Warhammer 40,000 - Chaos Space Marine & Daemon Allies

This is a little out of topic for me but has gotten me quite excited with regards to another hobby of mine outside of watching wrestling and that being Warhammer 40k (one of many hobbies btw).

                       

It started when I decided to glance through the Chaos Daemons codex, a few of my friends have decided to sell their Daemons off since this codex was released since they no longer like the way they play, their rambling got me interested so I took a look myself. The new Chaos Daemons codex is certainly not for anyone who has a shortage of dice or paper to write down a shed load of random powers that you end up giving your forces during the game, with everything depending on dice rolls and very little certainty on what powers you may end up with I can understand their scepticism over playing them as a primary force in the 6^th edition environment.

However, as an allied detachment I can see some use for them, this slightly (very) lowers the amount of dice rolling you have to do as you no longer have to roll for a warlord for them, you probably won’t be taking so many units you need to roll powers for and you do not have to activate the warp storm table every turn like you do when the Daemons are your primary army.  I hate how much dice rolling is involved with Chaos marines themselves due to the boon table,  so I aim to not add much more to my army list when determining which Daemons will be summoned to aid in my onslaught. Anyone who has played against me knows I like my guns, the bigger the better, lots of shots and plenty of damage that comes with it is my style of play, however I think Daemons offer some very unique close combat units, with this in mind I turned to the only god I could and that was Khorne for his blessings, this lead me to the Blood letters troop choice. Now before we go any further Daemons of Khorne are Daemons with furious charge and hatred (Daemons of Slaanesh).

Bloodletters are a simple Khorne troop selection from the Daemons codex, some general stats that can make for some good close combat with WS 5 and a AP3 power sword as standard you simply cannot fault them and 100 points for 10 is a bargain. You can also upgrade them with some useful little bits including a “instrument of chaos” which will be useful when deep striking in units of Daemons or units with the Daemon special rule (please note this down) and then there is the “Icon of chaos” that allows your deep striking to be a little more precise (keep that noted too). This icon can be upgraded to a “Banner of blood” for Bloodletters and this gives them a guaranteed 6 inches on their charges plus that 2^nd D6, which you can’t complain at really.

Now they need something major to lead them into the fray, something monstrous and something with wings!! Yeah I’m gonna go with the Bloodthirster, this flying monstrous creature is going to be a pain the arse for the opposition WS10, BS10, S6, T6, I9, A6 and a 3+ armour save with a 5+ invulnerable save isn’t anything to moan about and that’s before we get to the weaponry this guy carries. He carries the Axe of Khorne with is a user strength AP2 melee weapon with the decapitating blow special rule, this means that all to wound rolls of a 6 have the instant death special rule, not bad when facing down some of the harder charcters from 40k in close combat. Its other weapon is a cheeky little bit of firepower in the form of the Lash of Khorne, this is a 12 inch ranged assault 1, strength 6 AP1 gun that isn’t too bad considering the speed of a flying creature and its haste to get into 12 inch range, also at AP1 it could knock off a single man or knock a wound off a bigger character before you trounce them in close combat. Also the option to add up to 50 points of daemonic gifts, I have yet to decide how I will go here but the options are pretty cool for greater and exhaulted gifts.

There it is, a highly aggressive close combat allied detachment to go with your Chaos space marine warband, however to provide some synergy you will probably go quite heavy close combat with your primary detachment of traitors. I personally chose a Chaos lord with the Khorne mark allowing me to take Khorne Bezerkers as a troop choice instead of an elite choice, the lord is cheap and cheerful, then with his trusty power sword provides a reasonable foe in close combat. His squad of 13 Khorne Bezerkers on the other hand provide some real close combat power thanks to their increased WS of 5 teaming with the Khorne mark and Furious charge they can go to town on a poor unsuspecting squad of men. You can chose to upgrade them with chain axes to gain an AP4 melee weapon but I haven’t bothered at 3 points per model it’s a little steep when most of my competition will be space marines with a 3+ save the axe won’t bother. The Bezerker champ will also simply be used to sacrifice for the challenges that he will stupidly put himself into, in order to protect my lord from going into too many challenges, thanks to the new rules for “Champions of Chaos”.

Just to aid in swamping smaller squads or helping mop up harder to move squads we have the back up of 20 chaos cultists, the champion in the squad being used in sacrificial challenges, I love cultists as they are cheap and not too bad when in big groups at just swamping smaller squads, especially 5 man terminator squads which I proved recently in a game when a ten man cultist squad managed to take down a 5 man terminator squad in CC. Hey Stu ;-). We keep them as they are with a pistol of close combat weapon to gain extra attacks for having 2 close combat weapons and do not bother with the larger guns.

Onto my favourite topic, the heavy support! We start with a Predator, an unusual choice for me but I do own one so I may as well use it at some point, it’s a cheap tank that comes with an auto cannon as standard and I am also adding some lascannon side sponsons just for some heavy duty firepower, not as many shots as I would usually like but the strength and AP of the weapons make up for that, use it from far away to help whittle down numbers before my close combat forces pile in.

My other choice is a standard pick for me and that is a 3 man Obliterator cult, this for me is the best heavy support choice in the game, it’s sickening how good these can be with a little tactical thinking, choosing the right gun to fire with and where you DEEP STRIKE them, your starting to get a picture building now, they have the DAEMON special rule (you getting it yet). So when you roll a successful reserve roll for your B squad of Khorne Bloodletters you can select 1 unit with the Daemon special rule in reserve also and deep strike them in with your bloodletters and within 6 inches of an Icon of Chaos. This means that squad in front of you’re a squad Bloodletters is going to get one hell of a shock if this happens to them, how would you feel if the bad guys in front of you doubled in number and then threw some pretty sickening array of firepower in your general direction. Sadly they will be brandishing the mark of Nurgle, this giving them toughness 5 halting 90% of instant kill weapons and sadly meaning they still scatter when deep striking even next to the icon holder, however it is only 1 D6 so the heat isn’t off for the opposition.

This brings me to the end of my concept piece here, I hope to do a follow up for this after I have actually playtested this idea and seen what it can do. You can follow me on twitter @bigboss010 and you can follow my good friend over @siteofshite too. 

Im Big Boss and I'm out, peace!