Modular Chaos HQ choices

[Rasclomalum]

Based on Malisteen's idea of making Chaos HQ modular. Here's my take on it. 

 

Let's say you have three basic templates, and simply buy whatever upgrades you want for them. Want psychich powers? Sure, upgrade your dude to be a psyker. Want to be a Dark Apostle? You said it boss, buy the option and get the zeal and the crozius. Warsmith? There's stuff in here for you as well! Just some quick thoughts. 

 

 

The Renegade 

 

Not sure if this fits at all actually (and the obvious alternative of course is to just have an allied IG detachment), but here it is anyway. The cheap HQ, primarily for small battles. This guy is not an Astartes, but rather an ascended cultist - the Chaos equivalent of Yarrick. The archetype we're going for here is the renegade Imperial Guard commander, the blessed cult leader, the warp-touched psyker, the insane comissar, the fed-up rogue trader etc. GEQ HQ statline, basic wargear would be something like flak or carapace armour, a laspistol and a close combat weapon. 

 

 

The Chaos Champion

 

A step up from the Renegade. Here we're looking at a 2-3W secondary marine HQ statline. The archetype here is the leader of a small Chaos warband, the Aspiring Champion who took command after the "untimely" death of his Chaos Lord, the Captain who defected from the chapter with his company, the Chaplain with a crisis of faith (if such things can be said to exist). Basic Marine HQ wargear and a wide selection of options, upgrades and wargear to choose from. 

 

The Chaos Lord

 

Works pretty much like the Chaos Champion, but has a statline along Chapter Master levels, and comes stock with some diabolic tricks up his sleeve the Champion cannot match. This is the Sorcerer Lord, the fallen Chapter Master, the Epistolary whose bad dreams turned him to Chaos, the venerable Apostle, the guy who'd give Khârn a run for his money in a dick-waving contest, the guy whose name is a bit more Alpharius than that of the others; the big player. 

 

 

Options and upgrades available to degrees that make sense. Obviously the Renegade can't take terminator armour or anything that seems power armour or geneseed reliant. Perhaps minor and major relics, with major relics excluded from the Renegade. Marks, invulnerable saves and psyker levels available to all (probably with a cap for the Renegade, say they can't go higher than lv1 or maybe lv2). Upgrades to represent everything from Warsmiths to Dark Apostles. Make Fleshmetal and Thunder Hammers (for Warsmiths and the more militant Apostles) available options. Make certain things mark-dependent, allow the Slaanesh Lords their Doom Sirens, give the Nurglites their Manreapers and make Force Weapons mandatory for the psykers if you must. 

 

 

In theory, a system like this has the potential to allow players represent the full range of Chaos. Balancing it all would probably be tricky though. 

[Iron_Within]

This HQ choices manner is what makes sense to me. I don't understand GW's strip away the options MO at all. Frankly using your model every subgroup could be represented by all of those units:

 

Dark Mechanicum Either a Heretek, Warpsmith or Exalted Warpsmith, gains the equipment/access to the equipment and skills of a Warpsmith e.g. Mechanadrills (or Servo Arm up-gradable to mechanadrills), Shatter Defenses and Machine Repair.

 

Sorcerer: Simple enough, has a psyker level, Chaos Lords can go to Level 4, Champions to Level 3 and Renegade to Level 2.

 

Voice of the Primordial Annihilator Upgrades to Demagogue, Dark Apostle, or Dark Father. Gains the abilities and equipment of the Dark Apostle, maybe more power version with each incarnation.

 

Being able to upgrade a unit to a personal retinue would be the logical next step.

[MaliGn]

This all sounds very very familiar, although you missed out the fourth level... Daemon Prince... And boom! Back to 3.5 we go!

[incinerator950]

This all sounds very very familiar, although you missed out the fourth level... Daemon Prince... And boom! Back to 3.5 we go!

 

I can't tell if there is an implication of being a bad thing.

[RolandTHTG]

 

This all sounds very very familiar, although you missed out the fourth level... Daemon Prince... And boom! Back to 3.5 we go!

 

I can't tell if there is an implication of being a bad thing.

Not a bad thing. He's just pointing out that in 3.5 There was a Lord entry and a Lieutenant entry. Both entries had access to the armory, or could be upgraded to sorcerer. The lord could take more options from the armory, and especially more demonic gifts. If he ever took over a certain points limit in Demonic gifts, he was then considered a demon prince (and usually had the stats bonuses to back it up). The crozius/servo arm were limited to their respected legion lists, but both could be taken by either level of HQ.

So the champion/Lord distinction mentioned above.

[Sception]

I think all the way back to 3.5 isn't the best way.  Princes are a relatively completely different unit (completely different stats, different unit type, probably should have different options), would rather keep them out of the running.  I'd also like to keep the categories of options distinct, so that HQs are either techy or casty or whatever, rather than all of those things at once, much as the predator can have either a lascannon turret or an autocannon turret, but not both at the same time.

 

Since we have princes as a top end HQ, I'm not sure we need a 4 wound non prince incarnation?  2 & 3 wound versions might be sufficient?

 

Either way, one unit entry, multiple stat lines at different points costs:

 

Lord (2 W), Warlord (3 W), Warmaster (4 W?  maybe not)

 

Each chaos lord would have access to weapons, wargear, specialist wargear, and artifacts (though some individual items may have their own restrictions described in their own description).  Chaos lords would also generic mark options, and a generic terminator upgrade, as well as veteran options (whether handled through a single veteran ability or a selection of veteran skills).

 

Then each warlord could (must?) select one of the following upgrades:

 

Tyrant: all about personal ability, comes with stat upgrades (+1 Ws, +1 Bs, and +1 A?), maybe some generic trait (single unit of chosen as troops?  roll twice for warlord trait and choose preferred result?), no unique wargear category, though there might be tyrant specific items or artifacts in generic categories.

 

Sorcerer: the psychic specialist, comes with a mastery level and force weapon, may choose from a special wargear category for sorcerers including additional mastery levels, familiars, and so on.

 

Warpsmith: tech specialist, comes with +1 Bs, warpsmith abilities (repair, curse, degrade terrain), and access to arcanotech wargear category with items that augment those abilities or otherwise fit into the theme (tendrils, servo arm, active buffs or debuffs, other stuff, I'm working on my own homebrew set of smith options, should be ready to post a first draft in the homebrew forum in a couple days, will post a link on this board then).

 

Apostle: passive buffs, comes with +1 Ws, crozius (power maul, 4++), zealot, fearless aura, Access to alignment based 'Creeds' that add additional upgrades units within the aura (Unaligned: +6 inches to aura, others perhaps matching 'daemon of' benefits? But a rending aura would be too much, so maybe not)...  I don't know, maybe just buff up the basic aura instead of adding optional variants.  Apostle is the end of this I've put the least thought into, and if there was an 'accursed crozius' artifact (power maul, zealot aura, 4++), we might not need this as a separate category from Tyrant at all.

[MaliGn]

Yeah, as flexible as 3.5 was there need to be caps otherwise it gets silly, either or options would work to counter this; similar to what malisteen suggests. But I can also see benefits in adding versions of these options to the prince too, as at the moment the daemon prince is a little generic.

[Sception]

I'd rather push a few more unique daemony options of his own, myself.

[Spacefrisian]

No love for the Chaos Liuetanant?

[Sception]

2 wound hqs are in all of tge above formulations of the idea.

[Iron_Within]

I think all the way back to 3.5 isn't the best way.  Princes are a relatively completely different unit (completely different stats, different unit type, probably should have different options), would rather keep them out of the running.  I'd also like to keep the categories of options distinct, so that HQs are either techy or casty or whatever, rather than all of those things at once, much as the predator can have either a lascannon turret or an autocannon turret, but not both at the same time.

 

Since we have princes as a top end HQ, I'm not sure we need a 4 wound non prince incarnation?  2 & 3 wound versions might be sufficient?

 

Either way, one unit entry, multiple stat lines at different points costs:

 

Lord (2 W), Warlord (3 W), Warmaster (4 W?  maybe not)

 

Each chaos lord would have access to weapons, wargear, specialist wargear, and artifacts (though some individual items may have their own restrictions described in their own description).  Chaos lords would also generic mark options, and a generic terminator upgrade, as well as veteran options (whether handled through a single veteran ability or a selection of veteran skills).

 

Then each warlord could (must?) select one of the following upgrades:

 

Tyrant: all about personal ability, comes with stat upgrades (+1 Ws, +1 Bs, and +1 A?), maybe some generic trait (single unit of chosen as troops?  roll twice for warlord trait and choose preferred result?), no unique wargear category, though there might be tyrant specific items or artifacts in generic categories.

 

Sorcerer: the psychic specialist, comes with a mastery level and force weapon, may choose from a special wargear category for sorcerers including additional mastery levels, familiars, and so on.

 

Warpsmith: tech specialist, comes with +1 Bs, warpsmith abilities (repair, curse, degrade terrain), and access to arcanotech wargear category with items that augment those abilities or otherwise fit into the theme (tendrils, servo arm, active buffs or debuffs, other stuff, I'm working on my own homebrew set of smith options, should be ready to post a first draft in the homebrew forum in a couple days, will post a link on this board then).

 

Apostle: passive buffs, comes with +1 Ws, crozius (power maul, 4++), zealot, fearless aura, Access to alignment based 'Creeds' that add additional upgrades units within the aura (Unaligned: +6 inches to aura, others perhaps matching 'daemon of' benefits? But a rending aura would be too much, so maybe not)...  I don't know, maybe just buff up the basic aura instead of adding optional variants.  Apostle is the end of this I've put the least thought into, and if there was an 'accursed crozius' artifact (power maul, zealot aura, 4++), we might not need this as a separate category from Tyrant at all.

 

I think there needs to be a non-Marine HQ choice, as in the OP suggested with the Renegade. Or even better have the Renegade a 1 for 4 HQ like Daemons. Some people would ask why would a Chaos Marine follow the orders of a human type, well I would ask "why not", Marines would have loads of reasons, but it summed up nicely with - it suits their plans.

[MaliGn]

 

I think there needs to be a non-Marine HQ choice, as in the OP suggested with the Renegade. Or even better have the Renegade a 1 for 4 HQ like Daemons. Some people would ask why would a Chaos Marine follow the orders of a human type, well I would ask "why not", Marines would have loads of reasons, but it summed up nicely with - it suits their plans.

I agree, and since no one takes marines in a standard net list anyway, and we play codex cultist and heldrakes we don't need a marine HQ ;-) that and they'd make snazzy conversions and characterful models, probably made from the fantasy range plus stuff but hey.

[Sception]

I wouldn't mind a dark mech hq, and honestly would refluff smiths (or smith-type lords, though if there was to be one subtheme kept as a separate entry, imo it should be smiths) ... where was i? Yeah, id refluff smiths as a dark mech thing. Maybe some are former legion or renegade techmarines, but not all. Maybe if they are they might maintain some conneotions to their former comrades, or maybe they don't. Either way, their true alliegeuce is to the dark mechanicus and the forge of souls, which I would expand upon as the chaos counterpoint to the omnissaiah, and their bodies would be so riddled with bionic and daemonic augmentation that their origil form, marine or otherwise, just doesn't matter.

 

The need for other non-marine HQ's I'm not so sure of. Renegade guard can be run from the Guard book after all.

[Iron_Within]

 

 

I think there needs to be a non-Marine HQ choice, as in the OP suggested with the Renegade. Or even better have the Renegade a 1 for 4 HQ like Daemons. Some people would ask why would a Chaos Marine follow the orders of a human type, well I would ask "why not", Marines would have loads of reasons, but it summed up nicely with - it suits their plans.

I agree, and since no one takes marines in a standard net list anyway, and we play codex cultist and heldrakes we don't need a marine HQ ;-) that and they'd make snazzy conversions and characterful models, probably made from the fantasy range plus stuff but hey.

I would prefer along the lines of making Marines worth taking as well however. If it's a Fandex might as well do both.

[incinerator950]

 

 

I think there needs to be a non-Marine HQ choice, as in the OP suggested with the Renegade. Or even better have the Renegade a 1 for 4 HQ like Daemons. Some people would ask why would a Chaos Marine follow the orders of a human type, well I would ask "why not", Marines would have loads of reasons, but it summed up nicely with - it suits their plans.

I agree, and since no one takes marines in a standard net list anyway, and we play codex cultist and heldrakes we don't need a marine HQ ;-) that and they'd make snazzy conversions and characterful models, probably made from the fantasy range plus stuff but hey.

 

Codex plague marine?