Goatboy’s 40k: Chaos Brigades, Forgeworld, & Command Point Banks
Goatboy here talking about some of the new strengths from the keyword “Chaos”.
The new 40k Codexes are starting to put a lot more emphasis on the usage of Command Points. The current “champion” on strong Stratagems is the new Chaos Codex. They have the most options for creating “damaging” turns with usages like causing more wounds, setting up way to close to an opponent, and even just making things harder for your opponent to hurt them. This leads into trying to find ways to get the cheapest Brigade to generate the biggest bank of Command points. Lucky for us – Forgeworld and the Chaos Keyword allows the bad guys to have more then enough points to do all their dirty tricks.
Regarding Forge World…
Before I go into the initial list building thoughts on this – let me begin by saying we should really look at Forgeworld to fix some of this. A lot of these units are too “cheap” can causes this ability to abuse the Brigade detachment. The idea for this one is that you only take this Detachment to make your army. You are forced to take so many “taxes” that it becomes hard to fulfill all the pieces need to get those sweet sweet command points. Of course you have Forgeworld and the dirt cheap Renegades and Heretics army to come and bring you all those delicious command points. It has me feeling that events need to step back, look at the broken choices, and maybe make a blanket statement of no Forgeworld again. It would remove a lot of the Smite Spam and upcoming Brigade Detachment spam that is coming as people start to figure out that turns with +1 to Wound and shooting twice might be a bit too much for armies to handle.
Meet the Chaos Soup Brigade
Let’s begin by a quick version of the Chaos Soup Brigade.
Using Renegades & Heretics and Chaos Daemons to get the cheapest options out of each force org Slot.
Chaos Brigade Soup – Daemons/Renegades and Heretics
HQ: The Changling – 100pts
HQ: Malefic Lord – 30pts
HQ: Malefic Lord – 30pts
Elites: Renegade Marauders X 5, Stalkers, Sniper Rifle X 2, Shotgun X 3 – 34pts
Elites: Renegade Marauders X 5, Stalkers, Sniper Rifle X 2, Shotgun X 3 – 34pts
Elites: Renegade Marauders X 5, Stalkers, Sniper Rifle X 2, Shotgun X 3 – 34pts
Troops: Brimstones X 9, Blue Horror X 1 – 32pts
Troops: Brimstones X 9, Blue Horror X 1 – 32pts
Troops: Brimstones X 9, Blue Horror X 1 – 32pts
Troops: Brimstones X 9, Blue Horror X 1 – 32pts
Troops: Brimstones X 9, Blue Horror X 1 – 32pts
Troops: Nurglings X 3 – 60pts
FA: Chaos Spawn X 1 – 33pts
FA: Chaos Spawn X 1 – 33pts
FA: Chaos Spawn X 1 – 33pts
Heavy: Renegades Heavy Weapon Team, 3 Mortars – 24pts
Heavy: Renegades Heavy Weapon Team, 3 Mortars – 24pts
Heavy: Renegades Heavy Weapon Team, 3 Mortars – 24pts
Total – 656pts – 9 CP
Building on the Base
With almost every choice sitting under 35 points each and still “decent” enough to be useful you have a really “rough” set of options for an opponent. Plus you still have a ton of points left to grab whatever you need that might want a surplus of Command points to use. You also need to make sure you pick a “single army” detachment to get ahold of those Stratagems – but it isn’t hard to easily add them in, get some usage out of those stratagems, and take the fight to the Imperium.
An Alpha Legion Battalion seems to be the next thing to add to this. You can go into a lot of different directions depending on your mood. You could also look at adding a Lord of War or two – but let’s just talk about more bodies on the table top. There has been a lot of talk about using some mixture of Khorne Berserkers, Noise Marines, and maybe some double shooting Terms to try and create an Alpha/Beta Strike list to crush an army in a turn or two. I don’t know how good it is – but with 15+ command points at your disposal you can easily place a lot of units really close to your opponent, survive the first turn, and crush them. You could also set up the table where there is almost no room for any deep striking or reserve deploying armies to fully capitalize on.
Alpha Legion Battalion – aka Elite Jerk Strike Force
HQ: Sorcerer, Wings, Prescience, Warptime, Force Sword – 126pts
HQ: Chaos Lord, Jump Pack, Hydra Blade – 93pts
Elite: Khorne Beserkers X 9, Chainsword/Chainaxe X 9, Icon of Wrath – 163pts
Elite: Khorne Beserkers X 9, Chainsword/Chainaxe X 9, Icon of Wrath – 163pts
Elite: Noise Marines X 9, Sonic Blasters X 9 – 171pts
Troops: Cultists X 40, Mark of Slaanesh – 160pts
Troops: Cultists X 10 – 40pts
Troops: Cultists X 10 – 40pts
956pts – and brings another 3 CP!
Heck you could add more guys on the table if you wanted, drop in Oblits, or even something else depending on how you feel. Heck a Daemon Prince or two or you can drop some of the elites, Grab Magnus and some HQ’s and call it a day with another Supreme detachment.
Clean Up – Aisle 3!!!
This all stems from the ability to get 9 CP for very little investment. It has me feeling like the only way to clean up some of this mess is to just remove FW from matched play until they can get their points in alignment with the rest of the armies. It doesn’t feel really as fair as what the other armies have to pay for to generate that many Command Points. Sure the scary AM book is out there – but this army can dump so many bodies on the table, burn multiple Command points a turn, and generate advantages that AM can’t even look at because they don’t have the access to cheap choices among all the force org choices.
What are your thoughts?
What other types of armies could you do with this Cheap Brigade? Would this be a good battery for some kind of Death Guard thing as well? Will this be the common thing used for any Chaos style list that hopes to over utilize Veterans of the Long War? Should we just say no to Soup Detachments if you have real books out already?
~Should we look at just removing Chaos/Imperium Keywords?
