Chaos Spawn: Broken, or just too good?

[happybounce]

 

I really think that with the Chaos codex, even more so than with normal 40k armies, what's "good" or "bad" is totally relative.

realy? you can call oblits or bale drakes bad and lets say talons good?

Yes, that is EXACTLY what I said.  I elaborate more in my previous post called "Why you should run overpriced raptors instead of the most popular Fast Attack choice in the game right now".  

 

What I'm trying to get across is that strictly calling something "good" or "bad" is not the most realistic or useful way to look at 40k.  Everything is conditional, sure, and some units are going to be conditionally good more often than others--the Baledrake of course is in here, as an absurdly undercosted one-trick pony.  But what if your opponent is running Death Wing or Double Wing?  Suddenly, that Str. 6 AP 3 flamer is a lot less useful than a squad of plasma gun bikers.  Yes, most of the time the Baledrake will kill lost of points worth of stuff, but that doesn't mean it's the only thing to take, ever.  Everything is conditional means just that--in different conditions, facing different armies, or being used by different players, some things are better than others.  The fact that the Baledrake is particularly effective at killing things doesn't negate this truth.  And in my list, guess what?  Spawn are more USEFUL.  They aren't better at killing marines, but they are better at drawing fire, assaulting Rhinos, and moving into threat range.

 

As for the "personal attack", it wasn't meant to be that, rather an honest question.  In three big hobby stores in three different cities I've met entire groups of players who spout nothing but 40k internet wisdom, then set up all their casual games as kill points with little or no terrain and just charge each other.  Yes, in those instances, there ARE such things as "good" or "bad" units--if that's all someone plays.  But the 40k internet theoryhammer mentality often does not translate well into actual games, where things like deployment, the mission, and your opponent aren't necessarily set.  40k internet theroists are the reason my buddy got stuck playing some No Scoring, I'll Table You Turn Three all Death Company army last weekend and had to listen to him complain about why he was losing the whole time.  It's why I played someone at the last Ard Boyz who was running a 2500 point Dark Eldar army they had never ran before--he bought it and ran it that morning because it was "good", and whined incessantly when my 30-terminator loyalist army won by paying attention to mission objectives.  

 

And my army . . . no, my opponents don't just sit there and accept my charge, and I often go second.  And yes sometimes turn one I lose a lot of stuff!  The other day, I lost both Rhinos AND both maulerfiends turn one.  And I still almost turned the game around!  That doesn't mean that my charges are "telegraphed".  How can they predict a 12" move and "random" charge range that is pretty reliably 8"?  With fleet re-rolls or turbo boosts, we are talking a serious threat range at the top of turn two of 36" for a lot of my army.  Add that to my 12" deployment and yes, I can get lots of places in a hurry.  The Icon of Wrath lets me re-roll my charge distance; fleet lets me re-roll one die for charging or moving.  I played four games this weekend and failed ONE charge.  

 

You seem to be making these declarations of GOOD/BAD or what my army can do based on little more than your ideas about the game. I am telling you things that I have seen, game after game, over the last few weeks.  In conclusion, Spawn are better, and I'm better for running them.

 

@toteborum: poison weapons are my downfall.  You should kick it up a notch, do something totally unexpected--run em with Mark of Tzeech! ; )

 

@Hellios: I ran the math, and it turns out spawn actually are the second best use of 30 points, behind one single Warptalon.  Kidding, you're right, they aren't useful a lot of the time, but they seem to fit REALLY well in a fast Khorne list.  My best buddy runs 1000 sons to devestating effect and ran them . . . and they didn't do much of anything.  They did make a surprising number of 6+ invun saves though.

[zyl-]

realy? you can call oblits or bale drakes bad and lets say talons good?

 

 

I actually did run an army in which obliterators were bad, and never once made their points back. I cut them for a tri-las predator, which did far better.

 

I know you have no examples like this, the jeske, but that's because you only play a very certain way.

[the jeske]

 

But what if your opponent is running Death Wing or Double Wing?

 Suddenly, that Str. 6 AP 3 flamer is a lot less useful than a squad of

plasma gun bikers

there is three tiers of answering this question . first of all . if he plays double wing then thoes bikes are dead . if he plays mono DW[more on that later]  then the chaos list is runing what 6 plasma in csm , 4 in oblits +meltas on the bikers . This means not counting unreliable melee or ally, we are doing ok against termis .

the second tier.

why is my opponent playing pure DW and why is it a problem . the only moment when both of this things happen is when both me and my opponent play 5th ed armies[my csm/pms with melta , maybe zerkers used . he playing DW in an edition full of plasma and ap2]. this means we both play bad armies . and easy as it maybe , pondering which of two bad builds is better is a waste of time .

 

third tier  .  even if tier two somehow happens , this is till 6th ed . I could still add plasma vets in vendettas to deal with those termis [not tailoring , just use them as a general meta against +2sv which got popular in 6th ed].

 

 

 

 

 But the 40k internet theoryhammer mentality often does not translate

well into actual games, where things like deployment, the mission, and

your opponent aren't necessarily set.

ok for my lols alone , tell theory hammering me , how do spawn help you more in lets say relic missions. Or in kill points . or with not giving your opponent more options to get slay the warlord ? As for terrain , I have seen tables around whole europe , I dont remember people using mass high LoS blocking terrain . In fact the bigger the even the more lava boards you see . At the same time so called "friendly" games in stores more offten then not look as if w40k was played with WFB or even Warmahordes terrain .

 

I also dont know what you mean with internent mentality . how many hours per week do you test armies , how many times to you retry it with same armies and different scenarios . You claim I dont know what am talking about ,if that is not a personal attack then I dont know what is [save maybe going after someones family].

 

 It's why I played someone at the last Ard Boyz who was running a 2500

point Dark Eldar army they had never ran before--he bought it and ran it

that morning because it was "good", and whined incessantly when my

30-terminator loyalist army won by paying attention to mission

objectives.

why would anyone play DE over 1850 in 5th ed ? doesnt matter what he picked he wouldnt have won the whole thing anyway.

 

 

 

 

And yes sometimes turn one I lose a lot of stuff!  The other day, I lost

both Rhinos AND both maulerfiends turn one.  And I still almost turned

the game around!

there is no almost in wining you lost . and your army has more random aspects then a non melee one , which means in the long run of 5 years [i doubt we get 2 codex in 1 edition] you are going to be losing more games because of the randomness more , then an army without that would . can you hope for rolling 8"+charges always ? sure you can. is it possible to roll more then 7 on 2d6 of course. but basing the working on an army around it is foolish , even if 2k+ game try too smooth that out [but on the other hand your opponent have more fire power , so stoping your random in nature army gets easier]. If one thing to works needs to roll 4 times and the other 5 time , then the one which rolls 5 is always worse .

 

 

 

You seem to be making these declarations of GOOD/BAD or what my army can

do based on little more than your ideas about the game. I am telling

you things that I have seen, game after game, over the last few weeks.

 In conclusion, Spawn are better, and I'm better for running them.

no . I make them , because I tested stuff . everything that is in the codex , including crapy stuff other people would probably never test . you armies are high cost [icons on stuff] , melee ones , your runing rhinos etc .Awesome this people must not be playing any necron flyers builds , no IG or IG mixed with something armies and probably no SW either .And when I mean play I mean good lists , because to win with just random rolling you need only one thing and that is dice.

 

 

 

 

I actually did run an army in which obliterators were bad, and never

once made their points back. I cut them for a tri-las predator, which

did far better.

post the list.

[happybounce]

Slow your roll, Gengis Khan.  There's a lot more to 40k than just winning a game.  If I want to just WIN/LOSE, even at a competitive level, well there's always video games or Pokemon cards.  The game I almost won (that you assert is meaningless, because I lost) was against a competitive Space Wolf list, running a big fat squad of thunderwolves with the decked out lord, long fangs, the whole nine yards.  And it was an AWESOME game of 40k.  I would rather lose a great, close game than win a blowout any day of the week, wouldn't you?  Hmm, maybe not, I guess your signature says where you stand on that front.

 

Spawn did a great job holding up the thunder wolves, btw.  The third game I played this weekend actually was against Necron flyers, which I won.  The spawn died horribly, but it took plenty of shooting to kill em, so my Lord joined the raptors and rocked face.  So I won a game of 40k against my friend.  If I had lost, but still had fun--well then that's fine too.  I'd be pretty miserable if I HAD to win at 40k to have fun.

 

As for not knowing what you're talking about: maybe you do, but who knows?  All you ever post is critiques on other people's lists or posts, saying the choices they made are "bad" and telling them what to do without offering any real tactical advice.  The last time you wrote a post was November, and you don't have any models in your gallery.  And for the record (not that it matters, really) I never asserted that you don't know what you're talking about any more than I told people Obliterators are "bad".  I just contradict you, because the idea that some things are inherently good/bad with no qualifiers is silly.  As for internet theoryhammer, I think that a lot of people play the RULES and not the game, and it gets old fast.

[zyl-]

post the list.

 

I can tell you exactly what you are going to say in reply to this list. Even go as far as to write an essay as if from your hands, so I'll one up you and reply to your reply before you reply. Just for fun, though, inb4 yourarmysux.

 

warpsmith

2x hellbrutes

forgefiend with autocannons

vindicator

2x oblits

10 csm 2x plasma

10csm 2x melta

rhino with havoc

rhino with havoc

 

The obliterators quickly died to small arms fire without fail, as they had no armor. And though you'd never believe it, I had a decent success rate with this army. I only lost to a chaos army that spammed lascannon havocs, and a dark eldar army that had a lot of dark lances on paper boats and fliers. After adding the tri-las predator, I did even better because I didn't have a useless throw away unit (aside from the warpsmith).

[minigun762]

Everyone, let's step back and drop the snide comments please.

[happybounce]

My bad.

 

@zyl: seems like a pretty solid vehicle based list! How did the warp smith do? I've been thinking about running a Khorne-based Dark Mechanicus army when I need a break from my normal Khorne marines. I'm making a small squad of cultists to go with him while he fixes/gives support to my vehicles. Only issue with my list so far.....no room in it for chaos spawn.

[Hellios]

post the list.

 

I can tell you exactly what you are going to say in reply to this list. Even go as far as to write an essay as if from your hands, so I'll one up you and reply to your reply before you reply. Just for fun, though, inb4 yourarmysux.

 

warpsmith

2x hellbrutes

forgefiend with autocannons

vindicator

2x oblits

10 csm 2x plasma

10csm 2x melta

rhino with havoc

rhino with havoc

 

The obliterators quickly died to small arms fire without fail, as they had no armor. And though you'd never believe it, I had a decent success rate with this army. I only lost to a chaos army that spammed lascannon havocs, and a dark eldar army that had a lot of dark lances on paper boats and fliers. After adding the tri-las predator, I did even better because I didn't have a useless throw away unit (aside from the warpsmith).

 

It is pretty well known that infantry in an otherwise all mech list are likely to die quickly... Because as you say, their small arms have no other target really. Please note this isn't a comment on the lists quality.

[jansuza]

Well THAT escalated quickly! Can we please get back to the issue at hand?

 

I've been trying different combinations of spawn, bikes and heldrakes in my list in the past 30 games or so, and I'm at the point where I believe 2 units of spawn and a heldrake are the way to go. I'm in no way saying that bikes are bad, just that spawn suits my playstyle very well indeed.

 

I play with an aegis defense line, which gets set up max distance forward, across from a terrain piece in the middle of the table, so that the spawn can go their max distance forward in turn 1 while always having been in cover in my opponent's phase. 12" deployment, 12" move plus an average of 5" run due to the reroll from fleet. The next turn, they go another 12" plus an average distance of 9" charge due to rerolls from fleet. That's a significant distance onto the table, and I have yet to not be in combat by turn 2.

 

In conjunction with a juggerlord and flying prince, my spawn go a long way, as the characters bring some necessary punch, while the spawn bring LOT of wounds and toughness, and they're not slouches in close combat by far. I'd be willing to argue that they're better in CC than bikers even.

 

Another thing I like about the spawn is that they keep the battle firmly in my opponent's side of the table due to their speed. My cultists, oblits and chaos marines remain largely untouched for the first 3/4 turns, letting them get into position and put down some fire, unhindered. I haven't even lost an oblit squad in the past 7 games as every body's too busy worrying about the spawn!

 

I've recently even been considering dropping the heldrake and getting a 3rd squad of Nurgle Spawn (shock! horror!) as they've been doing so well for me. I know it's a pretty one-sided argument, but like happybounce, I'm a really big fan!

[happybounce]

It is pretty well known that infantry in an otherwise all mech list are likely to die quickly... Because as you say, their small arms have no other target really. Please note this isn't a comment on the lists quality.

 

 

Right, but it's one thing to know that in an abstract sense, and another thing to KNOW it because you playtested it and go oh yeah, of course that happens.  Anyways, I think he was making a broader point about units in 40k being conditionally good or bad.  

 

@jansuza: if you actually give up a Baleflamer Helldrake for a third unit of Spawn, I will dogsled my way out of the frozen wasteland that is Michigan just to give you a high five.  Hell, you'll get a high TEN.  That's twice as good!

 

It's interesting, I have had similar success with my Spawn.  Mine don't always make it to combat simply because sometimes they get shot to hell--I'll occasionally put them out of cover to bait the opponent's fire away from my bikes and raptors.  Glad to see someone else running them along side fast and hitty HQ choices!  I used to run five Khorne terminators, but I found they showed up too slowly and once they had killed something they were stuck in that area of the board.  The Daemon Prince with wings is much better, and with only armor, wings and the Khorne upgrade he's a pretty good bargain for what I usually get out of him.