

Heavy Support:

Chaos Land Raider

- Dirge Casters

- Extra Armor

- Dozer Blades

- Destroyer Blades

Chaos Land Raider

- Dirge Casters

- Extra Armor

- Dozer Blades

- Destroyer Blades

Now to talk about the list's use in battle!!

RUN FORWARD AND SMASH THINGS. More or less that is the strategy of the World Eaters, so that must be your strategy when using their forces. End every turn closer to your enemy than before, hug cover with your foot sloggers (or declare it beneath you and smash through it, conveniently granting you a cover save against cowardly bullets unworthy of piercing your hide). And play your army VERY aggressively. Khorne is all about aggression and rage, so make sure to play that to your advantage when taking to the battlefied. If the enemy spends his time shooting up your Landraiders, great! That's fire that isn't targeting your bikes or your Flesh Hounds. Just remember, Khorne cares not from where the blood flows, only that it does. So even if you lose, you still win!! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD AND KHORNE FOR THE KHORNE FLAKES!! (.....something feels off about that...)

Stay tuned for the next article, featuring the putrid Death Guard!!

To Field a Chaos Legion, Part 1: Thousand Sons

Hey all! Matt here, from Blood God Gaming (bloodgodgaming.blogspot.com), to open a discussion via a multi-article series, based on the idea that Chaos Legions, as they are now, can in fact be fielded in flavorful and interesting ways! So without further ado, let's jump right into the first subject of our article series, the Thousand Sons.

First things first, the Thousand Sons have always been a less numerical legion to the others, even back in the days of the Great Crusade. After the Rubric of Ahriman, that is even more pronounced in the current setting of 40k, with small numbers of highly durable Rubric Marines led by potent and clever Sorcerers of Tzeentch, whose mastery of warp-craft makes their loyalist equivalents look like petty parlor tricks in comparison.

So, in order to field a Thousand Sons Legion in the 40k setting, one must take into account the condition of the legion as it is now, and the mindset of those leading it. This is not a "run forward and punch everything to death" type chaos army, but rather a tricky "drown 'em in free minions" force heavily reliant on psychic power and specialized shooting. More on that later.

We'll need a core for this Thousand Sons legion, and to stay true to fluff, we'll need a Sorcerer with the Mark of Tzeentch, a Force Maul, Mastery Level 3, Veterans of the Long War, and a Spell Familiar, as our HQ. I personally also like Terminator Armor and a Sigil of Corruption. His mark then unlocks Thousand Sons as troops, of which we'll be taking two squads of ten in a rhino.

The next issue we need to address is that any Chaos Champion worth his ceramite is going to have a big awesome retinue to soak hits and keep him alive. A lot of people miss rubric terminators, in my opinion, so let's try and get as close to that as we can. For our Sorcerer, we'll be taking a unit of 5 Chaos Terminators with the Mark of Tzeentch and the Icon of Flame. I would also model them holding staves to go with the legion's psyker flavor. Power mauls are great support for soul-blaze combi-bolters against the intended target of anti-horde.

Already we have six terminator bodies with good invulnerable saves and decent anti-horde, covering the Thousand Sons squads which can handle anti-power-armor equivalents. With that and our base five warp charges, now it's time to look at Daemon Allies, the key to really making a mono-god legion work in the 40k setting.

So now with our points remaining, we now need to look at making our psyker army more psyker-y. Being a "bag of tricks" type force, we will need lots of warp charges to pull off the shenanigans it needs to succeed. Daemons of Tzeentch are both the fluffy option and the best psyker option a Thousand Sons army can bring. So let's talk gribblies. 

We'll need two Heralds of Tzeentch with Mastery Level 3 to start. You can add upgrades like loci and rewards as you see fit, but for the sake of points I'm laying out the bare bones first. Two units of 11 Pink Horrors should accompany your heralds. This gives you ten more warp charges for a total of 15 before the D6 roll, with a potential of 17-21 during the Psychic Phase.

With the points remaining, we now need to both protect and support our investment to make sure that they can stay alive long enough to do what they need to do. Anti-air support will be needed, and two Helblades with the Helstorm Autocannon upgrades or a Chaos Fire Raptor with the Reaper Battery and Daemonic Possession cover our flyer needs. Notice I will be dipping into Forgeworld Units throughout this article series. This is not a "how to crush at tournaments" type article, but rather a means of fielding a flavorful, yet strong force that can stand on its own two feet in friendly games or pickup games.

Back on topic. With the remaining points, one option to fill out the list is two Forgefiends, covering mid range high strength shooting. With those remaining points, the Portaglyph is a great option to summon in more Horrors for spell / warp charge replenishment, leaving enough leftover for Dozer Blades on your Rhinos (necessary, in my opinion). So let's take a look at what we have and talk a little bit about how to use it on the field of battle:

Thousand Sons Combined Arms Detachment w/ Chaos Daemons Allied Detachment: 2,000pts

HQ:
Chaos Sorcerer
-Mark of Tzeentch
-Veterans of the Long War
-Terminator Armor w/ Combi Bolter and Force Maul
-Sigil of Corruption
-Spell Familiar

Herald of Tzeentch
-Mastery Level 3
-Exalted Reward (Portaglyph)

Herald of Tzeentch
-Mastery Level 3

Troops:
Thousand Sons
-5 Extra Thousand Sons

Thousand Sons
-5 Extra Thousand Sons

Pink Horrors
-1 Extra Pink Horror

Pink Horrors
-1 Extra Pink Horror

Dedicated Transports:
Chaos Rhino
-Dozer Blades

Chaos Rhino
-Dozer Blades

Elites: 
Chaos Terminators
-2 Extra Terminators
-Mark of Tzeentch
-Icon of Flame

Fast Attack:
Chaos Fire Raptor Gunship
-Reaper Battery
-Daemonic Possession

Heavy Support:
Forgefiend
Forgefiend

Now to figure out how to use this bugger:

For those of you that play MTG, this list functions like those blue decks that take a while get going, but by mid to late game they are terrifying. You'll want to deploy your Rhinos and your Forgefiends out front as distraction units and keep your psyker units screened behind. If your opponent neglected to bring a ton of AP2 weaponry, you can get away with sticking the Sorcerer and his Termy buddies out front, too.

For psychic powers, this is where it gets a little tricky. For your Aspiring Sorcerers, you could take summoning as a last resort back-up (sac the Champ Sorc to get a squad of horrors back in the game). Otherwise, an extra tzeentch power for extra mind bullets is not a bad option.

You'll want your HQ Sorcerer rolling on Biomancy, gunning in particular for Iron Arm, Life Leech, and Endurance. If he doesn't get them, that's fine, the unit's balance between "bullet magnet" and "anti-horde" just shifts more in the "anti-horde" direction with Biomancy's witchfires and maledictions. Positioning order should have your icon-bearer second to last with your Sorcerer in the back. However, his abilities should not be the first you focus on. 

Your Daemons of Tzeentch are where you want your Malefic Daemonology. Have each of your horrors roll on the Malefic Tree, and if they don't get Sacrifice, Incursion, or Possession, stick the Summoning Primaris on them instead. You could go full malefic with your Heralds, but I personally like a mix of Prescience, Summoning, and then one extra roll on Malefic. The Tzeentch Primaris powers of both Marine and Daemon Flavors should be used last or if you really need the extra punch. 

Your focus with Malefic should be bringing in what Thousand Sons lack: numerous expendable bodies. Summoning should be your go-to in that regard, with other powers secondary to that. Sacrifice is good for adding more heralds to the pool or replacing lost ones. You could even get your portaglyph back should you lose it. Possession is nice as a trap-card maneuver. Scare your opponent with a greater daemon when you're cornered and use it as a giant distraction to swing the game back in your favor.

As for what to summon, that is where you can throw the door wide open while still staying fluffy. Since Thousand Sons are the mortal masters of sorcery, you can unashamedly throw daemons of any alignment at your opponent. This is where the "drown 'em in free minions" comes from. Your entire army can reliably bring in two squads of lesser daemons per turn to compensate numerical disadvantages, enough to make for a challenging fight without, in my opinion, going over the top. 

As a final note, this army is slow moving, but should never be standing still at any point in the game. Since it dominates as hard as it does in the psychic phase, most of your units should be moving and running in their respective phases. This army also works better with a more terrain heavy board. That said, nobody should be playing on Planet Bowling Ball. Terrain is what balances out shooty armies vs. not-shooty armies, so don't skimp on it!

Tune in next time for our second installment of "To Field a Chaos Legion", featuring none other than the World Eaters!!

The Chaos Incursion of Ichar IV: Army Feature Videos and a Blog!

Howdy all! Matt D. here again with some updates on the narrative campaign Rob and I are hosting this Friday. To get people pumped for the campaign, I've been doing Army Feature Videos, showcasing armies with cool music/sounds. So far, the campaign has two such videos completed, one of an Imperial Guard army, the other of my Chaos Lord. These are very much an experiment in video work for me as much as they are a little something extra for the community, so each one should hopefully get better with practice. Enjoy! More to come as time goes on. Additionally, we now have a blog that we will be posting content for the Narrative campaign to. Going is slow, starting out, but once we get the hang of this blogging thing it'll be a big beautiful monster: Blood God Gaming Blog!

The Icharan 501st, led by Colonel Arminius Maximillian. 

Accidentally uploaded this video to the wrong account lol. Going to have to change that at some point. Anyways, sound clip is from the YouTube vid, "Dawn of War is not Dead".

The Hand of Vulgaris, led by Vulgaris Manus

The Chaos Incursion of Ichar IV: Phase 1 W/L Results, Side Missions, a Map, and a Video for Phase 2!

Hello everyone! Matt D. here again with updates on The Chaos Incursion of Ichar IV Narrative Campaign! This past Friday was a HUGE success!! We had a turnout of 16 players throughout the day with two absentees planning on joining next week! It was a fantastic turnout for the first meet, to the point of actually running out of 40k terrain for all the players. But I digress, the campaign results from Phase 1: Invasion, are as follows:

Forces of the Imperium: 4W/3L

Forces of Chaos: 1W/4L

Tyranids: 2W/0L

Tau Empire: 1W/0L

There was one L that stood out because we had a guy who wanted to play but wasn't doing the campaign. We needed members so we said "heck, why not?". 

Highlights of the first phase include a Sororitas army just smashing their way through a Chaos force, a gorgeously painted Crimson Fist army (which will have an Army Feature Vid in the future), pink Tau with a Riptide named "Momo", Flappy the Tyrant (Flyrant conversion w/gargoyle wings), and another beautifully painted Chaos Flying Circus. For the map, Rob and I decided not to use the planetary empires board, as the exploding participation roster quickly turned this into a faction fight. So instead I found a detailed layout of a hive city on Google image search and we're going to use copies of that to mark faction progress (shown below). 

Now, for the Narrative Campaign during the week, we are introducing something new called Side Missions. If your warlord rolled on the Character Death Table and suffered wounds, he now has the potential to heal them up before the next campaign meet. To engage in a Side Mission, craft a 750pt list with your warlord as a part of it. If your warlord survives the mission without being reduced to zero wounds, then all Major and/or Minor Wounds are removed. If the warlord dies, you do not have to roll on the CDT, as such a minor skirmish cannot truly fell such mighty champions. Just try again! 

We're also going to start hosting special side missions (1k) during the week that, if players participate in them and win, their Warlord's next roll on the CDT becomes "Roll 2d6 and pick the lowest result". If the warlord is reduced to zero wounds, nothing happens because, once again, the skirmish is too minor (plot armor ftw). Our first Special Side Mission will be Emperor's Will vs. a Plague Zombie Horde led by Typhus. Points will be 1k, and the attacking player follows the Kill Team Restriction for Vehicles (No flyers and vehicles must have a combined AV of 33 or less). We may make an endless swarm style rule for the zombies, but that is undecided as of now. The goal of the mission is to attack a potential forward base that has reported enemy activity, but not to the level normally seen.

All in all, been a great start for the campaign, and I will post more content as it comes!

Campaign Page: Chaos Incursion of Ichar IV

Blog: Blood God Gaming

Our Hosts: Titan Games and Hobbies

Here is the map! The Forces of Chaos still hold a lot of territory in this hive, but the invaders are pushing their way in. Who will win? And yes that is a to-scale graphic of Texas for size reference. 'Cuz in the grimdarkness of the grimdark grimdark everything is huge and grimdark :P

And here is the video for Phase 2: Attrition. The Imperium now has a foothold, planetside, but can they keep it?

Warhammer 40k Announcement: The Chaos Incursion of Ichar IV

Hi there! Matt D. here as a first time writer with some big news! Me and my buddy, Rob, are looking to promote a narrative campaign and its rule-set for Warhammer 40k. We've created a free-to-play event that, instead of drawing people in with the promise of prizes, features the stories of their characters on our community Facebook page and in our teaser videos (the first of which is already up on YouTube, linked below). A lot of this is inspired from Miniwargaming's Narrative Batreps but with some twists. Additionally, EVERYTHING is in. Superheavies, Lords of War, Allies, Supplements, Forgeworld, and all the extra goodies (like dataslates) are all legal for use. We are strongly encouraging narrative play, and as such have a very simple character creation system in addition to a death table heavily inspired from MWG's. Also dooing a shoutout to our flgs, Titan Games and Hobbies. Totally awesome place to do wargaming if you live in the area (location can be found on their Facebook page)! Also, the posters, video, data stream message, and the datasheets for the campaign are all my handiwork (Rob handles admin stuff, I make the pretty pictures). Here's what we have: 

A Community Page: Chaos Incursion of Ichar IV

A YouTube Video: 

Also a shout out to the group organizing the event: Blood God Gaming

And several supporting documents for the rules including fluff and posters (attached below):

DA ROOLZ:

General Rules;

The first Chapter of this campaign will be 4 weeks long. We will meet the following Fridays: 12/12, 12/19, 1/2, and 1/9. We will not be meeting on 12/5 but we will be starting character creation (pdf character sheets are available on the community facebook page and attached below). This campaign will use the Planetary Empires board and we will determine starting positions once player interest has been discerned. We will tally up the wins/losses at the end of each week. There are no teams. This is strictly free for all (if we get massive amounts of players from multiple different factions, we may reconsider that). 

IMPORTANT: If you miss a Friday, your square(s) is(are) automatically lost should an opponent attempt to seize it(them). You will still be able to play, but you will have to retake your territory. If you want to participate, but cannot make one of the dates, it is acceptable to do your game early and check off either with the Titan Hobby Manager or on the Facebook page. That way we can handle absences. But please please please communicate if there is a problem!

Rob and I were also discussing potentially filming some of the battles as well. We will be taking pictures of our battles and encouraging you to do the same, but if two players come in with fully painted armies, then a video batrep would not be out of the question.

Campaign Rules:

Your Warlord:

>Create a custom warlord with a name and a Warlord Trait of your choice. Your warlord must be normally eligible to roll for whatever trait you pick (so for example a Salamanders Captain could choose a Warlord Trait from the rulebook or the Space Marine Codex). Invest yourself in your character and discover their adventure with them! Choose your Warlord Trait carefully. It stays with you for the entire campaign! In the event of Maelstrom of War missions, you may roll on the Tactical Warlord Traits while keeping your fixed trait, applying bonuses for things like being battleforged as normal.

>Should a warlord fall in battle, you must roll on the Character Death Table. Subtract 1 from your roll if you won the battle.

1 = Gets away unscathed.

2-3 = Minor Wounds: -1 WS & -1 BS

4-5 = Major Wounds: -1 W & -1 A

6 = DEAD! Make a new warlord. The new warlord must choose a different Warlord Trait (Otherwise character deaths would be insignificant because you could just take the exact same warlord trait again)

>Your character heals from injuries by participating in future battles without being reduced to 0 wounds. One battle is sufficient to remove major and/or minor wounds.

>Minor wounds and major wounds can stack with each other, but each characteristic only ever affects a model once (so rolling major wounds after already having major wounds just means one more game of being wounded. No doubling of the same debuff.)

>Additionally, players get one Fate Point that they may use to modify their character death roll to a 

"1 = Gets away unscathed", should they so choose (before or after rolling). However, choose wisely because you only get one Fate Point for the entire campaign.

>It is encouraged, but not required, that you come up with a back story for your character. Additionally, it is also encouraged, but not required, that you record epic moments of your battles (IG sergeant kills a chaos lord, for example) in small sagas to recount their heroic feats.

>One final thing: Play to the spirit of the game and the flavor of your army. Most importantly, have fun! This campaign intends to celebrate the journey over the destination.

Errata:

>All daemonic gifts/ eotg rolls don't carry over from the battles in which they were acquired, including gift of mutation rolls, spawnhood, and apotheosis. There is a chaos portal present on the world that interrupts all attempts at apotheosis by virtue of draining all planetside daemon energy to stay open (it's also made of 100% pure plotdevicium). Spawnhood simply counts as being reduced to 0 wounds and being majorly wounded for the next battle. Saving your last wound with Feel No Pain does not count as being reduced to 0 wounds.

>There is no official points limit. You and your opponent can fight for your tiles with however many points you want, as long as you both agree on it. That being said, we are encouraging 1,850-2,000pts for the average game. All supplements, allies, fortifications, LOW, and forgeworld are allowed, and you may use special characters in your army. If you choose to use one as your warlord, just pick a warlord trait if he doesn't already have one. Relics are fine too. This is very much an everything goes throw down, so take whatever you want and will enjoy the most. That being said, we also strongly encourage you to develop a narrative for whatever it is you do bring. I personally want to see the community facebook page littered with epic sagas and tales of glory.

Specifically for the Map battles:

>It is assumed your battleforce will have enough non-command units to replenish losses.

>No escalation. This is a planet-wide throw down with all factions involved. So battles of all sizes will certainly be commonplace.

>It is assumed you have fast enough detection/transportation to redeploy and defend your squares. You do not need to garrison units.

Here is the poster for the campaign! I felt like having a little fun with the name of the group organizing the event :D

Our totally optional character sheets that you may use for convenience of keeping track of your character. It may save you from having to flip through several different books!

A reference card (4x6) for the Character Death Table. Also optional.

A small fluff piece of the Inquisitor responsible for requisitioning the Imperial Forces to defend/retake the planet. His first choices weren't pretty. They interrupted his morning coffee.