Unit of the week Unit of the week: Chaos Spawn

[Cpt.Danjou]

+++Unit of the week+++

 

Chaos Spawn

This thread is only for tactics for Chaos Spawn, not for pictures, there are other places for that.

How to best use Chaos Spawn?

 

• Legion?
• Which stratagems are worth throwing out?
• Any solid unit combos?

[Cpt.Danjou]

I never used them, mostly because that I think the Chaos Spawn models might be the ugliest minis GW ever have released, plus they are expensive per point when it come to money, I think the might be the most expensive GW models points/£. But now I have gotten the Gellerpox minis, and will put them in lipbases, so the base size is right. I find it kind of interesting that our spawns are much better than the DG and Thousand sons. That is also a reason I never thought about bringing them into a CSM list, but with the buffs the CSM spawns have compared to the other legions, I am considering them now.

 

Cpt.Danjou

[N1SB]

I'm very interested in this topic.  I know the unit is pretty good out-of-the-box, but Brother Danjou hit the nail on the head, which legion/combo/tricks don't we know about?  Our Warhammer Store manager out-of-the-blue started doing this Word Bearer project, and I saw him doing something with a Master of Possession.  I don't know the details, but I know there's something there, so I'd be keen to learn from you all.

[Gree]

Chaos Spawn are a great chaff unit, fast and durable for their price tag. I don't expect them to kill things, I expect them to be an irritating distraction for my opponent. Even a single Spawn is useful as a cheap backfield objective grabber. Spawn are useful in every Legion, but Red Corsairs and Creations work great with them.

[Tallarn Commander]

I own 8 Spawn and I love them. In squads of 4 to 5 they can serve as a cheap melee unit and, as noted above, smaller squads can deny deepstake, cap objectives, screen, and generally harass the foe.

 

And in my Night Lords lists Spawn have even more utility with their -1 leadership fear aura. Just by hanging out near the enemy they really improve the odds that all other nearby Night Lords units are at +1 to wound.

 

I agree with Captain Danjou that the models for Spawn are quite hideous. So all 8 of mine are converted from greenstuff and unused bitz I had hanging around. The most expensive part of my Spawn models are the base, glue, and greenstuff. 

[danodan123]

For Word Bearers spawn re rolling hit rolls is nice! 

[dice4thedicegod]

Also creations of bile for extra str and move.

 

i think spawn are great.  Either as single models for extremely cheap holding of LOS blocked backfield objectives, or a bigger frontline unit to absorb smites etc and do a bit of fighting.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I was just talking about this with my friend after our last game and we both agreed it was an excellent unit for its purpose - I play emperor's children and would fill all of my available fast attack slots with them (at the moment I am only fielding 1 as I have 2 venomcrawlers in my other slots).  They are an excellent opportunity objective and table quarter grabber- they are small, extremely cheap, easy to hide, non-threatening, somewhat fast and hard to kill in that an opponent needs to over commit firepower to guarantee to take it down, otherwise they might as well not have fired at all.  Obviously, it would be nicer if it were faster and had objective secured, but it already excels in grabbing remote objectives over its next closest competitors, the rhino and the minimum size cultist squad as it costs 1/2 as much as either of those and is much easier to tuck out of sight of enemy fire.

 

This is one unit that I actually think performs its primary purpose (objective grabber) it is best at minimum squad size - any more models just makes it harder to hide.

 

The fact that is mildly effective in melee is just icing on cake.

[Maggotlord]

I love them and my regular opponents hate them. :D

 

I regularly field them in units of 3 as roadblocks / light assault units (I play Black Legion, therefore they are hitting on 3+ after a charge) or as one—beast—units to be all kind of a hinderance for my opponents. 

 

And I love the models! 

[Xenith]

My only experience with spawn is with Thousand Sons where they're star players, but that maybe says more about the quality of the TS dex than anything - I was really surprised to see the buffs CSM spawn get - for 2pts more infinite regeneration is amazing, it'll really force the opponent to overcommit or risk their shooting being useless, as above, which is exactly what you want. 

 

Either min units to block deepstrike or hold objectives, 4-5 blob units are also tough to remove, but also put out decent melee damage - the ~4A S5 AP-2 D2 profile was an amazing marine killer before AoC, and now that's gone, they'll be decent again.  With sons we could also choose our roll on the table for a CP to improve utility, but this is a unit that can really harm or annoy most things in the game. TS can get weaver on them for a 4++ which is crazy, so if you have a way of getting an invuln onto them, do so! 

Edited January 16, 2023 by Xenith

[Prot]

One of my old favourites for sure. In the Thousand Sons I called them my 'failed sorcs', and now they are even better. I use them a bit more with my iron Warriors as they are a bit challenged covering the field, but now with the Ark of Omens detachment, It's far easier to get them in my Black Legion.

 

 

[Toldavf]

Quiet interesting for My NL's they are very resistant to small arms fire and reasonably quick. Its a shame about the 4+ to hit though very few pure melee units are marred with that these days. 

 

They are expendable though because of their low cost which is a bonus. 

[dice4thedicegod]

I’d think that they are mandatory in thousand sons list as so much of the rest of your units want to stay out of melee.

 

in CSM, I’m finding them a gift in small game list design.  We have a big map based campaign where we have various sized battles and at the small end, with AoO detachment, it is nice to be able to run spawn, spawn, venomcrawler as a legal list (plus an hq).

[Xenith]

More anecdotal evidence, but some spawn ripped through my outriders in a game last week - they were DG so had Grandfatherly Influence for T6 and -1D, which is horrific on them. The outriders charged in and killed one, the spawn got ap-4 and did 2w back, then in their turn they got 3d3 attacks, my opponent rolled hot and got 5 wounds, 4 went through with lack of AoC and left only the sergeant. They still seem to be a powerhouse unit. I' have been in more trouble if they were CSM ones. I think underestimation is a tool in their arsenal. 

Edited January 29, 2023 by Xenith