Chaos Index

[Excessus]

*ahem*

 

At this point I should probably say that we should go back to the topic at hand, the Chaos Index, and if people want to discuss the fluff as in-depth as we have been doing for a while now it's time to start a new topic...

[Sonoftherubric21]

So Chaos index questions of note just to give some clarity and direction to this conversation..including for any "early" leakers ;-) 
 

1) Traitor legions, how do the keywords effect given units within these legions, how do they effect builds, how do they effect abilities

 

What would said advantage of taking "keyword; Black legion" over just some undivided army under the "chaos" blanket keyword. The same would also go for characters; we know how Typhus effects pox-walkers, I would imagine Ahriman, Lucius, Magnus, Abbadon, and any other characters within would have access to key-word based bonuses for a given unit type

 

Note; there is a CLEAR distinction between "faction" keywords and specialized "unit" keywords. I imagine in game effects for these will be abundant. 

 

2) Unit prices, this is a big one. Obviously most of the "random" = FUN!" chaos elements are gone, But from that we need to know unit pricing structure, where do we fall, around loyalist price? or higher to compensate for added versatility of things like marks, dedications, and load outs, as well as Cult units and how they interact.

 

Since we can clearly see that vehicles are capable of being Keyword Marked thanks to forgeworlds leviathan data sheet.  Are our costs being normalized? or are we retaining current costs but being buffed accordingly?  (I would actually imagine it being a bit of both) 

 

3) On the subject; Marks...do they do anything game-wise or is it like AOS where they just give a certain allowance for keywords to effect them?  I would imagine this will probably be like AOS, a tzeentch marked unit will still be allowed in tzeentch lists but may not receive any innate bonuses unless you get a keyword synergy with a given character. 

 

4) Strategms; do legions get any?  If so what kind? how many? is it just 'chaos" strategms or is it more specific under "Black legion has these, word bearers have these" and any special detachments we may have that allow for using them. 

 

5) Relics/items; same as above, who has them, how many? 

 

Anything I missed? 

[MaliGn]

Other things to know would be have they "fixed" units like helbrute, possessed, warp talons etc to a point where they are worth fielding? Even in matched play.

[the jeske]

hellbrutes would be ok in 8th if A fiends didn't exist and B knights were not there, and optional C people didn't use better FW dreads.

[Excessus]

hellbrutes would be ok in 8th if A fiends didn't exist and B knights were not there, and optional C people didn't use better FW dreads.

 

Depending on their cost, of course...

[Brother Aiwass]

If we get contemptors with dual butcher cannons I'm ok with that :)

 

Anyway, we still need to see the dread and fiends profiles and points.

[Redtoof]

Anyone secretly suspecting that one of our large, rage filled models (maybe bloodthirster, defiler or one of the forge world khorne walkers) will get more attacks as it is damaged? That might be an interesting twist on the damage tables?

[Kol Saresk]

We've been told that we're getting formations. Some might be keyword specific, some might not be.

 

As for keywords in units, I imagine they're going to be something like "units with this keyword gets access to this(these) rule(s). So for Legion keywords, units only get access to either a specific Legion(for example, Rubricae have the keyword Thousand Sons), or it will get access to whichever Legion the army chooses. Which is probably determined by your warlord. So if your Warlord is a Night Lord, then all units in your primary detachment are Night Lords, unless they have keywords that prevent them from being Night Lords(who knows, it might be a thing).

[Sception]

I would not expect keywords to grant rules.  They don't in AoS.  Instead, some rules reference keywords.  For instance, you wouldn't see "units with the World Eaters keyword can re-roll the charge dice", you would instead see a "World Eater Blood Butcher" character for the World Eaters faction with the special rule "units with the World Eaters keyword within 12" of a Blood Butcher can re-roll the charge dice".

 

I'm not saying they couldn't attack rules to keywords, but it's not what they've been doing in AoS, and it would conflict with the design intent of putting all of a unit's rules on its datasheet so you don't have to go searching about for the units special rules.

 

Also, where did you hear there were going to be formations?  Last I heard they were specifically gone, like, not even the paid formations of AoS, just no formations at all.

[DreamIsCollapsing]

4) Strategms; do legions get any?  If so what kind? how many? is it just 'chaos" strategms or is it more specific under "Black legion has these, word bearers have these" and any special detachments we may have that allow for using them

 

The live FAQ was pretty clear : YES. Well the exemple was for Blood Angel (who can use "Imperium" and "Space marines" stratagems, but also "Blood Angel" stratagems), but we already know (thanks to the Forgeworld datasheet) than any Traitors legions can be represented in Faction Keyworld. 

 

Also, where did you hear there were going to be formations?  Last I heard they were specifically gone, like, not even the paid formations of AoS, just no formations at all.

 

 

Yea i didn't heard a come back of formations too. But imo they are just going to be remplace by Faction Keyword. For example : 

V7 Kakophony Formation : 1 Chaos Lord with MoS/Lucius + 3-6 noise marines squads of the Emperor's Children legion : All sonic weapon get Shred

V8 : Emperor's Children Chaos lord get the "Kakophony rules" : All units with "Emperor's Children" Faction Key word at 12" get Shred on all their Sonic weapon.

[Kol Saresk]

Oh. Right. They're called "detachments" now. It's in the article about Battle-forged armies. So there won't be "Chaos Warband - you need to fill this, this, and this", but there will be "These are what you can pick using this alternate Force Org chart".

 

The difference is negligible in my opinion.

 

A Formation is a list you have to build into, a Force Org is just a minimum requirement with options that cap out at various points.

 

But they also say that any current formation built armies will have a Detachment that can represent them.

[Sception]

True, but detachments, from what we've seen, aren't unique to specific factions, don't require specific units (2+ 'troop units', not 2+ 'plague marine units'), and don't come with special rules apart from command points, though some of the abilities you can spend command points on are supposedly faction specific.

[Sonoftherubric21]

hellbrutes would be ok in 8th if A fiends didn't exist and B knights were not there, and optional C people didn't use better FW dreads.

 

Lol Nope; 

 

Helbrutes for the point cost and effectiveness will be far cheaper this edition.  

Knights; inconsequential as they are a whole OTHER gradient of power, you would need to take 3-4 helbrutes to equal a knight. 

 

Forgeworld dreads...being...."better"....uhhhhhhhhh no. not really, for almost triple/well over double the point cost. 

[1000 Sons]

Hoping that the Brass Scorpion is redone, such an awesome model deserves to be played far more often.

[Sception]

Look, points and efficiency and whatever may or may not work out in 'brutes favor, but let's be honest here, they're sharing a conceptual niche with a lot of other units, and within that niche helbrutes are the generic example, everything else is 'helbrute +'.  maulers are melee brutes, but bigger and faster.  forges are shooty brutes, but bigger and shootier.  FW dreads and dread equivalents are brutes but with better weapons.  Defilers are brutes but bigger and with ordinance.  The main things propping up brutes at all currently are formations, and those are going away, and what are brutes left with?

 

They won't just need to be cheaper then those alternatives, they'll need to be a lot cheaper, and I'm not sure I see that happening.  But even if it does, even if brutes become our best chaos walky guys, then the risk is that some other chaos mid sized walker becomes the lame duck.  Balancing out several similar options is hard.  The 8e developers seem to have managed with the different kinds of power weapon, maybe they'll pull it off again here, but it's a difficult needle to thread, and even now, two editions later, I'm still a little annoyed that GW put themselves in this position by giving us two more walkers when we already had plenty, and what we needed was alternative delivery options, not alternative battle robos.

[Sonoftherubric21]

Are you under the assumption brutes are getting "nothing" in the rework?  Huh. 

 

I get the whole "same slot" issue, but if each walker gets its own set of abilities, its safe to assume that the helbrute will get something substantial. 

[Sception]

Sure it will have its own abilities.  It has its own abilities now.  I'm just not convinced that those abilities will be sufficient to give it a sufficiently distinct battlefield role from contemptors, decimators, blood slaughterers, forgefiends, maulerfiends, and defilers that there won't be at least a few in that list that turn out to be 'the better version' or 'the worse version' of each other.

 

Hopefully they're all at least playable in and of themselves, despite my previous comments, that's really all I ask.  I can accept a helbrute that is basically the same but worse compared to a contemptor, so long as the helbrute isn't just plain bad in and of itself.  I'm much more confident that they'll pull off that, though not yet 100% convinced.  Given how damaging some of the heavier weapons we've seen are, 8 wounds isn't actually all that much.  We'll see.

[Sonoftherubric21]

ya know...thats fair. 

 

I never actually sat down and thought about just How bloody many walkers there are in chaos.......Quite a few of the buggers. 

[Sception]

And probably more come june, what with how we seem to be picking up some more of the loyalist & 30k toys.  I wouldn't be shocked to see chaos versions of the castellax automata, for instance.

 

We really do have too many mid-scale walkers.  I don't dislike any of them in and of themselves, I don't even dislike the fiends for all some people hate on their design.  But I do still grump at the fiend kit because two more walkers was basically the last thing our faction needed at the time.  What we needed was more delivery options, and the same codex that gave us the fiends actually took away some of the few delivery options we already had.

[Archaeinox]

If the Helbrute rules are nice I will get an Osiron.

[Sception]

If they're nice I'll actually finish building and painting some of the several brutes I already own.

[Raven1]

I've always like dreadnoughts, I think a big problem as has been stated before is there has been more competitive options along the same lines as the Helbrute. It ends up bring overshadowed by its bigger siblings and cousins. I see it being more of a budget option this go round. Which is kinda sad as im begining to doubt thst everything is as balanced as they are claiming, but I guess I have to wait for the 17 to see.

[Redtoof]

The Hellbrute's niche might be 'the reliable cheap walker' - it could be the only one that has few enough wounds that it doesn't degrade with damage?

[Khornestar]

I'm hoping the blood slaughterer keeps its abilities, i.e. deep strike and the impaler. Perhaps it'll be one of the few units that can semi-reliably DS and charge, as a result.

 

 

The point about us having too many damn walkers is a good one. At least in this edition there was effort and thought put into making them all unique and worthwhile, even if those efforts failed.

[Archaeinox]

I'm going to compare it to the Ogroid Thaumature in AoS and guess that it wont have a chart.