40K BREAKING: Blackstone Fortress Servants of the Abyss Datasheets
Blackstone Fortress is here, and that means the villains of Blackstone Fortress, known as the Servants of the Abyss, are here. And today we’ve got a look at this new micro-faction and how they play in Warhammer 40K.
The ruinous powers have a knack for turning up in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the depths of a Blackstone Fortress are no different. Here, after all, are powerful relics and ancient technology that could break the Imperium, and Chaos is all about that. So surprising no one, we have a bunch of Black-Legion-aligned baddies showing up–well they’re technically Obsidius Mallex’ cronies, but he’s nominally a member of the Black Legion and it would be unheard of for someone in Chaos to be plotting to betray their masters or somehow have their own agenda, but most of these forces fall under the auspices of the Servants of the Abyss.
First up, we’ve got the big man himself. Nothing fancy–just a Chaos Lord with a plasma pistol and Thunder Hammer.
Of course Mallex is what enables the rest of the forces of your army. Obsidius Mallex comes with the above Rogue Psykers, who do not take up a detachment slot if they’re hanging out with their boss. Then of course there’s the Dark Mechanicus representing with their amazing new Negavolt Cultists….
And you’ll also get some good ol’ Black Legion Marines. Nothing fancy, but you can take them without losing your detachment slots–which is good, because it’s unit of 2 marines and they’re just dudes.
The Traitor Guard, on the other hand are what most folks have been waiting to see. These renegade members of the Militarum have given themselves over to Chaos–and they are exactly what you’d hope to get out of a squad of Chaos-aligned Militarum. Now there are no customization options here, so these models are wysiwyg but hopefully this won’t be the last time we see Traitor Guardsmen.
We round out our hostile forces writeup with the Chaos Beastmen, who are a bunch of Beastmen that are surprisingly good on the Charge. They can catch you off guard, especially if they’re running up alongside the Traitor Guard–but what’s far more interesting to me are the Spindle Drones.
They have a fiddly weapon rule which means if you don’t wipe them out, they will hit back much harder than you thought. The ideal scenario seems to be to lose two models from this unit, at which point they’re tossing out a potential 9 damage per turn (which falls off quickly to 8 and then 5). But check out their new keywords, the Blackstone Construct (which is interesting because we know that more Blackstone expansions are planned) and Unaligned. If Blackstone Fortress is a hint of things to come, 40K could be seeing more independent machines as new Unaligned constructs escape the confines of the Fortress and filter out onto the battlefields of the 41st Millennium. We’ll close off with the points for you to hang onto for all your list building needs.
What do you think of the new Guard? The new Drones? Let us know in the comments!
