Dreadnoughts and Chaos Spawn

[Brother Kovash]

Just wondering what people think of using either Dreadnoughts or Chaos Spawn? I'm starting to write up a list to build in the near future; any input would be a great help.

[Kabbala]

Personally, I am not a fan of the chaos spawn. But I love me the Dreadnought. I usually give mine 2xDCCWs and let him go smash something hopefully. Of course, you get the bad rolls sometimes, but he's filled with chaos and hate. What do you expect?

[Brother Kovash]

Hey, I'm having enough problems with my orks running around, so I'm used to the bad rolls. The Chaos Spawn looked like a cool option, but I don't seem to find them in anybody's lists.

[Corpse.]

Two of the more reliable dread setups are the twin DCCW dread and the DCCW+Missile Launcher Dread. Pick frag when he shoots your stuff, hopefully a vehicle or plague marines - remember you can place the blast however you want to rely on that scatter roll.

 

Chaos spawns are often seen when people use Gift of Chaos in a non-killpoint scenario. Assassinating that 200 point special character on a 5 or 6 is tempting, and replacing with a 40pt model is also tasty.

 

Spawns as their own units, I have tried proxy forces using 30 spawns in it (1200 pts of them) and it did ok. Dreadnoughts and other AV12+ walkers did them in pretty quickly. I tried lash with it, but still similar results. Annihilated certain armies with the swarm though.

 

Otherwise you're better off taking stuff besides spawns. Even 3 lesser daemons per spawn are a better choice, and more useful as scoring units with Inv saves against banshees, etc.

[Brother Kovash]

Ok, I'll try the dread out with twin DCCW, thanks for the input.

[chillin]

chaos dread is not remotely competetive even in friendly games, no matter how you outfit it. What other unit would you take that worked 66% of the time??

Spawn are even more useless then dreads and over priced !

[Rain]

Just take a defiler if you really want a walker, it's better than a dread in pretty much every conceivable way. That's kind of the issue with this codex, certain units are just better than certain other units. It's not a tradeoff or a situation thing, they are just straight up better.

[Skyzerker]

I loves my dreaddies, always have, always will. I always run at least one in any given game, and they almost never let me down. I run them with twin DCCWs and a heavy flamer, either together up a flank, or seperate while "escorted" by rhinos. With two, you're almost assured to have one make contact with the enemy intact, and if both make it in, they do unholy things to soft pink things that scream and bleed... :jaw:

[chillin]

With two, you're almost assured to have one make contact with the enemy intact,

 

So your "almost" assured to have 50% effectiveness, is that supposed to be a good thing ??

I wish dreads were at least somewhat effective so I could take them, but "almost" 50% isn't much of an endorsement. You do realize

> 50% is failing by the most slack of standards ?? :)

I love the concept of dreads and love how my converted ones look, but chaos dreads are just pathetic when it comes to play on the table top.

[Andrés Pacheco]

Hi Brother Kovash,

 

As you can probably tell, there are several issues with each unit that make them not so effective statistically on the table top. If you're a win at all costs gamer, or if your gaming group is largely non-friendly, competitive games, probably best avoid them (probably best avoid chaos altogether, in fact. Actually, probably best avoid playing games with plastic soldiers, and put that anal competitiveness to good use somewhere else, but I digress...)

 

However, if you play for some fun with friends, go for it - both units are characterful, and will produce some random and always entertaining results, plus provide great modelling opportunities, if that's your thing.

 

Remember, chaos means random! :-)

[IronWinds]

Dreads- go with Chillin's advise.

 

Spawn- ah... my favorite unit to make fun of next to possessed. Take the rules they currently have, take off a wound and give them a 3+ save. Sound alright... well that is what they use to have... oh and they were HALF the price. They were used back then, but not overly popular. So I would have to say they are overpriced now seeing that they doubled the pricetag and didn't really make them any better.

[Forgerer]

Hey there!

 

I really urge you to give a try and use dreads. I run two with Lascannons. I run them as a pair side by side (I do avoid seting them up so that they'd see each other) I admit that so far they havent sparkled as I would have hoped, but they are here to stay. Soo hope you give them a go!

 

Btw, I'd give the dread at least some kind of a ranged weapon... autocannon is a nice one.

[Brother Kovash]

I'm definitely going to try running some dreads, maybe a few proxies to see how they run. Looking at the spawn again, they do seem overpriced for a unit I can't control.

 

Our gaming is almost entirely friendly and for fun, so I'm not too worried if one of my dreads goes crazed for a turn or two.

[Dan The Deamon]

I've tried a dread in a couple of games lately. I gave him an autocannon and CCW. He rolled fire frenzy three times in one game, one of which was first turn next to some rhinos. He left me scrambling to get my armor away from him and in my opponents lines. He then wrecked a chimera, and the next turn rolled crazed and assaulted another one. At some point at the end of the game he rolled fire frenzy while he was surrounded with my units and some of my guys had to brave some fire. Since re-rolling a twin linked weapon is an option, and my power armor protects me from an autocannon, i didn't loose anyone.

 

I liked him a lot, he definitely trashed my opponents lines and when he worked he was really effective. The only problems i had was that 100 or so point model effectively controlled my board edge. When he rolled crazy he forced me to do some stuff i hadn't been planning on, but really worked out well regardless. I tabled a 'leafblower' guard at 2k with him helping.

[Garou24]

I say play want you like. I love chaos dreadnoughts. I have 3 Forge World ones that I use, those models look so nice. I always bring 1 to any game. On a roll of 1 you go crazy and shoot, so yeah if your models are closer, thats not the best situation. 2-5 your sane and work fine. On a roll of 6 you move, fleet and then try and assault the closest enemy unit. So really I see it as just some extra movement to get a dreadnought where I really want him. In Close combat. If you deploy correctly, its really only the 1st turn you have to be too concerned about them. They are great to tie up units that can't deal with their armor and also good for busting tanks open. Plus they add a little chaos flavor to the army.

 

Spawns I have not used so much. I don't like the models. I am working on my Thousand Sons, so I am sure I will pick up a couple to try with Gift of Chaos.

 

If you want to play for fun and have a good time, nothing is more fun for my friends that betting on when the Dreadnought goes crazy!

[Scrambles]

I have three Dreadnoughts and I used to give them lascannons or a combination of weapons, due to the effectiveness of these weapons I came up with the most logical answer.

 

Each Dread is given 2x CC arms and they are always right next to eachother when depolyed. If the dreadnoughts have shoot an ally, they will shoot each-other and the strength from the bolters within the CC arms are NOT strong enough to damage any of them. When they get into close-combat with the enemy, the real fun begins. In small point games, Dreadnoughts are effective due to the lack of anti-tank the enemy may have. I currently have three Dreads but I may get more and have only a robot army.

 

Chaos Spawn... I have used them and they haven't been useful. Even if one runs their squad up to the enemy in a Rhino and drops them, this player must still roll the reserve to summon the Spawn on their Aspiring Champion (Total of 70pts). If you don't give a... darn, then add the Chaos Spawn along-side your army and Slow and Purposeful = Slow and Painful.

[Warsmith Morenze]

Well, if it helps any, my dread has always performed (reasonably) reliably in battles; he only ever fires at the Slaaneshi squad, and even then only once per battle at most. Don't know why this is, maybe he just hates pink?

[Brother Nihm]

this player must still roll the reserve to summon the Spawn on their Aspiring Champion (Total of 70pts).

It might be a language thing or just me being tired but I read that as if you think that Chaos Spawn have to be summoned. :tu:

[Brother Kovash]

I was referring to the Chaos Spawn under Fast Attack, not the summoned demons. I might try some demons out too, they look like fun.

 

I'm convinced on the Dreadnoughts. I'll probably pick two of them up around summer when I start building CSM.

[Jeffy.Gee]

If you play in a friendly gaming club or with friends, ask and see if they would let you field a droppod for your dreadnought. Use the models and rules of an Imperial droppod but add a few extra points to compensate for it not being in the codex. I usually pay 65 points for mine and don't use the droppod assault rule in the loyalist book.

 

It works pretty well as it means you drop your dread in the enemy lines, pop out with a heavy flamer and twin linked bolter, the pod helps shield his rear arc from anti tank weaponry and then he assaults next turn.

 

You could also try in the home grown rules section of this forum for other peoples opinions on chaos pods. Or look in the Imperial Armour books for Deathclaw droppods for a more official ruleset.

 

Personally, I'm hoping for an entry in the next codex that would let us take them as dedicated transports we can assault from.

 

JG

[Corpse.]

Chaos Dreadnought with 2 DCCW:

One of the results makes it stand still.

One of the results is a fleet move towards the nearest enemy, and hence the dread can hurt anything that is normally a good idea.

Four of the other results it does what you tell it to do.

 

1/6 of the time, one turn out of 6 it will do nothing. Mine is often in melee on turn 3, turn 2 thanks to lash. So to be generous, 3 chances to roll a 1, 50% chance. The rest of the game it's in melee pretty much, munching on termigaunts that cannot harm it, or facing an opponent that can actually hurt it. Either way, it's earning its cost back.

 

I also run my dreads in a chaos zilla force most of the time, so they often go ignored which is a big mistake. They end up doing the most damage along side abbadon because a str 10, 4 attack melee monster outshines my greater daemon, prince and even the defilers who's I and WS is 3.

 

There are times when that fleet move really made it worthwhile to dump 100 pts into that dread.

 

You are also aware that some spawns are big enough to obscure a dreadnought right? Just tossing that out there.

[Seregon]

Two of the more memorable things that happened to my 2x DCCW Dread in the three games I've used it.

 

First game: Moving and assaulting the opponent HQ unit about to charge into my troops holding an objective (late in the game), he went mad and instead charged the closest enemy..which happened to be an immobilized, weapon destroyed, Razorback. Good going! You just charged an empty tin can!

 

Second game: An opponent 5 man combat squad is holding an objective, and I'm only about 10" away thinking to charge him and either kill him, run him off or lock him into place for a while decides that precise spot is where he will stay. Period. Thus he is too far away to use his heavy flamer and he instead shoots his bolters, failing to kill a single model. Then my opponent lazily turns his marines around and multi-melta my dread into oblivion.

 

If he can mess things up for me, he will.

[killersquid]

I nearly won a tournament at 1000pts while taking ten chaos spawn. The battle report I posted up here in the appropriate section. They are a very underrated unit and you can get a lot of power out of them. My opponents constantly told me how hard they are to kill. I plan to keep making them, so I can run twenty in 1500pts.One unit that works best when you take a whole lot of them, one unit is no good. Multiple units work very well. having a prince, or sorcerer with lash to hurl your opponents to them also works very well. They really only have a problem with Dreadnaughts and other things which are S10.

 

I have not used Dreadnaughts yet, but I do plan on eventually getting three to fill out my elites slots. They are pretty cheap, and good for walking lascannons.

[Zentor]

To the older players here:

 

What were dreadnoughts like in previous Chaos Codex editions? or were they always the same rules for them?

[killersquid]

To the older players here:

 

What were dreadnoughts like in previous Chaos Codex editions? or were they always the same rules for them?

 

In the previous chaos codex, they were very much the same. However fire frenzy was limited to enemy models, unless there wasn't any. In the codex previous, it was exactly the same as now (just the other way around blood rage on a 1, fire frenzy on a six). Also, the rule was called Fire Frenzy. Another thing is that Blood Rage doubled your attacks if you charged that turn.