Best HQ builds

[Bloody Legionnaire]

With the release of the BA codex I believe we've seen the resurgence of some tactics we haven't seen for a while... The death star HQ. BAs and I think even Space Wolves have the relics, psychic powers, and stratagems to allow these units to shine. 

 

This got me thinking about whether or not CSM can produce beat stick HQs as well. The first unit that comes to mind is a Daemon Prince and I'm definitely expecting to see them discussed. Are there other options?

Additionally, what has been your Favorite HQ so far? Are any of the CSM HQs strong enough to build a list around?

[Tokugawa]

DPs are already the most popular HQ choice of Chaos players, since the release of 4 chaos codices. There are even some additional rules to limit them in some tournaments, because they are so effective. What else you want?

 

Unless you ask about non-DG, non-TS, non-CD "CSM DP"...

[Bloody Legionnaire]

I play World Eaters.. if they profile image wasn't explanatory enough.. I really only use Khârn and Exalted Champions in my list (unless allying with CD then I'll take a Thirster).

I've never used Daemon Princes the entire time I've been a Chaos player. What more do I want..? A discussion about our HQ options.. which is exactly what I put in the original post. I'm going to guess there is a difference in our native tongues and what looks like condescendence is just what's lost in translation. Why focus on that point only instead of all the other things we could have discussed? 

 

Simply I have not seen the amount of excitement over capabilities in for CSM as I've seen out of the loyalist. 

[Tokugawa]

I play World Eaters.. if they profile image wasn't explanatory enough.. I really only use Khârn and Exalted Champions in my list (unless allying with CD then I'll take a Thirster).

 

I've never used Daemon Princes the entire time I've been a Chaos player. What more do I want..? A discussion about our HQ options.. which is exactly what I put in the original post. I'm going to guess there is a difference in our native tongues and what looks like condescendence is just what's lost in translation. Why focus on that point only instead of all the other things we could have discussed?

 

Simply I have not seen the amount of excitement over capabilities in for CSM as I've seen out of the loyalist.

Sorry, I have no meaning of offend you.

 

Do you treat Khorne daemons as part of World eaters?

[Bloody Legionnaire]

I usually build my list for fluff and not competition which is why I usually take Khârn and Exalted Champion. I'm looking at more competitive HQs in this topic.

No, KD are always in their own attachment. 

[Kierdale]

This recent thread may be of use :tu:

[Panzer]

There's no huge excitement about CSM HQs because it's widely accepted that CSM HQs are good beatsticks since basically ever and that the Prince takes the cake. There was some talk about how strong a Prince with the proper loadout is, especially the Slaanesh one with Talons and elixir, but then people moved on to more interesting topics.

The difference between the Prince and Captain Smash of the BA is that the Prince is strong as is while the Captain is just a basic Captain for the most part but can get pushed FAR beyond his regular capabilities by Stratagems (+1d3 attacks, fighting twice, fighting once again when he dies, 3d6 charge out of reserves, free move before the game begins, re-roll charges and deny overwatch via relic jump pack).

[Daemon Prince Marbas]

It depends on the Legion or Renegade Chapter, truly.

Emperor's Children- Can't beat a Daemon Prince with Wings, Intoxicating Elixir, and Diabolic Strength

Iron Warriors- Chaos Hellwright on Dark Abeyant with Fleshmetal Exoskeleton and Unholy Fortitude makes a ridiculously tough healer who may just get ignored.

Night Lords- Chaos Lord with Jump Pack, Claws of the Black Hunt and Flames of Spite is a combat beast.

World Eaters- Exalted Champion with Murder Sword and Chainaxe; cheap and deadly

Death Guard- Daemon Prince with Wings, Suppurating Plate, Miasma of Pestilence is a stupidly tough nigh unkillable HQ

Thousand Sons- No idea

Black Legion- Chaos Lord on Bike, First Amongst Traitors, Murder Sword and Chainsword; Shooty, choppy, fast, and makes Cultist hordes survive morale better, what's not to like?

Word Bearers- Dark Apostle, Voice of Lorgar, Accursed Crozius; buffs Units super well and is potent in melee due to his relic. Not to be underestimated and overcomes some of the Legion's current weaknesses

Alpha Legion- Chaos Lord with Jump Pack, Blade of the Hydra, Combi Plasma, I Am Alpharius; relatively cheap, definitely fast, dangerous in combat, and is cheap enough to afford losing due to I am Alpharius.

Renegade Chapters- Sorcerer on Bike, Warptime, Delightful Agonies, Force Sword, Chainsword, Relatively Cheap and makes Chaos Bikers marked Slaanesh insanely fast and dangerous guerrilla units.

 

I'm sure y'all can critique this and come up with something better though....

[GreaterChickenofTzeentch]

For Thousand Sons, one favorite is an Exalted Sorcerer with two Power Swords and a pistol. One sword gets replaced with Seer's Bane. He goes on a disk, hulks up with buff powers and trainwrecks through the enemy. Sometimes pops in via Webway. Other times just rockets in via Warp Time.

 

The even more frequent choice is their Daemon Prince (even more efficient than the other armies' DP's), who has a 4++ and more psychic powers than the other ones. Importantly, he has access to Gaze of Fate, which gives you one reroll a turn, as well as all of the Thousand Sons powers for -1 to hit, +1 Invuln, etc. He can be buffed to insane levels and then use the Aetherstride warlord trait or a nearby Vortex Beast to boost charges. He's quite crazy.

 

Finally, there's just "Buff Ahriman to the gills, plow him into enemy infantry, rinse and repeat."

[GreaterChickenofTzeentch]

For anyone but Thousand Sons and DG, the Flames of Spite build is arguably the best non DP HQ, with Sorcerers and Exalted Champions tied for second place. In World Eaters or Word Bearers armies, the Dark Apostle is about even with them.

 

World Eaters, Alpha Legion, and Night Lords seem to be the best at the "Spitelord," but it can work for anybody whose army comes out of the CSM codex.

 

On the other hand, if you make the effort to find a way to deliver a Hellwright inside 8 in or so of the enemy, a ton of stuff will just die, especially tanks, and your Contemptors and Hellforged tanks will be going nuts, but that requires that you build around it.

[Marshlands]

I feel like the op is asking what has can be buffed 'beyond their intended ability much like the BA captain.

 

As many have said DPs are very good and can be buffed further, it's just not a surprise how good they are. In terms of DPs thousand sons are generally the best but perhaps the Khorne Daemon Prince with the axe relic or a buffed belakor are the biggest beatsticks.

 

In terms of a deathstar character, probably Abaddon. Because he has all 4 keywords you can use all the powers and strats on him. E.g. give him +1 IS, 5+++, -1 to be hit and then make him fight twice and heal wounds every turn + VoTLW, possibly prescience, Diabolic Strength and a EC for rerolls to wound.

[GreaterChickenofTzeentch]

I feel like the op is asking what has can be buffed 'beyond their intended ability much like the BA captain.

 

As many have said DPs are very good and can be buffed further, it's just not a surprise how good they are. In terms of DPs thousand sons are generally the best but perhaps the Khorne Daemon Prince with the axe relic or a buffed belakor are the biggest beatsticks.

 

In terms of a deathstar character, probably Abaddon. Because he has all 4 keywords you can use all the powers and strats on him. E.g. give him +1 IS, 5+++, -1 to be hit and then make him fight twice and heal wounds every turn + VoTLW, possibly prescience, Diabolic Strength and a EC for rerolls to wound.

Abaddon is the best in terms of characters that can receive the most buffs. Most of our other characters gain similar amounts of power when those are applied, on top of profiles that are relatively close to each other except for DP's and some specialization in the cheaper HQ's. The Dark Apostle and the Exalted Champion are probably the biggest examples of that specialization having an impact because their rerolls massively enhance the effectiveness of any close combat enhancements that they have or that are deployed near them.

[Doom Herald]

What Daemon Princes have going to give them more enhancement than other CSM HQs is that they are DAEMON units and can therefore get buffs not available to the others. They can get HERETIC ASTARTES buffs and then DAEMON buffs. Technically speaking, unless I misses something, a CSM Daemon Prince can even gain relics from the Daemons Codex if you have a CD warlord. The wording on daemon relics would allow this and only the strategems have been eratad to say daemon faction units, so as long as you get a daemon relic without strategems it's fine. Probably not the intent, but that's how it is. Further, in 8th, I don't believe there is a rule saying only 1 relic can be on a model, the rules say each specific factions relics can only be 1 on 1 model. Therefore, you could get a Daemons HQ and an Astartes Prince, give the Prince a Daemons relic, then use the strategems from your HERETIC ASTARTES faction to give him another relic. This is a pretty obvious abuse of the rules, but I do believe RAW allows it.

[Bloody Legionnaire]

It depends on the Legion or Renegade Chapter, truly.

Emperor's Children- Can't beat a Daemon Prince with Wings, Intoxicating Elixir, and Diabolic Strength

Iron Warriors- Chaos Hellwright on Dark Abeyant with Fleshmetal Exoskeleton and Unholy Fortitude makes a ridiculously tough healer who may just get ignored.

Night Lords- Chaos Lord with Jump Pack, Claws of the Black Hunt and Flames of Spite is a combat beast.

World Eaters- Exalted Champion with Murder Sword and Chainaxe; cheap and deadly

Death Guard- Daemon Prince with Wings, Suppurating Plate, Miasma of Pestilence is a stupidly tough nigh unkillable HQ

Thousand Sons- No idea

Black Legion- Chaos Lord on Bike, First Amongst Traitors, Murder Sword and Chainsword; Shooty, choppy, fast, and makes Cultist hordes survive morale better, what's not to like?

Word Bearers- Dark Apostle, Voice of Lorgar, Accursed Crozius; buffs Units super well and is potent in melee due to his relic. Not to be underestimated and overcomes some of the Legion's current weaknesses

Alpha Legion- Chaos Lord with Jump Pack, Blade of the Hydra, Combi Plasma, I Am Alpharius; relatively cheap, definitely fast, dangerous in combat, and is cheap enough to afford losing due to I am Alpharius.

Renegade Chapters- Sorcerer on Bike, Warptime, Delightful Agonies, Force Sword, Chainsword, Relatively Cheap and makes Chaos Bikers marked Slaanesh insanely fast and dangerous guerrilla units.

 

I'm sure y'all can critique this and come up with something better though....

I am building 30k Word Bears as well that I'll use in 40k. I was going over the HQ units the other night and I don't see how a Dark Apostle beats out a Lord. The DA is is fluffy but Lords have access to Jump Packs and TDA. I can give a lord a Maul as his weapon and still equip him with the Cursed Crozius and at that point he essentially is a DA equivalent (minus the moral re-roll). I would probably use the Lord and just say it's the chief DA for the sake of being fluffy. 

 

I really like the idea of running a jump pack sorcerer with the jump pack Lord/DA and buffing him with Diabolic Strength to add +2 Str and +1 atk. 

 

I think if I was going to use Daemon Princes I would just bring another detachment for access to Codex: Daemons Daemon Prince. Their relic axe is super killy. 

 

 

I feel like the op is asking what has can be buffed 'beyond their intended ability much like the BA captain.

 

As many have said DPs are very good and can be buffed further, it's just not a surprise how good they are. In terms of DPs thousand sons are generally the best but perhaps the Khorne Daemon Prince with the axe relic or a buffed belakor are the biggest beatsticks.

 

In terms of a deathstar character, probably Abaddon. Because he has all 4 keywords you can use all the powers and strats on him. E.g. give him +1 IS, 5+++, -1 to be hit and then make him fight twice and heal wounds every turn + VoTLW, possibly prescience, Diabolic Strength and a EC for rerolls to wound.

You got the point man, thanks! Same applies for my response above.

[Doom Herald]

So, it just occurred to me that what I said about getting an Artefact of Chaos and Hellforged Artefact on the same Prince would apply to mounted HQs from the Index as well. Imagine a Juggernaut Lord, with the Khorne Daemon crown and the Khorne CSM axe together.

[Daemon Prince Marbas]

Actually Bloody Legionnaire is correct. A Jump Pack Lord with the Accursed Crozius, a combi plasma and Voice of Lorgar would be better than a Dark Apostle statistically especially if brought from reserves alongside Obliterators.

[Slan Drakkos]

So, it just occurred to me that what I said about getting an Artefact of Chaos and Hellforged Artefact on the same Prince would apply to mounted HQs from the Index as well. Imagine a Juggernaut Lord, with the Khorne Daemon crown and the Khorne CSM axe together.

that's possible? So all this time, I could have taken a daemon princes of Slaanesh with dual claws, intoxicating elixir, and the mark of excess?

[Doom Herald]

Slan,

 

Codex: Chaos Daemons (130): -Hellforged Artefacts- "If your army is led by a Warlord with the DAEMON Faction Keyword, you may give one of the following Hellforged Artefacts to a DAEMON CHARACTER in your army."

 

Codex: Chaos Space Marines (158): -Gifts of Chaos [strategem]- "All of the Artifacts of Chaos that you include must be different and be given to different Chaos Space Marine CHARACTERS."

 

Hellforged Artefacts and Artefacts of Chaos are not the same thing and only the strategems got erratad to say Daemon Faction. Therefore, as long as you do not use the Daemons strategem to get a Hellforged Artefact, you can put one of each on a CSM DAEMON character.

 

Like I said, its an obvious abuse of the rules, but by RAW it can be done. I do believe we wanted to see what things could be enhanced beyond intent though, and this fits in with that.

[Slan Drakkos]

Slan,

Codex: Chaos Daemons (130): -Hellforged Artefacts- "If your army is led by a Warlord with the DAEMON Faction Keyword, you may give one of the following Hellforged Artefacts to a DAEMON CHARACTER in your army."

Codex: Chaos Space Marines (158): -Gifts of Chaos [strategem]- "All of the Artifacts of Chaos that you include must be different and be given to different Chaos Space Marine CHARACTERS."

Hellforged Artefacts and Artefacts of Chaos are not the same thing and only the strategems got erratad to say Daemon Faction. Therefore, as long as you do not use the Daemons strategem to get a Hellforged Artefact, you can put one of each on a CSM DAEMON character.

Like I said, its an obvious abuse of the rules, but by RAW it can be done. I do believe we wanted to see what things could be enhanced beyond intent though, and this fits in with that.

damn.....well now, looks like my army just got even better.