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Bodyguards for Chaos Lords


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It really depends how you kit your lord. Terminator armor with terminators, a bike with bikers, a steed with spawn, a jump pack with raptors (LOL!), or on foot with troops on foot. A squad of 35 fearless cultists can protect any lord for an almost indefinite amount of time for him to get where he wants to go on foot, and it is cheap. But idk what I would use it for. Maybe a lord on a palanquin of nurgle with 35 cultists surrounding him? For a terminator, I would have him teleport in with 5 terminators. They can protect him for a turn and dish out some hurt as well.

I'd say depends on three factors what equiptment, which faction you take and how many points you have to use on this unit. If you have plenty of points then I'd say Bikes. If your low on points then spawns. If you're using a Juggernaut Lord I'd say Spawns. If you're using the MoS then I'd say bikes to get the Icon and FNP. Nurgle Bikers are also nice. I've seen people use Raptors also or Warp Talons but I dont think they are as effective. Also Terminators are ok if you're gonna bring a LR for them.

i mainly use juggerlord and its usually attached to melta bikes. and most of the time the bodyguards die by their second turn, which really pees me off. but its the 3+ save and meltaguns that makes me want to take it. but but!!! SPAWNS has 3 wounds!!!

Generally, bikes - they're reasonably durable, reasonably cheap, and fast enough to get a similarly mounted lord where he needs to be in the second turn. The main advantage of bikes over spawn as a lord escort is that they can take a champion to tank a challenge your lord doesn't want any part of, either because he'll get killed or because killing troops would be a better use of his time.

 

A max squad of cultitsts is probably the cheapest and most durable way of delivering an expensive infantry character, so long as they're fearless. Alternatively, plague marines make a respectable escort, on foot or in a rhino. CSMs tend not to have the durability to escort characters infantry style, and to fit in a rhino they'd need to drop a plasmagun, so that's not ideal. That said I have run a squad of 12 to 14 marching up the field with an infantry lord or warpsmith and it worked out alright. Chosen are generally too expensive for their durability to play bodyguards. Terminators are ok, but have difficulty with delivery - their weaponry is too short range to make walking an attractive option, deep striking is too risky without access to homing beacons for most players' tastes, and the chaos land raider is rather points inefficient and restricts the squad to a pretty painfully small size - probably about two terminators less than you'd generally want to run in a bodyguard.

 

If you are going the land raider route, there's something to be said for nurgle mutilators, maligned as the unit is. Yeah, they lack that important champion, and their offense is kind of lackluster for their points cost, but they do let you squeeze a couple more T5, Terminator-armored wounds into that cramped land raider. If you're looking for a death star type unit, terminator lord + sorc (Or Abby + Typhus if you really want to splurge) with three nurgle mutes in a land raider is about the closest we get.

 

Of course, if you've got alternate deployment shenanigans, then things open up a bit more. There's something to be said for the outflanking, steed mounted slaaneshi lord who shows up with his cultist horde, or noise marines, or plasmagunning terminator or chosen squad. And Huron or Ahriman have a bit more flexibility, though due to deployment order hassles they need to roll at least a 2 on their d3 in order to infiltrate themselves or another character alongside a retinue, so they're often better off hanging back and just pushing forward as many plasmaguns or scoring units as they can.

I like to infiltrate/outflank Huron attached to a chosen squad.
I've seen juggerlord/spawn used to great effect, as well as bikers/bikelord. 

I used terminators for a while and just gave up, they never performed for me and landraiders are, imo, too expensive in both points & money to be worth using.
however, having said that, we have no other assault transports barring even MORE expensive forgeworld stuff... 
ah, the life of an assault army.

How about if your lord w. bodyguard usually hides behind rhino's for that first turn and move up behind them, claiming cover save due to being obscured. which would be better? spawn or bikes? I was thinking of running either 5 bikes w. 2 meltaguns or 5 spawns with the jugger lord...

 

and also now with Tau and eldar as well, which would be much much more effective?

 

I like hiding the lord w. termi armour with cultist and get him to tank, and when he suffers a wound thats when you start the look out sirs. but yeah, it just takes too damn long to get there and they can easily be avoided...

With the jugger lord I lean spawn, since jugger plus bikes aren't allowed to run (the jugger can 'run' but the bikes can't, the bikes can 'turbo boost' but the jugger can't, so the unit as a whole can't do either). However, I prefer bikes (both for the retinue and, consequently, for the lord mount), because the bikes can take a champ, without which the lord's challenge obligations can be a problem.

I usually take bikes for several reasons, amongst them are: they are cheaper than spawn, they have access to very good ranged weapons, they have a similar survivability, they have a champion to tank challenges. Of course there are negatives as well, they don't have the amazing damage output in melee as bikes do, but have grenades so they won't get bogged down by a single dread, they have to take dangerous terrain tests in difficult terrain, their champion has to challenge, so the unit is practically useless in assulting MCs or lone characters...and that's about it...

 

Bikers and Spawn have different areas of expertise for sure, and fit together with different HQ. I usually leave my sorcerer in the biker squad (they are more a support and counter-assult unit anyway) and my juggerlord in the spawn squad.

Body guards simply don't have the effect they really should for Chaos.

 

I'll be honest, I've seen stuff work that you wouldn't think of... and almost anything does work depending on the role, expense, and function of the retinue. Ideally you'd love to have an 'Abaddon' type character waltzing down the table top and killing everything in sight with his retinue.

 

I've seen some weird stuff that can work, even the much maligned Mutilators accompanying Terminator characters. It can work.

 

This is one of the tricks of forming a Chaos list. In some codexes it seems simpler to just match up your HQ with the appropriate squad, but with Chaos it's fairly volatile. You have some no brainers like a Biker Lord, but what do you do with a Warpsmith, or Sorc? It gets tricky making these guys work.

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