Getting Back into Chaos!

[ChaosReigns]

Hi all,

 

So after a year and a half (or so) hiatus, I'm looking at getting back into 40k in the next little while - luckily I didn't sell any of my stuff.

 

I have a Word Bearers army as well as a whole bunch of Daemons of various sorts (lots of Tzeentch, but also a little Khorne and Nurgle). 

 

I realize that Word Bearers are generally considered to be one of the weaker legions, but I'm going to stick with them nevertheless, and I'd like to play a fairly sizeable Daemonkin Ritualists detachment as the core of my army. I have, I think, 15 Possessed from the old Favoured of Chaos box set, and a whole bunch of Gal Vorbak I can use as Greater Possessed, of which I was thinking I'd take somewhere between four and six. Ideally I'd like to run a melee heavy army.

 

I don't have any daemon engines apart from a Defiler, as I ran two Hellforged Contemptors (using Mhara Gal models). Apart from that though any suggestions for running this sort of build? I could purchase one or two new items, but I'm hoping to avoid committing to too much painting because I already have to assemble and paint the Possessed, among a bunch of other models.

 

Any advice would be much appreciated. Assuming this style of army is doable, I want to ask people's opinion on two other things as well -

 

How are people using summoning? It seems like between Dark Pact and the Incursion psychic power you can call up some pretty big guns, so to speak.

 

Secondly, would it be better to try to foot slog a big squad of Possessed (put all 15 into one unit) and protect them from shooting with Benediction of Darkness in order to maximize the effectiveness of Vessels for the Neverborn? Or should I split them up and put them into Rhinos with the characters, a Dark Apostle and Master of Possession at least, as well as the Greater Possessed, which will be faster and a bit more flexible? If you end up taking several Rhinos though it really eats into your points allowance.

 

At least to my uneducated assessment it seems like if you want to take Possessed anyway the detachment is pretty solid, especially with the advent of the new Hateful Assault rule.

[Gederas]

Welcome back! And to be honest, yes. Word Bearers suck. Their non-trait is what stopped me from going with them (went with the VIII instead).

 

HOWEVER! While yes, on their own the Word Bearers are easily the weakest Legion choice with the worst Legion Trait and Warlord Trait. Fortunately they aren't alone, being the best choice if you wanna go deep into fully devoted territory be it spamming possessed and buffing them with characters or daemonic allies, whether devoted to one or all of the aspects of the primordial truth.

 

Their Legion trait is bad. Their Warlord Trait, Relic and Stratagem? Good.

 

My biggest thought is, if you want be fluffy and effective, and also use the Vigilus detachments, the ones to look at are Cult of the Damned, Daemonkin Ritualists and Soulforged Pack.

 

My recommendation is this. If you're set on using tons of possessed and making a melee-heavy force, you NEED some kind of ranged. You can get that with Cultists, Daemon Engines or Helbrutes. Possibly all three. If getting Daemon Engines, look into getting a Lord Discordant, they're amazing.

 

1dchan also has these three recommendations for tactics:

• Allies From Beyond: Take Masters of Possession and go heavier on the monsters/Daemons; if you use Dark Pact when using Incursion you can make their summoning extremely reliable, conjuring up max-sized Daemon units (Seekers come to mind to make it much more likely you'll make the charge, or Bloodcrushers since they're just devastating on the charge and it's not too much harder to make) or the new Keeper of Secrets, thanks to having a low enough charge you'll get it the vast majority of the time. If you really want to boost your daemons then summon a Herald (preferably of Slaanesh) to boost all the Keeper's attacks to S7 (and sword to S9) to wound Marines on 2's while being able to crush vehicles. To boost the Greater Daemons even further (and give them a little extra protection when they're summoned in), make sure to take a Dark Apostle and use a Prayer, either to make them harder to hit or boost their damage in case you really feel like killing Knights. Don't forget to put The Cursed Crozius on the Dark Apostle either because it's just a genuinely great weapon. Even just from a support role the Keeper can help out if you already have Possessed or other Slaanesh units in combat since they can almost immediately cast Hysterical Frenzy and give you an out-of-sequence close combat round (although you're better off doing this from a Herald if you just want to troll the enemy with that move). Don't worry about skipping out on Sorcerers, if you really want something like Warptime you can always use the Chaos Familiar Stratagem to give it to one of the Masters of Possession.
• Little Lorgar: The second way to go about it is to use the Dark Apostle to hold the main line. With The Cursed Crozius he makes a very effective charge deterrent, since you can make him have 6 Strength 6 Ap-4 attacks that do 3 damage each, meaning he's effectively punching in at near the same weight class as a Greater Daemon (greater if you want to burn a lot of CP, 1 for beseeching and 3 for getting him to fight again, just in case you wanted to make Bloodthirsters look like pansies). Given the Voice of Lorgar and by using Illusory Supplication you can pretend you've got an army of Daemons by spreading that 5+ save around, which goes well with lots of Cultists and/or Havocs, especially since he fixes the former's morale issues. Naturally this works a lot better in smaller to mid point games than the really large ones, though he still provides a decent bubble there too.
• Angry Little Lorgar: Khorne-Marked Apostle with the Black Mace. Only D2, but more Strength (9) and potential to deal Mortal Wounds on 6s.

[MegaVolt87]

If you want some big combat power, look at the FW decimator. It's a demon engine, so can get a lot of buffs. Seems very highly rated amongst the board members here. I'll leave it to them to explain better.

[Hannibal]

Secondly, would it be better to try to foot slog a big squad of Possessed (put all 15 into one unit) and protect them from shooting with Benediction of Darkness in order to maximize the effectiveness of Vessels for the Neverborn? Or should I split them up and put them into Rhinos with the characters, a Dark Apostle and Master of Possession at least, as well as the Greater Possessed, which will be faster and a bit more flexible? If you end up taking several Rhinos though it really eats into your points allowance.

 

 

Well, a friend of mine used to run bigger units of Posessed (around 10 models), but as soon as they all died to magic (mortal wounds) he stopped that experiment.

 

Additionally we did the comparison and it seems that Berzerkers are still the beter combat unit, though this might not be of great help for you if you like to run a bunch of Posessed.

 

 

If you like to go the Rhino route think about a Sorcerer with Warp Time as it allows to move your Rhino a second time, bringing it to the heart of battle as soon as possible. It is even possible to give it -1 to hit via smoke as well as -1 to hit via some spell / prayer (can´t remember exactly). In addition, you should always give your opponent a second (or even third) comparable target in order to let your Rhino reach the lines. This could be a second Rhino full of melee craziness or some Lord Discordant or some fast daemon engines.

[Closet Skeleton]

Contemptors beat out Decimators until so many buff characters are added that you might as well be running Leviathans instead.