Wife got me a Gw gift card looking to expand my BL

[CptSlambo]

As the title said I'm looking to expand my black legion. I got 3 10 man squads of the new marines. All the shadow spear stuff 1 squad of havocs and Abaddon. Also picked up the Noctolith crown, which if nothing else is a cool model. I dont have much in the way of vehicles though which might be a place to start. Also I dont so much have a theme for the army in terms of mostly cc or mostly shooty. I know 8th edition has kinda killed terminators, but with the new bolter beta rule has that gotten them over the hump? I'm open to any ideas to keep the flow of chaos strong. Thanks for any feedback.

[MegaVolt87]

Abaddon and a bringers of despair detachment look good, or could just do combi weapon chosen. 

[Sception]

I think the fallout of the 8.2 & vigilus content is still working its way through the competitive scene, so it's probably too soon to say what would be the optimal next purchases for you.  Personally, I'd recommend a second box of havocs, letting you build one long range squad with 4 lascannons (stronger & better vs. vehicles) or 4 autocannons (cheap & more versatile); or maybe 3 plus one missile launcher for the anti air missile stratagem if flyers are common where you are.  Then you can build the other 4 with chaincannons, using two actual chaincannons and two converted from heavy bolters.  See the kitbash thread for examples of various conversions there, including my own.

 

I personally think terminators are workable, but that might just be wishful thinking on my part.  I like to deep strike them with either combi bolters or combi plasmaguns plus cheap chainaxes, but the box only comes with one of those, so you'd have to work out suitable conversions & substitutions for the rest of the squad.  Again, there are some examples in the kitbash thread.

 

All that said, I may be overestimating terminators due to personal aesthetic bias and the amount of work I put into converting mine, so take that with a grain of salt.

 

 

Right now CSMs have a lot of offensive choices:  deep stiking termies, oblits (deep striking or otherwise), multiple lords discordant (they like to be run in pairs or trios - basically how people used to run mauler fiends, only now LDs instead), deep striking host raptorial (a couple squads of raptors, maybe a squad of warp talons, jump lord and/or sorc), chaincannon havoc spam (short ranged & fragile but SO much damage, especially with veterans of the long war, prescience, lord/abby rerolls, etc), some people are even giving larged units of possessed buffed six ways from sunday a try.  I'm probably forgetting some.

 

Too soon to say which if any of these in what combinations will pan out.  It's worth noting that first turn charge options (rushing lords discordant) and short range deep strike options (plasminators & hosts raptorial) absolutely need to be coupled with strong first turn anti-infantry fire to function, so if you're going with any of those you might want to also try some chain havocs or the like.  If not them, then something that can do a similar job - there may be FW options.

 

If you're not running first turn chargers or short range deep strikers, then chainhavocs might do better deep striking themselves via dreadclaw or termite.  Something worth trying anyway.

 

 

Apart from damage options, there's also objective claiming.  In that Black Legion has a powerful, if pricey, new tool in the world killer stratagem, which negates enemy boots on the ground near black legion models.  You still need to either outnumber or have boots on the ground yourself to steal objectives though, so troop choices are important here.  As before, there are two options, cultists and CSMs.  Cultists have been nerfed half a dozen times, and CSMs have been given half a dozen small boosts, but basic CSMs /still/ struggle with the underlying issues plaguing meq units in 8e - mostly that basic marine weapons aren't great (beta bolters helps, but not all that much), and power armor just isn't what it's cracked up to be under the new AP system.

 

At this point I'd say both CSMs and Cultists have their uses.  Cultists are cheaper per unit, much cheaper per body, and can be taken in big blob squads - fearless blob squads if Abby's around.  CSMs are more espensive, but between the champ's combi weapon and the squad's special & heavy options they can actually be a little bit threatening.  Nowhere near as threatening as your above described offensive options, but significantly more so than cultists, and again with planet killers even single basic CSMs can steal objectives on key turns.

 

I'm not sure what the best of these two is, or what the best mix between them would be.  But to the extent you do run cultists, either minimum (10) or maximum (30) strength seems best.  Min strength should run with just rifles imo.  I'm not sure what's best for max strength between rifles & ccweps.  Rifles would have been the obvious choice when they had access to legion traits (as little value as the 'shoot rapid fire as assault' gimmick had, it still tipped the scales).  Now I'm not so sure.  Generally shooty is better, but we have access to a lot of melee buffs, and cultists are often running anyway.  Regardless, flamers might be worth taking on big units.  And if you are taking one or more big units of cultists, you might consider a dark apostle or possibly even foot slogging abaddon to help keep them in line.  Note that havocs can move & fire without penalty, so you could march cultist blobs up the field, with abaddon to make them fearless, and havocs marching along with abby to take advantage of his rerolls.

 

For CSMs, again the main thing they have going over cultists is the offensive edge, and maximizing that means running minimum strength units to squeeze in more unit champ combi weapons.  Right now popular builds look like 5 man plasma / combi plasma & 5 man chaincannon / combi bolter, though a long range squad with a lascannon or autocannon to contribute while sitting a backfield objective might have value.  It's worth noting that you can fit two such 5 man squads in a transport, or one 5 man squad plus a more offensively potent 5 man squad of havocs, berserkers, or the like, to mix some heavy hitting with some boots on the ground.

 

It's also worth noting that a side detachment of red corsairs could be worth running for extra CP, and if you do run that then within that detachment it might be worth running a single max squad of 20 CSMs to take advantage of their 'more where they came from' stratagem.

 

That's how I would run cultists & csm units, but again I'm not sure how many of each yet personally.  Something to experiment with.

 

 

Per vehicles... I don't know.  They're kind of overpriced right now.  Still, a rhino can provide a deployment shield for a couple 5 man squads, and a termite or dreadclaw can let you deep strike in some short/medium ranged offensive threats & boots on the ground.  Beyond that... I'm skeptical of melee leaning daemon engines when lords discordant seem to do the same job better on their own.  Predators are a bit pricey, but las predators under a noctilith for the invulnerable save might have some legs.

 

Command wise, we've got great warlord traits (with the council of traitors strat to spread them around a bit), solid relics, and a beastly special character in Abaddon, and while I wouldn't call our daemon princes uniquely good, CSM princes in general are still quite solid.  Lots of good options, I really can't begin to suggest what's best out of them.  I personally rarely leave home without a sorcerer.

 

 

 

Here's a 2000 point, pure black legion list I'm looking at:

Battalion 1: Devestation battery

- Abaddon (warlord)

- Dark Apostle (CoT: trusted war leader, not sure which prayer)

- 2 Dark Disciples

- 2x10 cultists w/ rifles

- 2x30 cultists w/ melee weapons & flamers

- 2x5 slaaneshi havocs, each with 4 chain reapers

 

Battalion 2: Bringers of Despair

- Termie Lord (field commander)

- Termie Sorcerer (prescience, death hex, angelsbane, CoT: Reader of Fate)

- 5 Slaaneshi terminators, combi plas & chainaxe

- 2x5 CSMs, plasma & c.plasma

- 2x5 CSMs, chaincannon & c.bolter

- 2x rhino w/ 2x c.bolter

 

Total comes to not quite 2,000 points (14 points to play around with, maybe a fist on the termie champ?  maybe drop the cultist flamers for a sixth termie?), 103 power, 123 models,

 

11 command points, plus one for every time the sorcerer successfully casts a power, plus up to one refunded per turn based on 5+ rolls when you use stratagems during the game.  Plenty to make use of re-rolls, tide of traitors, veterans of the lost war, endless cacophony, maybe defended positions & punishing volley should you go second, plus planet killers on a critical turn.

 

Big blobs of cultists, chainhavocs, apostle, & abby march up the board, laying down fire, blobbing objectives, threatening damage on weight of attacks w/ rerolls & maybe some apostle buff.  Little cultist squads camp backfield objectives.  CSMs use rhinos to go after objectives & hunt targets of opportunity on the flanks.  If the chainhavocs can strip screens first turn, then second turn deep strike from plasminators with cacophony, full rerolls, and, if all goes well, prescience & death hex absolutely nuke the enemy's strongest unit and or units.

 

 

Is that at all realistic or competitive?  I'm not sure.  But it demonstrates the mix of boots on the ground coverage (to take advantage of planet killers), buffable offensive threats (in the havocs & terminators), & strong HQs (Abby, council of traitors, bringers field commander), that I think will form the foundation of pure Black Legion lists, even if I might be very wrong on the specific units or the proportions between them (might have gone overboard on troops & lowballed damage threats in the above, might not have taken enough long range firepower, etc).

[CptSlambo]

Amazing feedback so far thank you for that write up it has given me plenty of ideas. Back in 3rd and 4th edition I ran a dark Angel's list with just 5 man squads with Razorbacks and plasma cannons. I wonder if going down to cheap min man squads with the heavy would be good to go back to. Right now I'm running squads of 10 with 1 chain cannon persquad and a plasma gun. I really wanted to try and load up on them as they just seem to good to pass up. There was a thread of a guy talking about how to convert really easy cannons off an obliterator and heavy bolter. Hope to keep the conversation going.

[Sception]

That conversion works, but you only get one obliterator with the gattling bit per shadowspear box.  I've converted further out of old plastic assault cannons.  In the past such were pretty common on the secondary market, but the current chaincannon rush might have drained the supply, but I would try looking around for those.  You should be familiar with the dark angels upgrade sprue, that had a bunch of assault cannons on it, and tends to be the best source, so I'd start the search there.

 

Chaincannons and plasmaguns are both very good in CSM squads, and combi bolters & combi plasmaguns are both good on the champs.  There are various conversion & 3rd party options for combi weapons, but failing other options you can order FW 30k combi weapons.

 

My own CSM squads are built as 10 models, champ with combi plas & cs, icon with bp/cs, 6 bolter bodies, 1 plasma gun, and 1 chaincannon.  Again, see the kitbash threads for examples (I did use the oblit bit you mention on one of my chaincannons, though I used spare havoc heavy bolters rather than the CSM ones, since I prefer the belt fed look).  Aesthetically, I just prefer 10 man squads.  In practice, though, I run them as 5 man squads, with the icons standing in for extra unit champs.  Sort of like old style battle brothers, they're 'one squad' but operate as two.  Even without the combi bolter champs I'd ideal use for the chaincannon squads, more smaller units is still less morale risk, more enemy fire wasted on overkill, and more objectives that I can threaten with planet killers.

[Closet Skeleton]

Abaddon and a bringers of despair detachment look good, or could just do combi weapon chosen. 

 

Oddly the Bringers of Despair detachment doesn't really do anything for Abaddon, what with how most of its bonuses duplicate his rules. You're really better off keeping the 1cp for something else.

[Sception]

It does let you basically have abaddon's rerolls in two places at once. I like deep striking plasminators, but to land in range turn two you need to strip bubble wraps turn one. Taking abby and a BoD field commander lets abby grant rerolls to chainhavovs turn one to clear chaff away, while also using his fearless aura to kerp your own chaff in place, then the field commander can come in with the terminators to give them rerolls.