Titans of Chaos - Opinions & Strategies RE: our Lords of War

[Khornestar]

I think lots of us enjoy using and collecting large models, and between our codex Forge World options we have some absolutely badass units to choose from.

 

This is a thread for thoughts on which units you like, which are the "best" in whatever situation, how best to arm them, how best to use them, potential shortcomings and weaknesses, etc.

 

Brass Scorpion: Seen it in action once, and it kicked ass! I know it's relatively fragile, but it has surprisingly good shooting for something that looks like it was built to rip things apart in close combat. The 3d6" charge is super good, too. 

 

Kytan Ravager: Haven't tried it yet, but it's probably my favorite superheavy in the game. Just looks so cool. At first I thought it was really stupid they didn't give it Titanic Feet, but it has an equivalent ability with its cleaver, so all is well. Seems appropriately costed, and its shooting doesn't suck.

 

Spartan: Eh, it's pretty good I guess. Just not something I'm interested in. I like the Kharybdis more, so I don't think I'll ever pick up a Spartan. I know many folks love it.

 

Cerberus Heavy Destroyer: I really don't like the leadership-based wound mechanic. I'll never use or buy one.

 

Typhon: I used to love it when it had a gigantic pie plate. I don't think it's worth it any more.

 

Fellblade: Seems decent as an all 'rounder, but not my thing.

 

Falchion: I just ordered myself one this morning, as an early Christmas present. I love everything about it: looks amazing, awesome firepower, perfect for taking down Titanic units. Gonna paint mine up in Iron Warriors colors, I think. Damage is inconsistent, but has high potential. S16 means it wounds on 2's against anything T8 or weaker, is which most vehicles. Is itself toughness 9, so most conventional anti-tank weapons will wound on 4's at best. Outranges most things that can hurt it, and can be bubble-wrapped with cultists to prevent deep striking shenanigans. In theory, anyway.

 

Mastodon: Dunno, not my thing.

 

Titans/Thunderhawk/Stormbird: Too big, too expensive. Maybe I'd consider the Warhound, but I'd rather bring other stuff in its place.

 

Lord of Skulls: It's good, but looks dumb. Not a fan at all. Will never touch it.

 

Daemon Lords: Will never use them.

 

 

What about you, evil friends?

[micahwc]

I've got Zarakynel on order. I want to summon her so as to avoid first turn shooting.

[norngahl]

Just never ever take a knight lancer. In any game i fielded him he was never worth his points.

Lacking shooting ability (tbh), can't hit targets on 1st floor and above and beeing easily ignored in most cases simply sucks. He keeps getting killed by veterans with demolition charges in a valkyrie or heavily damaged by stormravens or other lascannons it's not even funny anymore. He just sucks in this Edition and He is worth at best 240 points rather than 480. Better take anything  else than him. Model ist just lovely, sadly.

Best LOWs are primarchs imho.

Edited September 30, 2017 by norngahl

[Khornestar]

I haven't tried any knight variants, now that you mention it. For the past few years, I've really wanted a Knight Acheron, but didn't buy one since only loyalists could use them.

 

Now that we can use them, they kinda suck, too. The flamer doesn't have enough shots to be worthwhile, and of course the chainfist is unwieldy... Nope.

 

Maybe the regular knight variant is worthwhile with a rapid-fire battle cannon and a chainsword.

[the jeske]

Just never ever take a knight lancer. In any game i fielded him he was never worth his points.

 

Lacking shooting ability (tbh), can't hit targets on 1st floor and above and beeing easily ignored in most cases simply sucks. He keeps getting killed by veterans with demolition charges in a valkyrie or heavily damaged by stormravens or other lascannons it's not even funny anymore. He just sucks in this Edition and He is worth at best 240 points rather than 480. Better take anything  else than him. Model ist just lovely, sadly.

 

Best LOWs are primarchs imho.

melee units should never be run as a one. But of course if something always dies, but it means you win it is ok. As for the melee knight goes, I think it is designed[or wasn't but that is how he works in 8th] to be run with other knights. Taking it as a solo will probably be not worth the points, but with 3-4 other knights it might.

 

 

Also I would like a specification to the main question asked. The good is good in normal games or good in some sort of apo games where there are a lot of LoW/knights/titans runing around. It changes the viability of some of the chaos LoW by a lot.

[Khornestar]

"Good" in whatever context want to discuss. Casual, normal, competitive, or all/none of these.

[Goreshed]

Can't say I've seen much of the new rules for 8th in regards to our LoW selection. I have played only a single Apoc styled match up at one of the Warhammer stores and fielded both my warhound and reaver. There are definitely more pros and cons to titans in this edition.

 

With all titans the weapons are most likely macro which is awesome when you are dishing out the damage. With macro weapons all damage done is doubled and in game my titans were usually wiping a unit/building out each turn per weapon. Oh that fancy Fortress of Arrogance? Pfft what fortress?

 

I do like the tiered damage system that is a hallmark of this edition. You still get your void shields just their effectiveness is lessened each tier. So you get a save (even against mortal wounds) but the saves really start to go south once you get some damage on your titan. Another aspect is that with Macro weapons if you move you cannot target anything that is not titanic which in a game where you do not have a lot of titanic models and are playing on a large board this can be a pain. Not to mention in this edition you aren't getting multiple units into each shot which means that while yes you can smoke that single unit of terminators that is all that gun is doing this round if there is nothing juicier to shoot at.

 

Does this make titan's scary? Oh yes. The damage output is insane. But at the same time they can be controlled to some extent by the opposing side in regards to offering chaff units up to it.

 

But for me I play casually so I like to think of a rather fluff reason for taking a LoW. My Stormsword was intended for my IW as it is the siege variant, the baneblade will be done up for my traitor guard and the titans are because they are armorcast and I wanted them but I'm still working on some fluff for them as well.

[the jeske]

"Good" in whatever context want to discuss. Casual, normal, competitive, or all/none of these.

It is more about army size. At 15k points it doesn't really matter what you field most of the time. In normal games, I think that the primarchs are good[and cheap], the knights are good[the non pure melee ones]. there rest is meh, either can be replaced by smaller stuff with a higher rate of fire [and lower chance to be destroyed fast] or in case of transport suffers from lack of stuff to transport. A lot of stuff also suffers from the for those points I could just take Magnus/Morty. Estheticly I like how the chaos warhounds looked, so I like those.

[Azekai]

 

"Good" in whatever context want to discuss. Casual, normal, competitive, or all/none of these.

It is more about army size. At 15k points it doesn't really matter what you field most of the time. In normal games, I think that the primarchs are good[and cheap], the knights are good[the non pure melee ones]. there rest is meh, either can be replaced by smaller stuff with a higher rate of fire [and lower chance to be destroyed fast] or in case of transport suffers from lack of stuff to transport. A lot of stuff also suffers from the for those points I could just take Magnus/Morty. Estheticly I like how the chaos warhounds looked, so I like those.

 

Army size/point level absolutely matters in terms of what is effective or not. I have seen a lot of 'Mortarion dies too easily' memes, and I have the sneaking suspicion that is due to size of game. I get the feeling the people that are getting their Primarch slaughtered don't realize how many lascannons can be brought to bear at the 2000 point level.

[Lord_Valorion]

Another aspect is that with Macro weapons if you move you cannot target anything that is not titanic which in a game where you do not have a lot of titanic models and are playing on a large board this can be a pain.

You should read the rules for Macro weapons again. You can shoot with a Macro weapon after mobile, when you are TITANIC.

[Goreshed]

You are probably right Lord_Valorion, it was read in haste and I didn't sit and scrutinize it to memory. It will most likely be a while before I either throw down my LoW or get the books so it wont matter for me too much.

 

As for the Mortarion aspect, it is pretty simple.

 

Most of the time people are going to throw things right up front and forget about tactics, utilizing the model rules instead of the core rules. This is not 7th and many people still play that way so when someone who has a grasp of 8th throws down they will win or at least have a better chance of winning verse those who still play like it is 7th.

[Sception]

A nice thing about mortarion is that in larger games, you have the option to buy more wounds for him in the form of deathshroud.  They're not super points efficient, and they can't really move with him (though you can buy them in multiple units, deep striking in new ones as old ones get killed or left behind) - but the option is there to scale his points cost and durability to match the size of the game you're running him in.

 

I think the dakka and/or mixed armament knight titans are our best/most efficient super heavies, though I'll always have a soft spot for the lord of skulls, especially now that its rules are, while not necessarily optimal, certainly usable at least.  If only because of how goofy it's concept is, and how cool it might have been with only slightly different execution (mostly with smaller scale torso relative to the tank chasis, slightly less rouns/flat design of the torso, slightly shorter plow).  Honestly, if there were an easy/legal way to get just the leg parts of a Kytan, I'd be tempted to get a lord of skulls, build a kytan, and then jury rig a replacement torso of more appropriate scale for the tank part.  Ah, well.

 

As it is, at this point if I had to pick a super heavy, it would be a renegade knight titan built with the chaos knight forgeworld kit, armed with dual gattling cannons using the forgefiend's hades cannons for the bits.  Best combination of good chaosy looks and in-game effectiveness, imo.  Unfortunately, it seems FW is no longer selling that kit?  I wonder if it's been discontinued due to lack of sales / mold problems, or if GW has some plan to replace it with an official chaos knight that isn't just homebrew conversions of the loyalist model at some point in the future?

Edited October 1, 2017 by malisteen

[the jeske]

you could take the body of the lord and put 4 doom cannons on them, for that old school khorn artilery feel. Although am not even sure the thing has FW rules.

[Sception]

With a bit of work, you might be able to convert it into a workable counts-as spartan maybe.

[Lord_Starscream]

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-CA/Chaos-Knight

 

This is still available. So I'm not sure what you mean...

 

Ships within 1-3 days.

[1000 Sons]

Magnus has always been a powerhouse if he survives turn 1.

 

Played Mort only twice, one game he was solid, next game not so much. I am sure in the long run he will be just as good as Magnus.

 

Knight castigator, is a solid all rounder. Great gun and melee weapon, fun guy to use.

 

Typhon heavy tank, the potential for big damage is there, but you need a bit of luck.

[Sception]

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-CA/Chaos-Knight

 

This is still available. So I'm not sure what you mean...

 

Ships within 1-3 days.

 

Huh.  There it is.  It wasn't showing up when I searched for "Chaos Knight" on their page, but good enough.  Glad it's still there, as I still hope to buy one some day.

 

One note in favor of the Lord of Skulls, Kytan, etc, over the Renegade Knight is that they have the 'Heretic Astartes' keywords, allowing them to benefit from CSM aura effects, psychic powers, and stratagems.  A lord of skulls puts out considerably less firepower than a renegade knight, but if you start re-rolling hits and wounds thanks to daemonforged or the like, it pretty significantly shortens that gap.

Edited October 2, 2017 by malisteen

[Galron]

Spartan is pretty solid. Transporting 25 dudes and 8 lascannons and a heavy bolter? I played one this past weekend and it was one shotting a Nid big bug every turn while the heavy bolters popped little guys.

 

Typhon is worthless unless they bump up the number of shots by at least a dice. For its cost it doesn't have the damage ability it should have and its easily 100 points over costed as it stands if not more.

 

Falchion is a solid tank. I use my Glaive for one, same tank pretty much except the turret.

 

Not been impressed with our other lords of war. Magnus is easy to drop or at least has been in my experience. I doubt Morty is any harder except for the silly feel no pain thing.

[Fhanados]

I've got 2 Renegade Knights. I'm planning on doing one up as a "200 years later..." version of Litany of Destruction and the other one as a fairly ambiguous mercenary type knight (clearly not Imperial, but not obvious chaos aligned) so my Imperial friends can borrow it when needed.

 

I've got my eyes on a Porphyrion as well but I'm very skeptical of whether they're worth the points. I'd rather a Reaver Titan but I know I'd never get to field it.

 

It's no secret that I love some big stompy robots.

[Goreshed]

you could take the body of the lord and put 4 doom cannons on them, for that old school khorn artilery feel. Although am not even sure the thing has FW rules.

 

Want to say you are thinking of an Epic unit. The closest it comes to in the 40k side was the Khorne Tower of Skulls and that is in Apoc Reloaded. Doesn't get another mention again to my knowledge. And to be fair they built that one out of the baneblade chassis but I think it would look better off the Lord of Skulls chassis.

[norngahl]

To be honest, the LOW get outshined by Decimators with Double Soulburner petards.. 2 with a Lord are 490 points and put out 16 mortal wounds per round.. so.. this is so much better than any things a super Heavy can offer, except of the centerpiece thing.

[the jeske]

And those can be replaced by mortars. 500-600pts can give [considering we already think about using FW units] you a lot of renegade mortars, or even wyverns. Not saying that dual petards is bad, it is in deed kind of a OP.

 

you could take the body of the lord and put 4 doom cannons on them, for that old school khorn artilery feel. Although am not even sure the thing has FW rules.

 

Want to say you are thinking of an Epic unit. The closest it comes to in the 40k side was the Khorne Tower of Skulls and that is in Apoc Reloaded. Doesn't get another mention again to my knowledge. And to be fair they built that one out of the baneblade chassis but I think it would look better off the Lord of Skulls chassis.

 

It was and epic unit. I remember someone doing it for a GD in the end of 90s though. Would be nice to have it back, and from a making/merch point of view most of it is already done. maybe we could get a dual kit or something. But realisticly, yeah won't happen.

[SkimaskMohawk]

The Cerberus is one of the strongest units in the game for single target removal. It hits on 2s, averages a 10.5 for the leadership roll where most big things have an LD of 8 or 9, has -5 so units need invul saves against it and each shot does a minimum of 5 wounds. Against most things you generate 20 wounds a turn. It's t9 means most return fire is less effective compared to normal. And it's dirt cheap, even with lascannons

[chillin]

Then it's not "strong", it's OP'ed Edited October 4, 2017 by chillin

[seethe]

I haven't had the chance to use any other LoWs this edition yet, but a Knight with gatling, rockets, and a chainsword has more than made its points every time I fielded it.  Really solid load out for the knights in my opinion.