Goatboy: Traitor Legion List Thoughts
Goatboy here. It’s a great time to be a traitor to the Emperor! Let’s build badass armies for World Eaters and Death Guard.
The release of some new rules has really kick my butt into high gear when thinking about Chaos Space Marines and lists that actually have them in there. I know – who would have thought by adding a few keywords to their rules we all of a sudden have a decent unit. Not Eldar Jetbike amazing – but overall a nice counter point to their goody too shoe brethren. I think there are viable lists within all the traitor legions. They might not be as high on the “meta” scale of things – but they have really solidified them as a good mid tier army that easily gets better with the better player commanding their legion of bad guys.
The first two lists I want to explore are two distinct legions. The first one is the World Eaters and the second list will be the current “best” legion – the Death Guard. Both have their strengths but they heavily rely on utilizing one of the better “winning games” formations for the Chaos Space Marines – the core Warband. For those who haven’t looked at traitors hate – the Warband is a core formation built upon a battle force like set of units. Its almost as if GW decided they needed to sell a few more terminators/chosen/raptors/etc. This mishmash of units is designed to be a counter point to the Space Marine battle company in that everything is objective secured and while the Chaos side doesn’t get free stuff (the Warp taxes are outrageous…) they do get some fun options (Double boons, etc).
Here is the basic rundown of a Warband
1 – Chaos Lord
0-1 – Sorcerer Lord
1-3 – Chosen, Possessed, Terminators
2-6 – Chaos Space Marines
1-3 – Bikes, Raptors, Warp Talons
1-3 – Havocs, Hellbrute
Extra Rules: Objective secured for everyone, and double boons when you get a Chaos Boon roll – you can keep both but you gots to take one.
As you can see – it is a pretty big mish mash of stuff that feels like a bunch of random things thrown together in a box. Initially when this came out – the thought was to keep this cheap to activate the Traitor’s Hate Black Crusade Detachment. This way you could set up a double booning crazy Chaos lord as your objective secured scaredy cats would run around the board and hopefully score and objective or two. The new Traitor Legions have come in, thrown in the extra special keyword Fearless, mixed with the added on Freebie of Veterans of the Long War, and then even added more keywords to finally make the Warband Formation a strong choice in the upcoming battles of the 40k universe.
The two army lists I am presenting try to represent their Legion as best as I can. I am just sticking with one Legion each as while I feel the better lists will try to shove in a Cyclopia Cabal from the Black Legion (Kinda fluffy as they are known to get involved with their own schemes and sacrifice the other “lesser” legions), I would rather go straight Legion to get the full flavor and pride when winning a game with a fluffy yet decent army.
World Eaters
First – lets go with the crazy – the World Eaters. I know there are some fun 30k World Eaters armies that are designed to get in, get involved, and make sure you lose a skull or two for Khorne. I initially was going to look at the Maelstrom of Gore as a core choice – but again I wanted this list to be good as well as fluffy so instead we have to go with the Warband as the initial choice for any detachment options. World Eaters have their own Legion Detachment and for the most part it is the same as the Black Legion – two core choices (Warband and Maelstrom) and then the 8 different Aux options from that detachment.
The warband seems to be the correct choice as while the Maelstrom of Gore has a ton of Bezerkers, the added on rules from the World Eaters Legion really amps up the power level of the basic Chaos Space Marine. As I am sure you have seen online – the World Eaters Legion gets the following if they pick the legion – Have to Purchase Mark of Khrone but they get Veterans of the Long War (VoTLW) for free which brings along with it Fearless, Furious Charge, and Admantium Will. The magic rule of Fearless means you can get cheaper, better Berserkers and even have the option of decent weapons.
The added on spice to make this army work is the Detachments extra rule of giving every non Vehicle in the detachment a free 2d6 move that comes after set up, and infiltration. This with another small little Special evil Artifact helps amp up this list and makes for an extreme sense of the “Oh S$%t” when the opponent has to see a crap ton of red armored jerks heading for their home base. The item gives the bearer and his unit an addition 3 inches on movement, runs, and charges. This adds up to a ton of space as the Red angry jerk faces come to take all your dang candy. Just a note – the 3″ might not added on the initial 2d6 move – it depends on how that move is worded and the Artifact is worded.
World Eaters List 1.0 – Murder Murder Kill Kill Kill
World Eaters Legion Detachment
Warband
Chaos Lord, MoK, Juggernaut, Talisman of Burning Blood (Move item), Powerfst, Lightning Claw, Sigil, VoTLW
Chosen X 5, Meltagun X 4, Combi-Melta, Rhino, Dirge Caster, Dozer Blade, VoTLW
Chaos Space Marines X 20, MoK, Meltagun X 2, Power Axe, VoTLW
Chaos Space Marines X 20, MoK, Meltagun X 2, Power Axe, VoTLW
Chaos Bikers X 10, MoK, Meltagun X 2, Power Axe, VoTLW
Helbrute, Powerfist X 2, Legacy of Ruin: Perdus Rift Anomaly (If on table – reroll seize or have opponent reroll seize)
Aux
Chaos Spawn X 1, Mark of Khorne
Lords of the Legion
Kharn
Chaos Lord, MoK, Juggernaut, Axe of Blind Fury, Sigil, VoTLW
The basic idea is to utilize the Chosen ability to infilitrate and get close enough to the enemy to turn off any Overwatch and get mixed in to do some damage. Sure you got a crazy amount of movement – 2d6+3, plus 12+3, and then 2d6+3 when you charge in with the big blob of bikes and Juggers. Kharn can tag along on the back end if you want or you could just have him leading some Chaos Space Marines to glory. The Helbrute combo is there to help you keep your turn or at least give you a chance to seize your destiny and bring as many skulls to the Skull throne. Plus with all this Objective secured you can easily “steal” an objective or two. The Axe of Blind Fury is just there as another fun way to add more attacks, do more damage, and just scream bloody murder to the dog face god of killing and maiming.
Death Guard
Next up is another idea utilizing the power of multiple saves and the gifts of Nurgle. I personally feel the Death Guard army has enough chops to make it to some of the top tables. The mix of Fearless, Toughness, and speed makes for a very powerful force. This again utilizes the Warband by creating hard to remove units with powerful damage potential in Chaos Lords, Sorcerers, and always “on” heavy weapons. The Death Guard seem to get the best mix of powers from getting the free VoTLW with FNP, Fearless, Relentless, and the small tax of losing a point of Initiative. The Vectorium detachment even adds another wrinkle to this by allowing you to reroll rolls of 1 for your FNP. We all know how much of a pain in the butt the Necrons can be and now we have a new version with some better weapons, objective secured, and fearless on top.
We start with a Warband and utilize a different Auxillary to help activate the army. I initially like the Raptor Talon and while you do get hampered with a drop in your Initiative – the added in value of a unit that can hit and appear out of nowhere will be a big help as your army moves up, gets locked in and starts to punish your opponent. Of course you lose your ability to hit faster so Power Axes and Power fists will be the best.
As is usual will start with the Warband as the main Core Choice. I really like the Plague Colony – but that one is more set up for some kind of massed Toughness drop combo. The power of MSU is too frequent so while it would be rad to make a Bark Bark star melt away when you hit the amazing -4/-4 S/T combo – it isn’t something that will consistently win you games. Thus the move back to the Warband, massed Obj Secured, and great combos of speed and toughness.
Death Guard List 1.0 – Grinding my Gears
Death Guard Legion Detachment
Chaos Lord, MoN, Bike, Sigil, Powerfist, Lightning Claw, VoTLW
Chosen X 5, Meltagun X 4, Rhino, Dirge Caster, VoTLW
Chaos Space Marines X 10, MoN, Heavy Bolter, Meltagun, Rhino, Dirge Caster, VoTLW
Chaos Space Marines X 10, MoN, Heavy Bolter, Meltagun, Rhino, Dirge Caster, VoTLW
Bikes X 10, MoN, Meltagun X 2, Power Axe, VoTLW
Havocs X 5, MoN, Auto Cannon X 4, VoTLW, Rhino, Dirge Caster
Aux
Raptor Talon
Chaos Lord, MoN, Jump Pack (Free!), PlagueBringer (Daemon Weapon), Sigil, VoTLW
Raptors X 5, MoN, Meltagun X 2, Power Axe, VoTLW
Raptors X 5, MoN, Meltagun X 2, Power Axe, VoTLW
Raptors X 5, MoN, Meltagun X 2, Power Axe, VoTLW
This is one of those things that I am not entirely sure if the Raptor Talon would be worth it but man it would look cool. The slow advance of the Death Guard mixed with the screaming engines of the Raptors coming in to punch things to death. I went with the Plague Bringer weapon as it is a Daemon weapon, can be a big giant Scythe, and while it isn’t AP 2 – these guys are meant to go kill things far away. Thus the Big Bad Chaos lord can just go about slicing and dicing.
You could drop the Talon, go with some Chaos Spawn of Nurgle, and create another mobile Death Star with another Chaos lord or Sorcerer. The sorcerer would come from the Warband and thus gain Objective secured so this might be the better way – but I just want Raptors to be good at some point and this might be the way to get them to work. Plus Autocannons for the old school 30k Win!
Which way to Terra?
These are some of my initial thoughts on my two favorite armies from the Chaos book. I plan on looking at some of the other options too – as while they are not nearly as spicy as these two I still think there is some hope for the Chaos Space Marines. This isn’t everything we wanted out of a new book – but interestingly enough – a new book wouldn’t invalidate these legions either.
~Until next time – Death to the False Emperor!
