My take on Chaos and hobby progress.

Ok so the new Chaos Codex is out and I am really enjoying seeing the CSM section of forums become more active. Chaos Space Marines were my second army when I started them back in 3rd edition. They have since then become my largest army and the one I have played most over the years. I was able to get a copy of the new Codex a little early had have gotten in a few games with them so far. So this will be my take on the book as well as some hobby progress with a couple of the new Chaos models.

So far I have had 3 games with the new dex and have 2 wins and 1 loss. The wins were at 1500 points against a Mega Nobs Ork list and a Space Wolf/IG Allies list. The Orks were interesting as they had 2 Dakka Jets so I got to try out the Vector Strikes from the Heldrake and the Flakk Missiles from the Havocs. Bother worked Very Well. The Space Wolves had a Vendetta that made me a little sad as it took out a Defiler and my Heldrake, but I was able to get 2 hull points off the Vendetta and cause a Stuck Velocity (?) result on the Pen Chart with 2 Vector Strike move. Two things in the SW/IG fight I got to try out was a Daemon Prince with The Black Mace and a Chaos Lord with the Burning Brand of Skalathrax. Both were very impressive.

The game I lost was at 1,000 points against Eldar. I took a bit more of a fun list with this one and threw Kharn in a Land Raider with some Berzerkers and that ate up most of my points. Kharn is still a beast in combat though, I am glad that he still goes at his initiative as it would have left him out of this edition otherwise..

Some things I am looking forward to this edition are the vast number of options and lists that you can build. Right now it looks like there are a lot of competitive options and combos in the book. Sure after some time we may start seeing a "power trend" in the tournament scene but that will not rule out other viable options.

To me it looks like followers of Slaanesh have gotten a big boost this edition. With all Sonic Weapons ignoring cover, the decreased cost of Noise Marines and their Sonic Weapons and just the fact that they are still I5 is a big help. As Champions of Chaos must challenge and accept challenges the higher initiative helps them in killing their enemy before they are attacked in most cases, this will lead to more rolls on the Chaos Boon Table to further increase their power. The new psychic powers for Slaanesh are great as well. The ability to make an enemy unit more vulnerable to sonic weapons and the ability to give a random buff to a friendly unit are both very useful.

With the overall price decrease of marines in this book I would expect to see more marines and less vehicle on the table. This seems to be going along with our local meta game a bit more as well. With the addition of hull points and the decreased ability to assault from vehicles we are seeing more units on foot as they are leaving the Rhinos and Razorbacks at home.

This plays perfectly into the hands of Chaos as we have a couple new toys to deal with the increase of bodies on the field. The first one being The Burning Brand of Skalathrax, being a hand held AP3 Torrent Flamer is awesome. In my game against the Space Wolves I took a Nurgle Lord with the Burning Brand in a unit of 5 Plague Marines with 2 Plasma Guns, this unit was the bane of any marine unit they came across. And with being T5 with FNP on the marines they were very resilient as well.

The second tool (and my favorite so far) is the Heldrake. Equiped with the Baleflamer, simaler to the Burning Brand is an AP3 Torrent Flamer but at a higher Str, is great for taking out large units of enemies in cover or anywhere for that matter. The Heldrake is able to get most places on the board in it's first turn on the table leaving very little space for your opponent to hide. It's only drawback is the fact that it only has 1 weapon, this was a bit  disappointing as flyers can move and shoot up to 4 weapons at full BS, so why only give it 1 weapon? The endurance of the Heldrake is better the most other flyers and this make up for the lack of weaponry. It has higher armor for a flyer being 12/12/10 (same as a Vendetta) but it is also a Daemon giving it a 5++ save so there is no need to evade and take the penalty of only being able to Snap Fire. This is a good thing as you can't Snap Fire weapons that use templates like the Baleflamer, along those same line it has Daemonic Possession so it can ignore Shaken and Stunned results on a 2+. Lastly it has "It Will Not Die" giving it the ability to regain Hull Points. If luck is on your side your Heldrake will be extremely hard to get rid of for you opponent as it makes its 5++ sames and then recovers lost Hull Points.

Cultists are great as they are a cheap scoring unit. You can leave them in reserve and have them walk on to take your home objective while the rest of your army pushes forward.

Zombies are even better! As they are Fearless and have Feel No Pain they can stick around a lot longer then cultists especially if placed in decent cover. There is a bit of confusion as to whether or not you can take units larger then 10, but even if it is only a max of 10 you are able to get 6 Fearless scoring units for 300 points! What a steal!

Now onto some Hobby Progress!

I recieved my shipment in last Thurday and started working on the Forgefiend/Maulerfiend on Sunday morning and the Heldrake on Sunday night. I decided that I wanted to be able to use the Forgefiend and Maulerfiend so I would have to work out a way to pin/mag all the optional parts. It was time consuming but I think it was worth it.

All the parts for the kit

Ectoplasma Forgefiend

Hades Autocannon Forgefiend

Maulerfiend

Now I put some pins in the back of the neck so that I could lock the neck in the model but still have the ability to turn the neck. 

Here is how it fits in, then you glue the body around it so that the neck can still move.

I magnetized the neck and head so that I could switch between the Ectoplasma Cannon and the standard head.

I took pictures of  how I did the Arms and the secondary weapons/legs but it looks like I forgot to upload the Pics, so those will have to wait till my next post.

Here is my progress on the Heldrake. I did not want to put it on the standard flying base so I decided to make a little scenic base for him.

I also did not like the forward angle of the wings, so I have cut and moved all the wings to a more outward angle. I can't wait to get this thing painted and finish the base I think it's going to look amazing. I also pinned the back talons to the body so that the Heldrake can be removed from the stand for transport.

Till next time! Happy Wargaming!