Weaponized Fear

[Torbenos]

So I have recently been toying with making a Slaanesh themed force for Chaos, and thinking through the themes I want to put up one was fear. So looking through the Chaos codex I noticed we do have quite a few way to lower people's Leadership through tools such as these.

 

1. Night Lords, obvious as each unit up to a max of 3 gives a -1 modifier to enemies within 6 inches.

2. -1 Leadership to any unit within 1 inch of a raptor unit.

3. -1 Leadership to any unit within 1 inch of a Chaos Spawn unit.

4. -1 Leadership to any unit within 6 inches of a unit with an Icon of Despair

5. Warlord Trait Master of Fear which makes people roll two dice and take the highest while around your warlord.

 

So a Raptor unit with an Icon of Fear would give anyone within 1 inch of them a -3 Modifier, toss in a Chaos Spawn unit close too and that'd be a -5. I wouldn't be too bothered myself to make the force Night Lords and give them the Mark of Nurgle, I rather feel I want to paint them Slaanesh and play them as how I envision Slaanesh forces.

 

Would this sort of leadership damaging playstyle be at all viable you think? The goal being to get just a few guys down and then low leadership rolls doing a lot of the legwork. I mean a raptor unit in an of itself isn't bad at all. 

 

An optional idea for me would be a Patrol Deatchment of Slaanesh Daemons to get access to the Slaanesh Psyhic Powers, one being a simple -1 leadership to a unit and the other roll 2d6 and the unit take as many wounds as you go over their leadership.

[GreaterChickenofTzeentch]

So I have recently been toying with making a Slaanesh themed force for Chaos, and thinking through the themes I want to put up one was fear. So looking through the Chaos codex I noticed we do have quite a few way to lower people's Leadership through tools such as these.

 

1. Night Lords, obvious as each unit up to a max of 3 gives a -1 modifier to enemies within 6 inches.

2. -1 Leadership to any unit within 1 inch of a raptor unit.

3. -1 Leadership to any unit within 1 inch of a Chaos Spawn unit.

4. -1 Leadership to any unit within 6 inches of a unit with an Icon of Despair

5. Warlord Trait Master of Fear which makes people roll two dice and take the highest while around your warlord.

 

So a Raptor unit with an Icon of Fear would give anyone within 1 inch of them a -3 Modifier, toss in a Chaos Spawn unit close too and that'd be a -5. I wouldn't be too bothered myself to make the force Night Lords and give them the Mark of Nurgle, I rather feel I want to paint them Slaanesh and play them as how I envision Slaanesh forces.

 

Would this sort of leadership damaging playstyle be at all viable you think? The goal being to get just a few guys down and then low leadership rolls doing a lot of the legwork. I mean a raptor unit in an of itself isn't bad at all.

 

An optional idea for me would be a Patrol Deatchment of Slaanesh Daemons to get access to the Slaanesh Psyhic Powers, one being a simple -1 leadership to a unit and the other roll 2d6 and the unit take as many wounds as you go over their leadership.

Reece Robbins from Frontline Gaming has a Night Lords army that does this. Lawrence Baker from Tabletop Tactics does something similar with Eldar and Hemlock fighters. It can work.

 

I happen to own just such an army (Night Lords, of course) and I use most of the above ideas, though I also use some Forgeworld stuff such as a Land Raider Proteus and a Contemptor with a Butcher Cannon. Those also inflict Morale penalties.

[Lord Abaia]

If you're interested in adding forgeworld units look at the butcher cannon. It's basically a Hades Autocannon with a special rule where a unit that had at least one madel slain by it has a -2 penalty to their LD for the rest of the turn.

 

Although if you are going to go for a fear theme I'm not sure why you wouldn't go all in and play them as Slaaneshi Night Lords, they are the most effective way to rack up the LD penalties. The Icon of Despair is nice, but you aren't missing out on too much by not taking it, while Slaanesh has a solid stratagem, relic and psychic power. Hell, run them as night lords and paint them as your own homebrew warband if you want. 

[Panzer]

The thing is that while you can lower an opponent units LD quite a bit ... it simply doesn't matter as much as it should due everyone playing MSU armies or units being virtually (or literally) immune to morale tests.

A Space Marine unit of 5 with -3LD? Sure it would start losing models after 2-3 lost models on average. But are you really going to just poke at units after you've spend so much effort to lowering the morale and then hope the opponent doesn't roll well? Or shoot with a little bit more and completely wipe the unit anyway?

I mean if you're in melee it's not even a question of whether you want to do so or not. You don't really have the option to hit on other targets anyway.

 

Horde units have lower LD but often don't care about LD due how cheap they are, being literally immune to morale tests (Poxwalker and Iron Warrior warlord trait for example) or virtually immune to morale tests (Orks).

 

 

tl;dr People are playing MSU for the most part so it's more likely and more reliable to just wipe those units instead of relying on bad morale tests from your opponent. I like the concept but the rules don't really support it all that much as long as we don't start seeing big Marine units and such.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

MSU for some units is still 10 models, though. Guard, for example. Fire Warriors usually show up at 10 models too even though it's not MSU.

[Lord Abaia]

I've had great luck using LD tactics vs Necrons. As they all have LD10 to start there is very little thought given to ways to mitigate morale losses. If you can stack LD debuffs and get a big blob of Warriors down to LD5 the morale losses become a big problem for them when you consider that their reanimation protocols only work on slain models and not models that have fled. 

[Panzer]

MSU for some units is still 10 models, though. Guard, for example. Fire Warriors usually show up at 10 models too even though it's not MSU.

 

Yeah as said, those are cheap enough to not really care. 10 Firewarrior or Guard is 70p. 5 Marines is about the same without special weapons. Also Firewarrior autopass morale tests on 6s anyway.

 

Edit: also with Ethereals and Sa'cea Sept T'au can easily get up to LD10. Together with the Bonding Knife ritual (autopass on 6s) they become very resilient to morale tests.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

We're talking about Raptors, though. They're mobile enough that with, say, flamers, they should be able to position themselves to shoot one unit and force morale then charge another to force a second on the other unit too. After all, if they're cheap enough that your opponent "doesn't care" then chances are they'll have more than one such squad in an area because they're using them to fill detachment requirements. Even if they are only three such squads on the table, they're probably in fairly close proximity because they're being used to wall off deep strikers/infiltrators on a flank or frontage.

 

You really need to stop looking at this game as a math problem and start considering that tactics and situational developments will heavily impact actual gameplay.

[Panzer]

We're talking about Raptors, though. They're mobile enough that with, say, flamers, they should be able to position themselves to shoot one unit and force morale then charge another to force a second on the other unit too. After all, if they're cheap enough that your opponent "doesn't care" then chances are they'll have more than one such squad in an area because they're using them to fill detachment requirements. Even if they are only three such squads on the table, they're probably in fairly close proximity because they're being used to wall off deep strikers/infiltrators on a flank or frontage.

 

You really need to stop looking at this game as a math problem and start considering that tactics and situational developments will heavily impact actual gameplay.

 

And you really need to stop telling everyone that math is always the wrong way to look at things. Seriously, just because I used some math as an argument it doesn't mean I haven't considered other things.

 

I also said that it's more reliable and with more likely to just kill those units properly with about the same amount of efford or even less than the amount you used to reduce their LD a little bit.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

It may be more tactical advisable to leverage battle shock to eliminate two squads instead of just one. More bang for the buck, as they say, right? Efficiency, that's the keyword?

 

 

Edit: I've said my piece. I don't particularly feel like fighting this battle again today.

[Panzer]

If you manage to do so, yes. If not, it's better to just kill one unit off for good instead of having to units slightly scratched.

[Torbenos]

The thing is that while you can lower an opponent units LD quite a bit ... it simply doesn't matter as much as it should due everyone playing MSU armies or units being virtually (or literally) immune to morale tests.

 

 

I see your point, I kinda felt the same way in 7th edition when leadership never seemed to matter as basically everyone seemed to be fearless or largely immune to its effect. I havn't played a lot of 8th Edition, so it may well be this isn't a very viable way to try and play. I just found it an intresting aspect while reading the Chaos Index, a different way to try and play.

 

Raptors seem pretty alright anyway, and the cost of an Icon doesn't seem too steep to try it out a few times atleast. Admiteddly recently my most common opponent has played Tyranids who do not care at all. But I am looking to expand to other foes soon.

 

If you're interested in adding forgeworld units look at the butcher cannon. It's basically a Hades Autocannon with a special rule where a unit that had at least one madel slain by it has a -2 penalty to their LD for the rest of the turn.

 

Although if you are going to go for a fear theme I'm not sure why you wouldn't go all in and play them as Slaaneshi Night Lords, they are the most effective way to rack up the LD penalties. The Icon of Despair is nice, but you aren't missing out on too much by not taking it, while Slaanesh has a solid stratagem, relic and psychic power. Hell, run them as night lords and paint them as your own homebrew warband if you want. 

 

Oh my idea is basically to make my warband use the Night Lord Legion keyword, and as mentioned the Nurgle Mark for the Icon but visually and narratively make them Slaanesh in appearance and fluff. Although perhaps that may be frowned upon. Or do you reckon the Slaanesh stratagems/relics/powers are way better than Nurgle? Or maybe it'd be frowned upon to use such different rules to represent another form of warband in fluff.

[Panzer]

 

The thing is that while you can lower an opponent units LD quite a bit ... it simply doesn't matter as much as it should due everyone playing MSU armies or units being virtually (or literally) immune to morale tests.

 

 

I see your point, I kinda felt the same way in 7th edition when leadership never seemed to matter as basically everyone seemed to be fearless or largely immune to its effect. I havn't played a lot of 8th Edition, so it may well be this isn't a very viable way to try and play. I just found it an intresting aspect while reading the Chaos Index, a different way to try and play.

 

Raptors seem pretty alright anyway, and the cost of an Icon doesn't seem too steep to try it out a few times atleast. Admiteddly recently my most common opponent has played Tyranids who do not care at all. But I am looking to expand to other foes soon.

 

 

Yeah 7th was even worse in that regard.

The Nightlord/Slaanesh approach is definitely one of the more interesting and unique tactics in the game, I just don't think it's very viable. That being said if you don't aim to win most competetive matches and prefer to play more casual games where it's more about what you play instead of whether you win, then you should definitely go for it!

[Lord Abaia]

 

If you're interested in adding forgeworld units look at the butcher cannon. It's basically a Hades Autocannon with a special rule where a unit that had at least one madel slain by it has a -2 penalty to their LD for the rest of the turn.

 

Although if you are going to go for a fear theme I'm not sure why you wouldn't go all in and play them as Slaaneshi Night Lords, they are the most effective way to rack up the LD penalties. The Icon of Despair is nice, but you aren't missing out on too much by not taking it, while Slaanesh has a solid stratagem, relic and psychic power. Hell, run them as night lords and paint them as your own homebrew warband if you want. 

 

Oh my idea is basically to make my warband use the Night Lord Legion keyword, and as mentioned the Nurgle Mark for the Icon but visually and narratively make them Slaanesh in appearance and fluff. Although perhaps that may be frowned upon. Or do you reckon the Slaanesh stratagems/relics/powers are way better than Nurgle? Or maybe it'd be frowned upon to use such different rules to represent another form of warband in fluff.

 

 

Oh okay. I see what your plan is. I'd ask the people you are playing with how they feel about counts as Icons. It's probably not a very big concession to make for a themed army. 

 

As for Slaanesh vs Nurgle it comes down to preference. Most of the units in my army are either Slaanesh or Nugle depending on what I need them to do.

 

Both the Nurgle and Slaanesh psychic powers are useful defensive tools. If you target an infantry or Biker unit with the Nurgle one (-1 to hit) you can stack it with the NL strategem for an additional -1 to hit, The Slaanesh one (5+ save after save) is pretty much always going to be useful.

 

The Nurgle stratagem (restore d3 wounds or bring back one dead model at 1 wound) is okay but not great. The Slaanesh one (shoot twice with an infantry or biker unit) is very useful especially when combo-ed with VotLW. If you wanted to spread around damage like what Iron Father Ferrum was saying, the Slaanesh stratagem can help you cause casualties on more units and then trigger more moral tests since the unit that is shooting twice can target a different unit.

 

As for the relics, I can't even remember what the Nurgle one does, but I think it replaces a power sword or something. The Slaanesh  Elixer doesn't replace an item (so it's free) and it's pretty damn good on whatever you want to give it to. 

 

Also keep in mind, like sfPanzer is saying, it's kind of a "for fun" list. There are some match-ups where you will do really well, there are some games where you will be shut down by faction rules (Dark Angels come to mind, as do Tyranids with good synapse coverage), and there are some games where it won't help you all that much but you will do something awesome (like making Custodes flee the battlefield). At the end of the day you have to look at your army and see if it will be able to hold it's own vs a fearless enemy, because you'll basically be playing MSU CSM at that point. And, hey, at least you aren't any worse off than Black Legion or Word Bearers at that point.

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

So I have recently been toying with making a Slaanesh themed force for Chaos, and thinking through the themes I want to put up one was fear. So looking through the Chaos codex I noticed we do have quite a few way to lower people's Leadership through tools such as these.

 

1. Night Lords, obvious as each unit up to a max of 3 gives a -1 modifier to enemies within 6 inches.

2. -1 Leadership to any unit within 1 inch of a raptor unit.

3. -1 Leadership to any unit within 1 inch of a Chaos Spawn unit.

4. -1 Leadership to any unit within 6 inches of a unit with an Icon of Despair

5. Warlord Trait Master of Fear which makes people roll two dice and take the highest while around your warlord.

 

So a Raptor unit with an Icon of Fear would give anyone within 1 inch of them a -3 Modifier, toss in a Chaos Spawn unit close too and that'd be a -5. I wouldn't be too bothered myself to make the force Night Lords and give them the Mark of Nurgle, I rather feel I want to paint them Slaanesh and play them as how I envision Slaanesh forces.

 

Would this sort of leadership damaging playstyle be at all viable you think? The goal being to get just a few guys down and then low leadership rolls doing a lot of the legwork. I mean a raptor unit in an of itself isn't bad at all. 

 

An optional idea for me would be a Patrol Deatchment of Slaanesh Daemons to get access to the Slaanesh Psyhic Powers, one being a simple -1 leadership to a unit and the other roll 2d6 and the unit take as many wounds as you go over their leadership.

 

This video talks about what you are thinking.  You might get some ideas from it.

[GreaterChickenofTzeentch]

The thing is that while you can lower an opponent units LD quite a bit ... it simply doesn't matter as much as it should due everyone playing MSU armies or units being virtually (or literally) immune to morale tests.

A Space Marine unit of 5 with -3LD? Sure it would start losing models after 2-3 lost models on average. But are you really going to just poke at units after you've spend so much effort to lowering the morale and then hope the opponent doesn't roll well? Or shoot with a little bit more and completely wipe the unit anyway?

I mean if you're in melee it's not even a question of whether you want to do so or not. You don't really have the option to hit on other targets anyway.

 

Horde units have lower LD but often don't care about LD due how cheap they are, being literally immune to morale tests (Poxwalker and Iron Warrior warlord trait for example) or virtually immune to morale tests (Orks).

 

 

tl;dr People are playing MSU for the most part so it's more likely and more reliable to just wipe those units instead of relying on bad morale tests from your opponent. I like the concept but the rules don't really support it all that much as long as we don't start seeing big Marine units and such.

Lawrence Baker from Tabletop Tactics used LD warfare to great effect at LVO, particularly against people who had Oblits. He would kill 1 and the -3 LD he was able to inflict would sometimes kill the unit. Other times, it would result in another model dying. Worked well against other Eldar too. However, it wasn't the entirety of his army and he was able to employ it in ADDITION to something else.

 

If you make sure to have strong primary damage dealers in your army that can ALSO affect Morale, it should allow you to finish kills better. Reece's Night Lords have been able to destroy multiple squads with a single unit via Morale overload....BUT he uses units with very high shot count or lots of plasma and the Morale is the finish, not the primary mode of damage.

[GreaterChickenofTzeentch]

 

The thing is that while you can lower an opponent units LD quite a bit ... it simply doesn't matter as much as it should due everyone playing MSU armies or units being virtually (or literally) immune to morale tests.

 

I see your point, I kinda felt the same way in 7th edition when leadership never seemed to matter as basically everyone seemed to be fearless or largely immune to its effect. I havn't played a lot of 8th Edition, so it may well be this isn't a very viable way to try and play. I just found it an intresting aspect while reading the Chaos Index, a different way to try and play.

 

Raptors seem pretty alright anyway, and the cost of an Icon doesn't seem too steep to try it out a few times atleast. Admiteddly recently my most common opponent has played Tyranids who do not care at all. But I am looking to expand to other foes soon.

 

If you're interested in adding forgeworld units look at the butcher cannon. It's basically a Hades Autocannon with a special rule where a unit that had at least one madel slain by it has a -2 penalty to their LD for the rest of the turn.

 

Although if you are going to go for a fear theme I'm not sure why you wouldn't go all in and play them as Slaaneshi Night Lords, they are the most effective way to rack up the LD penalties. The Icon of Despair is nice, but you aren't missing out on too much by not taking it, while Slaanesh has a solid stratagem, relic and psychic power. Hell, run them as night lords and paint them as your own homebrew warband if you want.

 

Oh my idea is basically to make my warband use the Night Lord Legion keyword, and as mentioned the Nurgle Mark for the Icon but visually and narratively make them Slaanesh in appearance and fluff. Although perhaps that may be frowned upon. Or do you reckon the Slaanesh stratagems/relics/powers are way better than Nurgle? Or maybe it'd be frowned upon to use such different rules to represent another form of warband in fluff.

 

If you're going Slaanesh, you might want to consider using some Possessed or Warp Talons(might have to sacrifice the DS ability on the latter) and at least one Herald of Slaanesh (in a detachment with some Fiends) to let them charge after advancing. That gives you access to Symphony of Pain and Phantasmagoria and Fiends can penalize Psykers and keep people from falling back.

 

The Herald will also give them +1 Strength when nearby. If you have another Daemon Psyker to use Cacophonic Choir against units suffering your huge leadership penalties, you will obliterate them when they suffer (2d6-Leadership) Mortal Wounds.

 

Good stuff.

[Deadman Wade]

It seems there are quite a lot units who lose only 1 model max for failed morale tests (damn those IG commissars). Stacking morale penalties worked well for me against big blobs of cultists and orks.

Funny thing is that Space Marines, except Dark Angels, now flee faster than guardsmen, fire warriors or other chaff units.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

That's not quite how commissars work anymore, unfortunately.  Now (thanks to the FAQ that came out just after the AM codex) they just kill a guy for a reroll, which is likely to fail as well.  So, for AM their main way of dealing with morale is having many small(er) sized squads, so that they only lose a few models after a failed test.

 

However, it is true that most armies that want large squads have some form of morale mitigation, and with small squads its really difficult (even with modifiers) to inflict enough wounds for a failed test without just destroying the squad.

[Copycat Copycat]

I just got into the hobby after reading ADBs Night Lords trilogy and have been working on a list that uses some of these tactics. The problem as I see it is that now that Terminators and Warp Talons can’t be warptimed on the turn they drop, it doesn’t seem realistic anymore. I can’t think of a too many scenarios where I can pile 3 squads on top of the enemy in this meta.

 

I still take icons of Nurgle on Raptors but have dropped the lord of terror warlord trait in favor of the Night Haunter curse. Now that Warp Talons have been neutered, we don’t have true assault marines as Raptors work better as plasma delivery. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on how to stay at least semi competitive (and fluffy) and that brings me to the general strat of using a decent gunline, a couple of Rhino squads to cap objectives, and much reduced deep strike element consisting of Plasma Raptors and a Plasma jump lord. My thought here being that the fear is more of an ace in the hole, the 7 plasma guns rerolling 1’s being their main purpose. Then they’re free to charge and eat away at the enemies leadership, or flit around the battle space sending tiny suns into the enemy’s face.

 

I plan to get a contemptor with a butcher cannon to increase the range of the “weaponized fear” (sweet name btw) and with deep strikers dropping turn 2 now you might be able to catch an isolated enemy unit out of position and pounce on that. We get a lot of cool tricks and treats with in midnight clad and the leadership debuffs, enough to make it feel like it could be competitive. Of course a quick glance at the alpha legion rules always leaves me feeling a little green with jealousy.

[Lord Rust]

,,,,, enemy unit out of position and pounce on that. We get a lot of cool tricks and treats with in midnight clad and the leadership debuffs, enough to make it feel like it could be competitive. Of course a quick glance at the alpha legion rules always leaves me feeling a little green with jealousy.

 

Nothing stopping you from using Alpha Legion and Night Lords

keep them in different detachments so they get their traits

[Wolf Lord Loki]

Out of interest where is this "no warp time" for deep striking units coming from?

 

I must be missing it in the faqs

[Gederas]

Out of interest where is this "no warp time" for deep striking units coming from?

 

I must be missing it in the faqs

From here:

 

Q: When I manifest the Warptime psychic power, can I select a unit that arrived on the battlefield as reinforcements this turn?

A: No.

The rules for reinforcements say that when a unit is set up on the battlefield as reinforcements, it cannot move or Advance further that turn, but can otherwise act normally (shoot, charge, etc.).

Q: Can such a unit make a charge move? Can it pile in and consolidate?

A: Yes to both questions – the unit can declare a charge and make a charge move, and if it is chosen to fight, it can pile in and consolidate.

 

Q: Can such a unit move or Advance for any other reason e.g. because of an ability such as The Swarmlord’s Hive Commander ability, or because of a psychic power such as Warptime from the Dark Hereticus discipline, or because of a Stratagem like Metabolic Overdrive from

Codex: Tyranids, etc.?

A: No.

[Doom Herald]

Not sure if anyone has stated this yet, but there is a Slaaneshi Daemon power that lets you roll versus an enemy's LD and inflict the difference as mortal wounds and all you have to do is summon a herald to throw it in.

 

Also, Treason is Tzeentch might work, particularly with a Thousand Sons Prince.

 

I've been toying with a fear soup idea myself and noticed that without Forgeworld figures, you have a fear type HERETIC ASTARTES unit for Heavy, Elite, and Fast, meaning you can build that big dettachment with all the command points (the name escapes me presently). I was thinking Daemon Prince of Tzeentch for treason (+whatever other HQs you want), 3 Noxious Blightbringers, 3 Chaos Spawn, 3 Mutaliths, allied with a Night Lords dettachment with Nurgle Raptors, and with those extra command points you have, Be'lakor as an auxilary or with Heralds of Slaanesh in a supreme command.

 

Night Lords' legion trait stacks 3 times.

Mutalith stacks 3 times.

Nurgle Icon.

Raptors.

Spawn.

Blightbringer.

Be'lakor.

 

-11 leadership, followed up with those psychic powers it would be amazing. I know -11 Is an ideal and improbable circumstance, but still, even just some of that...

[Raven1]

I love the idea of a fear based army but it seems too just as planned. Although if you ran multiple detachments and reserve points for summoning it could work, but ir seems to risky too me.

 

However maybe night lords bn with Mark of Slaanesh, a BN or vanguard/ of Slaanesh demons and a supreme command of TS to get access to everything.