Be'lakor's Army?

[INKS]

I think this was just announced with Book of Rust 2. What do you think his army is going to consist of? Or, since he's undivided, what do you run with him?

[Trollbeard]

Apparently his “Disciples of shadow” will be a mixture of CSM and demon units. They had mentioned in the last teaser about how one of the new psychic powers would be great on Havocs.

 

I already have a large amount of Nurgle demons I can run alongside him. Was thinking of getting a KoS or 2 to go along with him, and then hopefully be able to support them with Havocs or obliterators, and other CSM units.

[INKS]

Wondering if he could be run in a monster mash list with Morty, Magnus, Be'lakor and then a bunch of pink horrors? Might not be the best use of him. I dunno.

[Xenith]

Hard to say, I believe he's an addition to the Chaos Mortals book in Age of Sigmar, however his for his legion of darkness only allow daemons. 

 

All the 40k images for him seem to be with CSM, so here's hoping he can be in both armies!

[Trollbeard]

Did anyone end up picking up the book for Be’lakor? I’ve only seen snippets. No real leaks yet.

 

If you have picked it up, how does it look so far? Seems very limited on what demons you can use, no princes or Greater demons, and you need 1 of each god before you can add in more of a specific god.

[WarriorFish]

I'm still wondering how you use him in other armies From what you say it sounds like his army has some significant restrictions? I'm presuming it's only a minimum of one of each god required before you can do what you like?

[Hlakir]

I have picked up the book. 

 

First up, Be'lakor now has Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle and Slaanesh as faction keywords. So you could now use him in a mono god detachment or army (there can be no other Daemon Prince in the same detachment though. He hates them to such an extent that he get a full re-roll to hit AND to wound against them).

 

Now for his Disciples. There are a lot of restrictions. The perhaps biggest one right now (for matched play) is that the daemons and mortals don't share any Faction keyword other than CHAOS unless they are all dedicated to the same god. So if you want to run with CSM they must all have the same mark (to have a Faction keyword in common with Be'lakor) and you may only bring one other unit of daemons besides Be'lakor (as you can't select another daemon unit dedicated to the same god until you have taken one from each god). If you want to focus on Daemons you can't bring any mortals at all. This might be an oversight from GW (the Disciples of Be'lakor keyword might have been intended to be a Faction keyword, but right now it isn't). This is obviously only a problem for matched play.

 

For the other restrictions if you want to play Disciples of Be'lakor...

 

Be'lakor must be your Warlord.

 

You ARMY may not include any:

- Greater Daemons

- Daemon Princes (other than Be'lakor)

- Daemon Engines 

- World Eaters

- Thousand Sons

- Death Guard

- Emperor's Children

- Chaos Knights

- Titanicus Traitoris

- Khorne Berzerkers

- Rubric Marines

- Plague Marines

- Noise Marines

 

In addition to that you cannot include more Chaos Cultists units than Heretic Astartes Infantry units (Characters don't count). Also you can't take a second daemon unit with allegiance to one god until you have taken one unit each from the other three gods.... then you can't take a third daemon unit with allegiance to one god until you have taken two units each from the other three gods.... and so on. Be'lakor doesn't count. All the restrictions mentioned also applies to units you summon (so you can't summon a Greater Daemon or bypass the "unit from each god" rule). 

 

What you get:

 

- Objective secured for all Troops

- Daemons can still use Stratagems, Relics and Warlord traits as if they were in a Chaos Daemons Detachment.

- The same is true for Heretic Astartes (though they can't use any Legion specific stuff).

- You don't get a Daemonic Locus (obviously, as you can't fulfill the requirements) or Legion traits. Instead you get Locus of Shadows (for daemon characters) and Disciples of Shadows (for CSM). Both abilites seems good (both include minus 1 to hit if more than 12" away as was shown in the previews).

- You also get access to Disciple Stratagems and Be'lakors own Psychic discipline. Both include good stuff (such as psychic powers that teleport units or make a unit untargetable with shooting attacks or the strat that removes all damage from an attack).  

 

Oh... and the warlord trait part is only for Crusade I guess as neither army can take extra warlord traits and Be'lakor is always you warlord.  

 

If you are looking to run a mixed Daemon army, this seems to be the best option (as you actually get something while doing it). The restrictions might seem very limiting but you still have a lot to choose from. And if you don't want to play around with all the gods at once you could use Be'lakor in your normal daemon army instead (he will even benefit from the Daemonic Locus now that he is no longer Undivided). Haven't looked too much into what you can do for Heretic Astartes yet (but it probably involves the Mark of Slaanesh). Feels like an interesting army though, but not top tier if that is what you are looking for.  

Edited July 17, 2021 by Hlakir

[Lord Raven 19]

So, what I remember from the previews was that Disciples of shadow was the AL trait with extra added right? So that hopefully indicates reworked traits for CSM when they get a new book right? 

 

With the teleporting stuff, might be interesting with khorne as well?

[WarriorFish]

Thank Hlakir, I was hoping/thinking that it wouldn't be quite so restrictive with the god as that limits army composition a lot. I can see why this prevents the army being top tier, but then most armies aren't anyway :P

 

It's good that Be'lakor has all the god marks, means it'll be easy to include him in a Daemons army which is my main plan for him :)

[Irate Khornate]

Unfortunately due to the precise wording of a 3+ year old FAQ he still shuts off the locus in a mono god army

 

Q: If I include Be’lakor in a Detachment in which every other unit owes

its allegiance to the same Chaos God, does that Detachment benefit

from the Daemonic Loci ability?

A: No, as Be’lakor does not owe allegiance to any one Chaos God.

 

So hes best being thrown into a mixed detachment you had no intentions of having a locus for, like a Impossible robe exalted LOC and nurgling troops.

Edited July 18, 2021 by Irate Khornate

[WarriorFish]

Hopefully we can see the FAQ amended so he doesn't break the locus, otherwise it's that's going to be a harder sell on using him It's possible that when the Daemons codex comes out we may see some change to how the loci work so this is less of an issue, but who knows when that may be...

[happyslugger]

So could we throw him in a separate patrol detachment with say some nurglings, and then have a battalion of say Khorne, or nurgle (mono) and include GUO or bloodthirsters in the battalion? Sorry not had many 9th edition games due to lockdown

[Irate Khornate]

So could we throw him in a separate patrol detachment with say some nurglings, and then have a battalion of say Khorne, or nurgle (mono) and include GUO or bloodthirsters in the battalion? Sorry not had many 9th edition games due to lockdown

 

Yeah, unless you are running his army of renown Disciples of Be'lakor. If you are running his AOR then you are not allowed to bring Greater Daemons at all.

[Irate Khornate]

Hopefully we can see the FAQ amended so he doesn't break the locus, otherwise it's that's going to be a harder sell on using him It's possible that when the Daemons codex comes out we may see some change to how the loci work so this is less of an issue, but who knows when that may be...

Even with the navigation you have to take to put him in your army I am absolutely taking Be'lakor. I'll just throw him in a patrol detachment with some nurglings for some scouting obsec and then bring a mono god battalion/ other patrol as it's only per detachment that he shuts off Loci.

 

Reason #1 to take Be'lakor, dude has the equivalent of several exalted abilities built in to his data sheet (about 4 off the top of my head) and depending on which god you run that goes from roughly 33 points per cp saved to roughly 18 points compared to a base cost Greater Daemon.

 

Reason #2 for Be'lakor he gives your entire army reroll 1s to hit if they are in range, in an army where rerolls are sorely lacking I can not express just how much of a quality of life boost this is.

 

Reason #3 regardless of the god you owe allegiance to, he fills a gap your army has. To the point you can even use other god aligned stratagems on Be'lakor that you would normally not have access to to help fill that gap even more.

 

Reason #4 and my favorite reason is his model is absolutely amazing, why would you not want to field this monstrosity.

 

Sorry for the sales pitch, but I just wanted to say while I know it's a pain to field him I still believe its absolutely worth it when someone wants to and I know what it feels like to buy a beautiful dead model.(one that looks amazing but will never see the tabletop)

Edited July 18, 2021 by Irate Khornate

[WarriorFish]

We shall see as always, he's too good a model to pass up so I'm sure he can find his way on the table top from that alone

[happyslugger]

I need to crack on painting my Khorne army and actually build him lol

[MegaVolt87]

Eh, run him in a separate detachment if you want him in a CSM army I guess. Was hoping for a closer, less restrictive integration with CSM to be closer to mixed demons/CSM like the good old days of 3.5 dex. 

[Trollbeard]

I’m hoping they change the “Disciples of Be’lakor” keyword to a faction keyword n an FAQ. I’ve seen some reviews where they’ve written lists with both demons and CSM units in the same detachments.

 

Would make list building a bit less restrictive I think.

[Closet Skeleton]

Specific rules trump general ones. So if the Army of Renown says you can put chaos marines and daemons in the same detachment you can and its intended that you just ignore the faction keyword stuff.

 

There's no need to be a jerk just because there are some over-sights in how its written.

[Trollbeard]

Oh for sure, just rules lawyer types could argue that your list would be illegal in those circumstances is all.

[4ndroid]

I was going to use the old Bela' model as a mini-me demon prince...

oh well, maybe he'll just role with my Khorne detachment :) 

[Irate Khornate]

So big question answered now. Disciples of Be'lakor is not a faction keyword. Yikes.

[Trollbeard]

That’s pretty lame, you are forced to spend CP on a second detachment to use the army. I don’t think it would have been game breaking to have CSM and demons in a single detachment with the existing restrictions the army has already.

[Hannibal]

That’s pretty lame, you are forced to spend CP on a second detachment to use the army. I don’t think it would have been game breaking to have CSM and demons in a single detachment with the existing restrictions the army has already.

You can, of course, just use a majority of CSM and ONE unit of daemons and give all the same mark. Then summon in some more daemons.

[Irate Khornate]

 

 

That’s pretty lame, you are forced to spend CP on a second detachment to use the army. I don’t think it would have been game breaking to have CSM and demons in a single detachment with the existing restrictions the army has already.

You can, of course, just use a majority of CSM and ONE unit of daemons and give all the same mark. Then summon in some more daemons.

Be'lakor would be the only one who can summon due to the alignment restriction also applying to summoned Daemons, and he needs to always be on the move. Edited August 21, 2021 by Irate Khornate