40K: 5 Tips For The Care And Feeding Of Your Lord Discordant
Owning a Lord Discordant is a big responsibility, but with a little bit of work, it’s also a great joy. Here are five tips and tricks for the care and feeding of your Lord Discordant.
Lord Discordants can be a handful–they require constant attention, need a specialized diet of enemy vehicles, and need to be walked at least twice a game. But owning one can be so rewarding. Today we’re going to help guide you through those crucial first steps to make sure your Lord on a Helstalker does what other Lord Discordon’ts.
Make Him Hard To Hit
You’ll want to keep your Lord Discordant in tip top shape, because they’re a big beefy target, and sure they have a 2+/5+ save, but that will only go so far. Better to not be hit in the first place. Take a Dark Apostle and use Benediction of Darkness for a -1 to hit. If your Lord Discordant is Nurgled up, you can bring in the Miasma of Pestilence for a -2 to hit, which will make anyone cry.
Keep Him Healed
The more wounds left on your Lord Discordant, the better they’ll be. Fortunately, healing them can be a cinch in the right circumstances. A Warpsmith is a Lord Discordant’s best friend–healing them for d3 wounds each turn, alongside his natural regeneration. Masters of Possession can use sacrifice which can ALSO heal him for d3. If you went Nurgle and there are daemons nearby, fleshy abundance makes for another d3, kill a vehicle and it’s another d3–it’s pretty easy to surprise your opponent by going from 1 wound to full health in a turn.
Making him your Warlord gives you more options: Indomitable halves all damage you take. Soul-Eater gives you an EXTRA d3 every time you kill a unit, so 2d3 wounds back if you kill a vehicle.
Take Him For Walks
All of this is well and good, but your Lord Discordant won’t do anyone any good if he’s not in combat. Fortunately, you can pump his speed up so fast you’d think he was a hedgehog. Odds are real good you’ll want to put him in a Soulforged Pack specialist detachment–if you take that Warlord trait your movement becomes 14″ while nearby. Then move and advance–drop a sorcerer in for Warptime, move and advance again, if you max it out, you’ll get 28+2d6 inches, for up to 40″ movement, but probably more like 33″ because you moved out of the special aura. Then it’s just a 1 CP stratagem from the Soulforged Pack to be able to advance and charge in the same turn.
Or, if you want to save on CP, being Nurgle-marked and starting near a Feculent Gnarlmaw means you can just naturally advance and charge. Or go Slaanesh with a herald and a locus. Either way, it’s pretty easy to let your Lord Discordant run wherever he wants.
Dress for Success
The right relic can make all the difference in the world. First off, it’s probably a no-brainer to take the mecha-serpents relic, which replaces his standard Helstalker attacks with straight up more and better attacks. If you already have one, but are thinking you’d like your Lord Discordant to have a friend, you might consider spending the CP to give them each relics. Slaanesh’s Sightless Helm or Intoxicating Elixirs make excellent choice. Then all you have to do for your Lord Discordant is get him into battle.
Do Some Damage
Here’s how you can help him play well with others:
If you want to hit extra hard, the Brazen Beasts Warlord Trait gives you +2S and +2A every time he kills an enemy character. Greater Possessed give him +1S, a nearby Herald with the same mark gives you another +1S. Diabolic Strength gives you +2S and +1A–killing even a single enemy character gives you a base of 10 Strength (before your weapons change that), and 13 attacks +1 for each enemy model within 1″
The Daemonforged Strat, aka his new best friend, means you’ll reroll all failed hits and wounds, meaning you’ll probably hit and wound with everything. If you Nurgle-marked him, as before, Virulent blessing gives you +1 to Wound and if you roll a 7+ you’ll do damage (and with mecha-serpents, every attack you do is multi-damage).
If you went Slaanesh, Hysterical Frenzy means you can attack in the Psychic round.
If you’re going up against Imperials, things like First Among Traitors from the Black Legion can make Death to the False Emperor go off on 5s, not 6s. And since you’re naturally at +1 to hit, that makes it trigger on 4+ or 3+ if you cast prescience on him. Rerolling your misses.
All in all, a Lord Discordant can be a brutal responsibility for any fledgling Chaos commander–but if you’re up to the task, it can be rewarding. How would YOU win with a Lord Discordant? Let us know in the comments!
