Best Detachment for Abaddon / Black Legion

[Prot]

So after the IW experiments, and games I've been wanting to pull out Abaddon and Termies. 

 

I don't want to just assume that Vets of the Long War is or should be the detachment for Abe and friends. I believe (though have not tested this detachment) that Abe probably works best with Chosen in the VotLW detachment.

 

Access to re-rolling hits is good, but Termies have that, so it feels like Chosen, perhaps in a landraider for a turn or two, would work best with Abe?

 

The Raiders detachment is just great general utility while being able to leverage a scouting unit is just inherent good for scoring. Whereas I feel like VotLW is all about mimicking the Gladius, but with some other minor tricks.

 

Any thoughts on the best detachment to give Abe a leg up? Or if he really should be with Termies anymore or is that argument invalid with him being able to join Chosen now?

 

As a side note I'm trying to fit in some other HQ's with Abe, but I can't find a means to do so... am I missing something or is there a way to attach multiple HQ's ?

[spiros14]

For the most part you are only allowed one character leading a unit. There are exceptions, and with CSM you can add the Master of Executions to a unit that already has a character.
I wouldn't recommend you do that with Abaddon, though. 

My advice would be to put Labrador the Despoiler in a ten-strong unit of chosen, and then have them all in a Land Raider. It's a huge points investment, but you'll likely one-shot any non-vehicle unit in the game, and even vehicles would be on borrowed time when you dark pacts with lethal hits and plink them to death. 

[Cpt.Danjou]

I tried VotLW this weekend, and it worked great at least against Votann, end result 68-17 for Chaos.

What i learned from this game is that choosing what unit should get "Focus of hatred" is that it should be planned ahead, I used it on the Land-fortress so my Havocs could kill it, they didn't, in the end it was hammered to death by chaos lords, and in the third and fourth round I used it on those pesky Hearthguards. If by any chance can kill an unit, and want to switch "Focus of hatred" to another unit, be sure to save up the CP, because the "Endless Ire" stratagem is a bit costly with its two CP. And also the "Bringer of Despair" startagem is a bit costly in my opinion as you only can get fight first with the unit that has the "Focus of hatred" two CP feels a bit expensive. 

 

My work horses were the Legionaries units and Rhinos, they gave me most points, as they held Objectives, and mopped up several minor threats. I am a firm believer in ordinary Legionaries, but they do have to be bricks of ten loaded into a rhino, and I almost always go shooting. My terminators were a bit of a disappointment as they barley manged to take out anything without using "Focus of hatred" and stratgems. In the end it was my Terminator lord who made the most fun roll,as he dark pacted, and the rolled Yatzy in sixes, the hearhguard was vaporised after 10 powerfist hits. 

 

For me VotLW felt more like 3rd edition Chaos marines, not that excited about it, but would not mind trying it again. Next week I am trying Renegade raiders.

 

Putting Abaddon with a squad of chosen  in a Land raider would be so expensive, almost 2/5 in that, sure it is extremely hard unit and will obliterated almost anything, but the rest of the army, how is your thoughts about that? 

 

Cpt. Danjou

Edited June 4 by Cpt.Danjou
I forgot the part about Abaddon.

[Prot]

Thanks for that overview.  
 

so you didn’t take Abaddon? Or chosen?

 

I was thinking of chosen and MoE with scout and Abbadon using Raiders which seems like a great detachment. However,  VotLW looks like a lot of fun. 
 

imagine those havocs coming out of a rhino getting reroll hits and wounds with the Raiders Strat. 
 

additionally I agree, Abe Termies and a landraider is probably going to cost too much. 

Edited June 4 by Prot

[Cpt.Danjou]

Abe, a brick of chosen and a land Raiser will cost too much (785), a five man unit is even worse as you don't get the most out of Abe, in my opinion. I used to like to have large powerful bricks, but now when objectives are so important I tend to drift over to smaller less expensive ones. Chosen are great for that, as they are both fast and pack a punch. Scouting them with Abe might be a good idea, being almost on top of an Objective turn one is good thing, and few things wants to dig that unit out in close combat. If you pack a unit in a Rhino, and zoom it over the board, 18" is insane, they will become a priority target, which is not a bad thing as everything else will be able to move easier without getting shot at. And in the name of the Chaos gods, all those heavy weapons that get improved ap is divine, ap -2 heavy bolters, with both lethal hits and sustained hits, with double re-rolls! I think I mus lay down now. :) 

 

I did use small units of Chosen in my match, for taking and denying objectives. My take on Chosen is that they are a true harassing unit, when used in small units. Sure they can hit hard, and are fast with their Advance and Charge, but they are still kind of frail without any Inv or FnP. With an MoP they become slightly faster, but when he lost the FnP, I am not sure if he is worth his points, I might try to add a Dark Apostle instead to them, adding 1 to the wound roll in melee is amazing.

 

 

Cpt. Danjou

[Ezekyle_Abaddon]

I haven't had much time to play games since the codex dropped, but I did get one game in recently.

 

I ran fellhammer against necrons running hyperphase and had a similar experience to Prot's game from a different thread.  What I thought would be a tanky 10 brick of chosen with Abby's 4+ invulnerable aura was not really that tanky when you have mass shots of lethal hits coming at you. Pitless cannonade was handy to deny a couple of my opponent's deepstrike charges, but other than that It was not really a good fit.

 

I have a game coming up where I'm running deceptors. It's very character heavy, with Abby, Chaos lord, Dark Apostle, Sorcerer, Warpsmith, and MoE with soul link, 3 maxed legionares, 2 min cultists, 10 chosen, and then backed up with Forgefiend, Vindicator, and Pred Annilator.

 

The plan is to gum up the mid with cultists and legionaries while Abby + Moe and Chosen advance up the board and using Soul link for either -1 to hit, +1 to wound in melee, or extra strat if I plan to do a big from all sides turn.

 

I have no idea how well this will go, and the low anti-tank might bite me in the behind, but we'll have to wait and see. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

P.S. If you have any suggestions on if I should change anything let me know.

[Prot]

Well I hate to say this but for the sake of my Black Legion competitiveness I'm dropping Abbadon. 

 

I'm going Votlw, and it will have a lot of the Legionairies in it but little else. I guess it still makes it Black Legion, but I feel like Abaddon is super hard to do well with as he's got to empower, or out right kill around 300 points himself! That's a tall ask. 

 

He really doesn't have a place in Terminators anymore since his buffs are redundant there. And the Captain model gets the advantage of free Strats, and the enhancement slot. 

 

I will miss the 'free' CP, but I can work around that. I'll try to update after my next game. 

[INKS]

From what I have seen you want to have Abe and Chosen? This seems to be the way people are running him to be competitive. Along with lots of Legionaries, few Rhinos and then warp talons.

[Prot]

Thanks. 

 

Well for now I've pulled Abaddon from my lists. I think he's good on paper, but now with a good chunk of games under the new codex, I am not convinced he's going to get those points back in most cases.

 

I put him with 10 Chosen a few times. Once in Raiders, and now in Votlw. Both were losses. He did slap some squads around pretty good, but the squad didn't seem to perform any better with him. The 4++ invuln on Chosen is great, but they do alright offensively without him, and the movement of the squad gets awkward with him. (I prefer my Chosen in a transport/landraider.)

 

So they hit once, then they're pretty much done unless your opponent is equally slow, or perhaps they want the fight.... IE: World eaters.

 

So for now I'm going heavier Legionaries, I'm pulling Termies and Abaddon out of my lists for  a while.

 

 

[INKS]

Yeah, I can understand that. Legnionaries are really good. And I've not seen anyone really running terminators sadly. much as I love them. Will be interested to see what works and all that.

[INKS]

I wanted to add on that I have Terminator fever again, I don't know if I want to run all gk's or DA or Custodes, all have great terminators who can run basicly mostly or all Terminators, wish chaos had something like that.