Chosen/Possessed in 8th?

[Bulwyf]

How have you guys faired with Chosen and Possessed in 8th so far? I've been wanting to load up on them for my Nigh Lords to try and take advantage of the morale strategy.

[the jeske]

chosen cost too much and struggle in to getting in to range. As shoty platform havocks are much better. Possessed suffer from the same speed problem, it is better to run other melee units[and chaos has a few of those], either because of better stats or cheaper point cost. Posssessed have to get some sort of a speed buff, otherwise they will always end up being compared to terminators. And termintors do melee and shoting, which means better utility.

[Sception]

I love my chosen, they are fantastic... as display models.

 

Unfortunately, they're very fragile in game.  You can get a fair amount of firepower out of them, but you can get the same amount of firepower cheaper out of havocs, or more expensive but with much greater defense out of terminators.

 

The other issue, as jeske mentions, is delivery.  I run my chosen in a dreadclaw, again because they're pretty, but that dreadclaw costs 200 points and doesn't do all that much beyond delivering the chosen.  For less points than the chosen and the claw, I can take terminators instead, who, again, have at least as good firepower, much greater durability, and deliver themselves.

 

This is not to say they're terrible, I've had better luck with them in 8th then in seventh, where they were even more expensive and their firepower was less impressive.

 

If you really want to get the most out of chosen, consider running alpha legion, or running the chosen /as/ alpha legion in a side detachment.  One command point to infiltrate them does wonders, putting them in range to both shoot and assault from turn one, letting you leverage all of their offensive traits, without spending a lot of points on delivery.

 

 

I haven't run possessed yet.  Again, they are much better than they were, but that still doesn't necessarily make them 'good'.  They have similar problems to chosen with delivery, compounded by being a melee only unit, so a rhino or dreadclaw isn't really going to be ideal for delivering them.  Fortunately, they're at least somewhat more resilient than chosen, thanks to the second wound.

 

They also have better movement speed by default, so warp time in conjunction with an icon of khorne might be enough to deliver them, especially in a renegade army where they can also advance.

 

Of course, the best way to deliver them, again, is the alpha legion stratagem.  All of our melee infantry elites benefit hugely from that stratagem.

 

 

I want to emphasize that these units /are/ better than they were, but that still doesn't mean they're good, especially compared to powerhouse choices like terminators or more efficient units like helbrutes.  If you want to take them anyway for thematic or aesthetic reasons, you'll get the most out of them by running them as Alpha Legion and using the stratagem to infiltrate them into first turn assault range.  Back them up with enough dakka to clear screens out of their way if necessary, especially for possessed with their longer movement range and lack of shooting.

 

For other legions....   maybe somebody will figure out how to use them better than me, but for my Black Legion so far they're still mostly vanity units more than anything else.

[micahwc]

For Alpha Legion they shine over Havoks when you only want to spend one command point to infiltrate and you want to bring as much plasma as possible, you can get a few more plasma guns in. Rapid Fire extra plasma. And then spend 2 command points to fire them again if they are Slanesh chosen. Then assault with base 2 attacks each.

[Panzer]

Haven't tried any yet but on paper Chosen get outclassed by every alternative choice. Havocs shoot better, Possessed do melee better. They really are in a sad state and could use some cool and unique special rule to make them worth taking without making them better in melee than Possessed or better in shooting than Havocs.

[Sception]

For alpha legion, they're ok. One cp for a unit that does close range shooting better than havovs, while still having more asdault punch than basic CSMs if less than possessed or zerks.

[Bulwyf]

Considering this idea would by for a pure Night Lords army, it sounds like this may not work. I don't know what else for close combat you can use for Night Lords to really take the most effect for the morale thing. You can only take so many raptors...

[Brother Aiwass]

Take berzerkers. The enemy would know fear when they hit their lines, even without the raptor debuff xD

[GreaterChickenofTzeentch]

I find that Possessed are pretty good as a counterassault unit in an IW army, where you already have tons of cheap shooting and disposable bodies and need something cheaper than Terminators (which you have likely already bought) to deal a solid counterpunch while your TEQ units focus on teleporting in and smashing stuff.

 

They are more than fast enough to respond to a breach in a gunline and shore it up, especially with Warptime. 5 of them only cost 110 points. That's not too bad for something that exists to sit behind Cultists and then jumpscare people who get too close to your Warlord or Havocs. I had 6 of them beat the stuffing out of an 8-man World Eater Biker squad after they broke through my line. Thanks to invuln saves, they also survived a fair amount of Battle Cannon fire from my opponent's knight and 3 of them lived to charge again.

 

Small units of them also do well running behind shooty tanks like Preds or Land Raiders (or even inside in the Land Raider's case).

 

Other cases where Possessed are nice:

 

Alpha Legion (as Malisteen mentioned)

 

Chaos Daemon allies (many of the Chaos Daemon buffs, such as Heralds, the Changeling, Greater Daemon Morale auras, and Psychic powers will transfer to Possessed). Word Bearers can just summon the Heralds they need rather reliably. The Dark Apostles that you'll have anyway make it work even better.

 

In most other cases, Spawn will work better unless you specifically need to fill Elite slots or you know you will be facing lots of Power Weapons or similar. Terminators will work better at just about everything unless you don't have the points or you're playing against someone who pushes a lot of units out and crowds the table with truckloads of Scouts and/or Sentinels to deny DS. That latter one is a fairly common strategy on the U.S. West Coast.

[Closet Skeleton]

I've only played one game (against knights) with the new chaos rules and took 1 unit of 10 slaanesh possessed with icon and 1 of 8 Khorne berzerkers both in rhinos.

 

Getting a 3 on attacks with the possessed was murder. Then they took casualties and became useless.

 

But I'll keep using them because I don't want two units of berserkers.

[Gothical]

On paper I certainly like the Possessed - good base Movement, great combination of Wounds, Armour and Invulnerable, great Strength and AP, and pretty cheap for all of that. They're better against Armour Saves and are far more durable than Khorne Berzerkers (but lose out on sheer melee damage output), they're almost as tough as Terminators but much faster and able to ride in a Rhino (but lack ranged output and deployment options). Cost-wise they're in between these options as well.

 

They can be a great unit to drop Veterans of the Long War on, especially since thanks to the "Sequencing" side-bar you can choose to roll for their number of attacks before deciding whether to use the Stratagem or not - 3x S5 attacks with +1 To Wound and AP-2 are going to do a lot of damage, even to vehicles.

 

They are also a good target for Psychic Powers, doing the above whilst hitting on 2s is just mean, whilst being able to move 14" via Warptime can allow them to get off great charges or counter-attacks. Any of the defensive God-Powers are going to be pretty good as well.

 

The only drawback, and it is a big one, is their randomised attacks. Averaging 2 attacks is great (same as Terminators and Berzerkers without Chainswords), rolling a 3 is awesome, but the possibility of trying to set up either a combo or a critical counter-charge and rolling a 1-2 is very real. There's always the Command Stratagem for a single re-roll in a phase, but you never want to be relying on that to get good/great output from a unit.

 

Overall I think they are good, usable, solid - however you want to define it - fantastic for, as mentioned above, holding back to bolster your lines.

[DreamIsCollapsing]

On paper I certainly like the Possessed - good base Movement, great combination of Wounds, Armour and Invulnerable, great Strength and AP, and pretty cheap for all of that. They're better against Armour Saves and are far more durable than Khorne Berzerkers (but lose out on sheer melee damage output), they're almost as tough as Terminators but much faster and able to ride in a Rhino (but lack ranged output and deployment options). Cost-wise they're in between these options as well.

 

They can be a great unit to drop Veterans of the Long War on, especially since thanks to the "Sequencing" side-bar you can choose to roll for their number of attacks before deciding whether to use the Stratagem or not - 3x S5 attacks with +1 To Wound and AP-2 are going to do a lot of damage, even to vehicles.

 

They are also a good target for Psychic Powers, doing the above whilst hitting on 2s is just mean, whilst being able to move 14" via Warptime can allow them to get off great charges or counter-attacks. Any of the defensive God-Powers are going to be pretty good as well.

 

The only drawback, and it is a big one, is their randomised attacks. Averaging 2 attacks is great (same as Terminators and Berzerkers without Chainswords), rolling a 3 is awesome, but the possibility of trying to set up either a combo or a critical counter-charge and rolling a 1-2 is very real. There's always the Command Stratagem for a single re-roll in a phase, but you never want to be relying on that to get good/great output from a unit.

 

Overall I think they are good, usable, solid - however you want to define it - fantastic for, as mentioned above, holding back to bolster your lines.

 

Dont forget the Daemonic spells : Virulent Blessing with VotLW and you got autowound on MEQ (double damage on 5+ with VotLW), boon of change is meh, hysterical Frenzy is godlike. 

[Cryptix]

I hope possessed aren't bad considering I spent the last two hours chopping up Custodes to make them...

Edited August 20, 2017 by Swarmlord Unleashed

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Errrr.... customers? I hope that's a typo.

[Cryptix]

Errrr.... customers? I hope that's a typo.

We are in the chaos forum  .

 

but yah, I meant Custodes.

[hushrong]

Thanks for the good laugh, Swarmlord and Iron Father.

 

I will probably be trying out the Alpha Legion Chosen with plasma guns, with the Mark of Slaanesh. hopefully then can be a nice thorn in my opponents side and be worth it.

[Trevak Dal]

You gotta wonder why possessed don't have some purple prose deep strike.

[Berzerker88]

The problem with possessed is that they're essentially more expensive, less reliable berzerkers. They need to fill a niche of their own, be it being faster or doing 2 damage, because at the moment 7" is not enough movement to footslog even with the extra wound and invuln, and berzerkers do more damage for less cost. Edited August 20, 2017 by Berzerker88

[Brother Aiwass]

If they had a warpflamer breath weapon like in DoW  that'll be great.

[DreamIsCollapsing]

You gotta wonder why possessed don't have some purple prose deep strike.

 

They do, it's called Warp Talon. 

[Commissar K.]

Yeah I think the biggest missed opertunity for Possessed remains that they would be awesome with some form of ranged attack or summonning option like regular Daemons.
In addition I think that the 4 Daemonic Powers seen on the Daemon Troops could have been put onto them to make them stand out a bit more.

But in reality Chaos suffers from unit design saturation and this in turn makes us compair X to Y a lot because they share so much of the same tactical designs and outcomes. Like mentioned before we have Berzerkers, Chaos Spawn, Possessed, Warp Talons, Mutilators, Daemons in all kinds of flavours and then probably more options of infantry that aims to reach melee and usually cannot shoot. It's a bit sad that the tactical implication of all of them just doesn't differ too much to make it all matter, or at least that's my thake on it. 

 

[The Traitor]

As mentioned before, possessed are halfways between berzerkers and terminators, and benefit both from daemon and CSM buffs. I think running them with the Changeling for a -1 to hit and the Tzeentch Daemons psychic buff could work nicely, you can always get them rhinos or the AL stratagem for delivery (or even just warptime and use the renegades trait), so I think they do have some use.

Chosen, unfortunately, don't work thay great, I was hoping for a point reduction. Noise Marines also get 2 attacks for a point less and MotA, and Havocs can get special weapons for less points, so the only role Chosen could fill is using power weapons which is a really inefficient option, chaos has plenty of better CC units...

[DreamIsCollapsing]

Yeah I think the biggest missed opertunity for Possessed remains that they would be awesome with some form of ranged attack or summonning option like regular Daemons.

 

 

One great stratagem would have been to turn a regular Chaos space marine squad into Possessed (eventually specific of the World Bearers). With the difference in point in your "summoning" spare point. 

 

You wanted to assault my space marine squad ? Surprise, they were possessed 

[Commissar K.]

That would have been pretty cool for sure.

What I initially hoped for post 8th full reveal was that our Chosen would have gained an additional wound to be semi Primaris this too would have made the unit more different I feel. 

[Panzer]

That would have been pretty cool for sure.

 

What I initially hoped for post 8th full reveal was that our Chosen would have gained an additional wound to be semi Primaris this too would have made the unit more different I feel. 

How would it have made them more different when Possessed and Terminators already have two wounds as well tho? ^^

 

I feel Chosen need some fancy special rule to make them stand out since increasing their shooty capability would reverse their situation with Havocs and just increasing their choppy capability would reverse their situation with Possessed.

Maybe make them a bodyguard unit since CSM don't have any like those, or give them some aura ability that affects nearby CSM units.