Possessed concept

[MaliGn]

Just a thought, would Possessed be more usable if they started the game as apparently normal CSM with bolter and all standard equipment then each turn you'd roll to see if the possession kicked in, which would transform them into the daemonically charged killing machines we know and ignore?

[Spaz431]

Fluff wise that sounds cool. But if you have read "First Heretic," not the case. Possessed already have their daemon counterpart swimming beneath the skin. Just it's not obvious outside of battle. They are forever sealed inside of their power armor. To pull that off on table would require you and a buddy trying to create a cinematic, that could cause you to lose a valuable team due to bad rolls.

[Smurfalypse]

I do not see how rules wise that makes them more "useable".

[Xenith]

It used to be like this with greater daemons in the 3.5 codex. The daemon host gets boosted stats, and you roll every turn to see if he becomes possessed.

 

It's hard to implement in game for a whole unit.

 

Or maybe like the DE pain token tracker, getting bonuses for everything they kill.

 

Or just turn based improvements, such as: T1, unit gets first bonus on chart, T2 move up the chart, T3, they get the next stage, ultimately becoming godly toward then endgame. A consistent set of improvments also lets the opponent know whats going on, and lets both players plan for the late game, no surprises with constant random tables.

 

The opponent then has to kill them asap, as otherwise they will munch their army.

[Warsmith Aznable]

Letting you purchase a mutation you want for the squad rather than random rolls every turn might be all you need to do to fix them.

[Slayer le Boucher]

Or the whole unit can roll on the Chaos boons table at the end of each turn they have killed models, would be interesting...

[MaliGn]

I was thinking more that if equippedwith bolters they would have some offensive power early doors and then the possession would be triggered like reserve rolls. Burias in the Dark Apostle series certainly seems to be able to suppress Drak'shiel as required. This would help offset the lack of delivery mechanism and would represent the daemon coming to the fore as the heat of battle rises at this point they would lose their bolters and you switch out the models.

[Sception]

They need to be rethought completely. Infantry speed melee only unit with no shooting at all, no grenades, no assault transport, no significant speed upgrade, no more attacks than a regular dude with bp/ccw, and basically only chaos marine durability for nearly double the cost of a basic chaos marine on a non-scoring elite choice is just a non-starter. Even if you could pick power weapons or rending claws all the time, instead of rolling and hoping they get something useful when they need it, they still wouldn't be worth it.

 

Leave fearless, fleet, and the Daemon rule. Give them back their assault grenades. Give them pair rending claws ('daemonic talons and blades') all the time, and let them choose between wings/jump packs (possibly replacing warp talons as a unit altogether), drop pod, and a mid armor, mid cost assault transport. Make their random roll a stat bonus (1-2 +1 WS, 3-4 +1 S, 5-6 +1 Attack).

[Dallas Drake]

They have Fleet, which is pretty important for a melee unit plus Deamon gives them a bit more survivability. I can handle them not having 'guns', but they should be able to get up close to the enemy more reliably for their points cost, I don't mind the random table they have, though obviously I'd prefer to choose their upgrades if possible. I think they need the following: grenades, infiltrate/scout, -5 points. Either that, or some ability to charge out of Outflanking (Burias & his WB Possessed kin often fill the role of vanguards/scouts in the WB books).  

 

Dallas

[Sception]

Daemon is pretty limited in terms of survivability. Doesn't make them any more resiliant against small arms fire, which is more than happy to kill them through their power armor, given their points cost. Less points would be a meaningful resilience boost, but I feel they aren't priced wrong, they're about as expensive as I'd want possessed marines to cost, they just don't have the offensive and defensive ability to back up that points cost.

 

As a melee only unit in a shooting dominated edition, they need either the speed to get into combat quickly or the resilience to suffer multiple rounds of shooting and still have enough meaningful attacks left over to pose a threat. Right now they have neither. That resilience could come from numbers (by being cheaper), but I'd rather not go that way, so I'd prefer they have appropriate speed, either through assault transport or jump packs, or preferably the option for either.

 

As a melee elite unit, they're highly dependent on their melee weapons, and at the moment that means their random roll is a random roll to see if they can even do their job at all. To me that's unacceptable. The random roll should be a bonus, not a roll to see if there was even a point to buying them in the first place. They're expensive enough that having rending or power weapons all the time wouldn't be inappropriate, and as that's also fitting for an expensive, non scoring, elite assault specialist unit in a supposedly melee-oriented codex, that's what I'd want to see on them.

 

They should have the tools to do their job by default. Random extras should be paying for the chance to do their job better, not paying for the chance to do their job at all.

[Deadlight]

you could always use the mutilators and convert them to look like possessed. if i was going to do possessed, thats how i would do it

[Hezirah]

you could always use the mutilators and convert them to look like possessed. if i was going to do possessed, thats how i would do it

I'm not sure if Mutilators are any more viable than Possessed..

[Sception]

I am actually magnetizing some possessed arms to use with my trio of newly magnetized terminators as 'terminator possessed' counts-as mutilators.

 

I was as anti-mutilator as anybody when the new book came out, but I've heard some positive reviews of nurgle muts at least, either as individual deep strike distractions or as trios with Abby & sorcerer in a land raider for the 'all your eggs in one basket' type assault star. Sadly I lack the land raider to try it out, but nothing wrong with making allowances for the future.

 

'll probably mostly run them as the more typical three combi-melta terminators with axes and maybe a fist, but that's the joy of magnets. Anyway, once I have the option, I'll have to run them as muts once or twice to try them out. Maybe I'll end up having to eat my prior words (although even if I do, I'll still feel they should have had rampage instead of slow and purposeful, and oblits and muts should have been T5 to start, and the mark of nurgle should do something else because increased toughness is too big a deal for multiwound models that have to deal with instant death, and their fluff shouldn't have been such a half hearted regurgitation of oblit fluff, and and and...)

 

I'll probably pick up a box of muts/oblits if they're ever released as a plastic dual kit (which has to have been the initial plan, right? why else would mutilators even exist? they're so half baked otherwise), mostly to have a couple more oblits, but partially because I like to have the option to field anything from my book, whether I use it regularly or not.

 

I actually have ten possessed, converted from a mix of plastic possessed, chaos spawn, and chaos marine parts, that I have never used. Would be nice if there was some point to them one day, If only to give me the motivation to get them painted.

[Urdokadin]

If you look at fantasy; last edition they had that utterly useless unit of forsaken that didn't have models until the next iteration of the warriors of chaos book. Something to think about with mutilators. :(

[TheDevourer]

Only that mutilators aren t utterly useless. They are excellent distraction units, that if left alone can tear a chunk of armor or tarpit shooty units. They may not be at the power level of heldrakes, but I find them quite useful every now and then. It´s just hard to incorporate them in lists with aforementioned heldrake being an option aswell as oblits.

[Shuggnuggath]

They should at least have given possessed deepstrike so we could use Codex Daemons Icons to deliver them.

[Smurfalypse]

They need to be rethought completely. Infantry speed melee only unit with no shooting at all, no grenades, no assault transport, no significant speed upgrade, no more attacks than a regular dude with bp/ccw, and basically only chaos marine durability for nearly double the cost of a basic chaos marine on a non-scoring elite choice is just a non-starter. Even if you could pick power weapons or rending claws all the time, instead of rolling and hoping they get something useful when they need it, they still wouldn't be worth it.<br /><br />Leave fearless, fleet, and the Daemon rule. Give them back their assault grenades. Give them pair rending claws ('daemonic talons and blades') all the time, and let them choose between wings/jump packs (possibly replacing warp talons as a unit altogether), drop pod, and a mid armor, mid cost assault transport. Make their random roll a stat bonus (1-2 +1 WS, 3-4 +1 S, 5-6 +1 Attack).

 

Agreed, they need to be completely redone IMO. I also like your changes, would make them at least usable.

[Deus de Mortalis]

You just have to think that somewhere, some guys playtested possessed this and last editions and came to the conclusion that they were fine. I guess they were the same people that decided nobody would ever use more than one demon prince or that thousand sons are a brilliant infantry unit...

[MaliGn]

Has anyone actually tried house ruling any of the changes we suggest and playtesting them? It would be interesting to document the results.

[Sception]

No, and I don't think anyone will. Yeah, Dark Elves and Chaos Dwarves have pulled that kind of thing off in the past, but the problems in our book aren't bad enough, the CSM community isn't organized enough, and the conception within that community of what our book should have looked like isn't consistent enough for any sort of real playtest fixes to happen, or to matter outside of the one home game they were played in if they do.

[Kol Saresk]

No, and I don't think anyone will. Yeah, Dark Elves and Chaos Dwarves have pulled that kind of thing off in the past, but the problems in our book aren't bad enough, the CSM community isn't organized enough, and the conception within that community of what our book should have looked like isn't consistent enough for any sort of real playtest fixes to happen, or to matter outside of the one home game they were played in if they do.

It's Chaos. Pun intended.

[TheDevourer]

To be honest I´m writing up a dex to my own flavour at the moment. (No not because I hate the codex or because I think it is weak). I´m actually kind of fine playwise with the new chaos dex. But I don´t like the the design. Also I enjoy writing rules and trying to balance them. Already did an Exodite Codex a few years ago and that worked out fairly well in play tests I managed. Getting a decent chaos dex set up will probably take a couple of months and I´ll probably over complicate it with all the things I want to include, but will enjoy the project nonetheless =). 

[Deus de Mortalis]

To be honest I´m writing up a dex to my own flavour at the moment. (No not because I hate the codex or because I think it is weak). I´m actually kind of fine playwise with the new chaos dex. But I don´t like the the design. Also I enjoy writing rules and trying to balance them. Already did an Exodite Codex a few years ago and that worked out fairly well in play tests I managed. Getting a decent chaos dex set up will probably take a couple of months and I´ll probably over complicate it with all the things I want to include, but will enjoy the project nonetheless =).

It is sad, but that seems like more effort than was put into some parts of our codex!

[Dammeron]

They've never worked; even when they existed in their original incarnation back in the RoC books, they were weird, clumsy and nearly impossible to use. The entire concept of Possessed needs to be reconsidered, from the foundations up. A few suggestions: 

 

1. Eliminate "Possessed" as a unit; have it exist as an upgrade that can be purchased for characters and/or units. Those that purchase it gain the daemon USR and access to some random powers. 

 

2. Have the unit function as a specialised assault force that can move through the Warp (this could also be used for daemonic units such as Mutilators and Warp Talons to make them more functional). This could be implemented by allowing the unit to make precision deep strikes if they are within so many inches of a particular enemy that they've been scenting through the Warp, and to perhaps withdraw back into the Warp after making hit and run attacks, or something to that effect. 

 

3. Have the unit function either bound or unbound according to the Chaos player's choice: when bound, they function as normal Chaos Space Marines with all the usual weaponry and the Daemonic USR. When unbound, they get access to all manner of crazy abilities but are somewhat difficult to control. 

 

4. Allow the daemons inhabiting the bodies of Possessed to physically manifest once the unit is destroyed, or allow them to emerge voluntarily according to the whims of the owning player. 

 

5. at their most basic (and somewhat dull), simply allow Possessed to purchase whatever abilities they have before the battle starts.