Mixed Chaos Forces

[Aegisvald]

First post on the forum, so sorry in advance if my post is confusing or missed some posting conventions.

 

I haven't played in years and I recently returned to the hobby through painting and modeling the great new miniatures GW had come out with. I was looking to use the models I am already planning to paint as the start of a force as I enter into 8th edition. Currently I am in progress on Abaddon and am about to start work on Mortarion.

 

I have 2 questions. 

 

Can an 8th edition army field both models viably, not necessarily optimally? I don't want to get completely crushed by bad army design, but am okay not having the best force possible as long as its fun to play.

 

If they are viable together what books do I need to field them and the related units needed to build a fleshed out army? I currently have no books. I would need to know what core rule books and what codexes/indexes I need to acquire in order to play.

 

Thanks for the help

 

Aegis

[Dr_Ruminahui]

First of all, welcome!

 

8th edition is structured so that there are a number of ways of playing, with only one of them being "competitive".  So yes, it is possible to play a more relaxed game with whatever models you have.

 

As a note, however, most people use the "competitive" rules, even if their gaming is fairly relaxed, as those are the rules that are the most balanced.  So, while some units are stronger than others, if your opponent is also using a list which isn't optimized around using the best units or strategies, you should still have a game that is balance enough to have fun.

 

As another note, army building in 8th is probably the most flexible its been, as you can take different detachments from different codexes and put them all in the same army - all they need to share is a keyword.  So, using CHAOS as a keyword, you could have a detachment of chaos space marines, a detachment of death guard, a detachment of demons, and a detachment with a renegade knight.  As well, what you can put in detachment is very flexible, as there are detachments for each force org slot (troops, HQ, etc) that typically only require 2 or 3 units of that slot plus an HQ or 2.

 

The rules for detachments are in the core 40K rule book, so you will need that.  Other than that, you will need a codex for whatever forces you want to field - given that you have Abbadon and Mortarion, I would guess that you would want the Chaos Space Marine codex (the new one has the updated Abbaddon rules) and the Deathguard codex (which contains Mortarion).

 

Hope the helps, and happy gaming, modelling and painting!

[Aegisvald]

Thank you for the response. In previous editions there were certain troop requirements for character models and I wanted to be sure I would hit those. What size force would it make sense to have both the aforementioned models. Also related what do you find the most common size for armies. In the past most people played 1500 points in my area because it was similar to the tournament rules at the time. That meant more people were prepared to play at that size. any suggestions on an army size to focus towards? I appreciate the advise and I realize this differs from region to region. I am also asking local gamers similar questions but I like to have input from a larger group when forming my conclusions.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

2000 points seems to be pretty standard.  I would recommend lower than that to start (as it allows you to build into a force, and gives you fewer things you have to remember starting out) but both Abaddon and Mortarion are expensive models.

 

What other models/units do you have or want to get other than those 2?

[Aegisvald]

I have the death guard half of the Dark Imperium Boxed set (no rules as i just got them for painting from another player) and will flesh out the army from there. I have plenty of time to build the force I just wanted to know if I could use my painting hobby as a starting point from which to expand into the game. Thanks so much!

[MegaVolt87]

Your best bet would be to look at the detachment rules in the main book, but yes the starter deathguard should fill out one of those detachment types so you can start playing straight away. I think a dedicated Death Guard player might be able to help you out on which way to go with the starter box. I don't know 8th ed DG. 

[Fhanados]

I can't comment on the effectiveness running Abaddon and Mortarion in the same army, since I use neither of them, but my Death Guard army is based off the Chaos halves of the Dark Imperium and the Know No Fear starter sets. Combined they make an OK force. There are a few things I found that made it a bit tricky to work with though.

 

The main letdown for me is how terrible the Lord of Contagion performs on the tabletop. He is a point sink, but if you replace him with a cheaper (or better) HQ then you'll be better off.

 

As fun and fluffy as 7 Plague Marines is, it's a really weird number to work with. The sensible thing to do would be to get some spare plasma guns and have 3 of them (2 on the Plague Marines, one on the Champion). I put a Plasma Gun and some spare bits on a regular Plague Marine and now he's my Champion.  Because I had the Know no Fear set I ended up with 12, but usually run a single squad of 10. It's pretty expensive but I find it works pretty well.

 

I'm also not a fan of the Fist+Sword Plague Marine Champion. Cool model, horrible combo. You could pretty easily put a plasma gun in his sword hand if you've got any spares, but I chose to use the Champion a counts-as Chaos Lord of Nurgle to replace the Lord of Contagion and give my units of Plague Marines re-rolls.

 

Given that you need 3 Troops choices to field a Battallion you either need to break down the Plague Marines into squads of 5 (buying the box with 3 marines in it is a good way to do this) or have 2 smaller units of Poxwalkers. I find Poxwalkers work best in big squads. 10 man units die very quickly. 

 

From there I bought more poxwalkers (I had 30 from the two starter sets, I got more from the Easy-to-Build box and some old models I had lying around so I can use 2 squads of 20), more Bloat Drones (I have 5... I bought them before the "Rule of 3". Do not buy 5....), some Myphitic Blighthaulers, and re purposed my old Helbrutes to Death Guard.

 

I sink a LOT of points into the Helbrutes and Blighthaulers, which aren't super good, so you could probably fit Mortarion in pretty easily instead.

 

Abaddon gets tricky, since you'll need another detachment for him and his rules work best when paired with Black Legion. If you can get your hands on some Cultists an effective (and imo boring) way to use him is among a few units of them - but if you're really keen on using him without any Legionnaires you can just fit him in as a single model in an Auxillary detachment.

[Closet Skeleton]

Abaddon and Mortarion are both really expensive, I wouldn't use them together outside of 3000 points (a value I never play at).

 

Mortarion is a Lord of War rather than a HQ so you have to bring him in either a Supreme Command (3-5 HQ choices, 0-1 elites and 0-1 Lords of War) or a Super Heavy Auxiliary (1 Lord of War). So having more Deathguard around doesn't actually help you build an army with him at all. As long as the format allows multiple detachments and Legions  taking Mortarion alongside a Black Legion force is actually exactly the same as taking him in a Deathguard one.

 

Abaddon and Mortarion are from different legions but both have Heretic Astartes and Nurgle as faction keywords (Abaddon has all the god keywords) so technically you could take both in a Supreme Command with two other HQs as long as every model in the detachment shares either Heretic Astartes or Nurgle (or Chaos if you're not playing matched play), you just lose legion benefits which are dubious for these two models anyway. I wouldn't recommend that since you probably want your HQs in a battalion instead but its legal.

 

The only (semi) competitive way to run Mortarion is allied into a renegade knight army (its not actually competitive but I've seen it do okay at less cutthroat tournaments), he's actually pretty bad in a marine army since he's just very easy to kill for his points.