Goatboy’s 40k Thoughts – What I Expect From Abaddon’s Secret Black Book?
Goatboy here again and today I want to chit chat about the new Mini dex/Art Book/Rantfest from GW – the Black Legion.
I don’t have any rules for it and today I just want to speculate on what we might see. It is interesting to look at because we had a bunch of odd rumors for Chaos before the book came out and it makes me wonder if those rumors were going to be true.
So let’s look a the easy stuff. Since the Chaos book come out a long time ago in the beginnings of 6th, this little release will be an interesting one when compared to the other 2 mini books. Both of those books had codexes that were just out and both of the books felt very much like an extension that could have been added to the main book.
Now I am not against mini books as I treat them like cool art books with the added benefit of a few rules and wargear. I don’t have to buy every single one as the rules are easy enough to find and haven’t broken the game much at all. If you want to play the army you should have the book in some way but as each of those two mini dexes are the farthest from my goat addled brain I could give a rat’s a$$ about them.
The first Chaos mini dex might be the first to really be a “big” release. We might see new rules, units, or designs beyond tweaks to the warlord chart and war gear. I know we all heard a lot of chatter about a new Abaddon model so it could be interesting to see it pop up. So what makes the Black Legion – well so black?
First thing I can expect from this new book is some kind of troop swap. It wouldn’t surprise me if we have Terminators as the new troop choice as it fits in the lovely circle of – crap we didn’t sell a lot of Chaos Terminators with the new book – let’s make people buy some more. I don’t know if it would be powerful but it could be interesting as a set of 3 terminators is almost as cheap as 10 cultists. You could also have the big bad ass unit of them do more then scare people out of a table quarter as they don’t hold the objective. I see this option being pretty safe as it gives people what they want (tough Chaos Troops) as well as creates a small foot print army perfect for traveling. The Chosen didn’t get people interested due to the lack of fearless but Chaos Terminators might be the key.
Most people think the Chaos Space Marine book is basically the Black Legion so this mini dex has to do a lot to make it feel different. As Abaddon is locked in his Hatred Warlord trait I doubt will see something new there. I know some of the stories had Black Legion Sorcerers so maybe will see some kind of Chaos Ascendent Mark/Psychic list? They are also known as the biggest so they should have access to the largest crop of war gear/stuff.
The last two mini books created super units. You have the blob of Spirit Seers as well as Farsight’s posse of jerk faces so it makes sense we might see some kind of super Terminator unit for the main man in black. They might all have crazy war gear, 2 wounds, or other options that increases their point costs.
The real difficult thing about this is that the other 2 mini books didn’t add new units/models – they just tweaked on what is there and we all know the Chaos book is a bit bland. There are fun things in there but day in and day out you only see certain things on the table top. I’ve painted 11 Heldrakes and I am sure I will end up painting more. I tell you what I want to see – I want to see more Daemonic engines. I want to see some kind of touch/hint into the evils of the Mechanicus. I want to see some new models so we can get excited about the Mini book releases.
I really just want to see the Chaos Space Marines book get back some of it’s groove and start to crush on the younger books. I am tired of seeing 3 Heldrakes and cheap friends. I know I part of the problem at times but if we had more options for decent stuff then I would play it. I am just glad that lately I have had to think about new stuff every month instead of just trying to shove the same army list down people’s throats. Lucky for me I only worry about buying evil armies so I am relatively safe unless Orks come out.
Who do you want to see next for Chaos? I know a lot of Death Guard players are out there so I hope that is next. I have a feeling the Word Bearers will get some love as they can easily combine up into a Daemon style army. We have the World Eaters and Emperor’s Children as well so I am sure that will finish up this lot. The rumors point to these books being labors of love from the developers and I hope they continue to show case their pet armies. I know I would love to write up an Ork speed freaks mini book.
~So what do you most want in a Black Legion Supplemental Book?
