Goatboy’s 40K: The Year’s Best Bad Guy Releases
Or are they the true heroes? Let’s go through the top 5 “evil” releases from this past year. I happen to be a bad guy player so I have a lot of thoughts on these last current crop of evil jerks.
So what were the best? From models to rules let’s jump down memory lane and go through the top 5 awesomely evil plastic dudesmen.
5. The Lord Discordant
I remember seeing this model pop up during one of the GW preview nights and thinking – OH MY GAWDS! This guy looked cool, seemed cool, and all the little bits of info they dropped as they showed him meant I was going to get 3. The rules came out, he was pretty good for a few months (thanks Marieen frwiends!) and is still a badass model. I think overall, he fits the new archetype for Chaos releases in that he is a daemon engine, a combat badass, and an interesting aura creator. I really wish the model had more options – but when you are chain halberd wielding monster man – you just sit in one pose.
4. Chaos Knight
This model looked amazing when it first was previewed, and when I got my grubby little hands on one, I was seriously impressed. I think the only issue with is that it did not come with a chaos set of all the weapons – but there were so many options to cover those missing pieces. It was ok. Beyond the model, I thought the codex itself was pretty dang awesome with decent rules, powerful synergies, and just an overall unique feeling when compared to those vile good guy knights.
3. All the Slaanesh Stuff
Slaanesh was always a hard Chaos god to picture as the weird old sexual side of the design was something GW wanted to move away from. Instead, we got a lot more body horror and eerie beauty, which allows these new models to look unique. I can only hope we get an Emperor’s Children release to accompany these crazy acrobats of pain. A big thumbs up for the Keeper of Secrets as this model brings a lot of interesting lines and shapes that the Greater Chaos daemons were missing.
2. Bringing New Prayer Rules
Chaos was the first to bring Prayers as another pseudo psychic power to the 40k universe. This gives a unique set of options for armies that don’t want to play around with Psychics. It even pushed into the Space Marines release with their own Litanies that I expect it to show up in a lot more armies as they work on creating unique powers/auras for codexes that don’t fit the fluff of having some kind of Psychic ability. I can see this easily flowing into the Tau with the Ethereals and maybe even Admech going towards a set of Prayers over Canticles.
1. Faith and Fury
This was probably the best release for Chaos this past year. With a pile of good rules, it helps revitalize an army that felt kicked in the teeth when the new Marines came to town. I know I have talked about it a lot but this little book brought me from the brink of jumping onto the Marine bandwagon and set me up for most likely future failure – but my own chaotic failure – for the coming year. I can only hope the next releases for Thousand Sons and Death Guard bring nearly as much power to those poor Chaos armies. Heck Daemons need some love too so in general the Psychic Awakening stuff has been kind to the Bad guys.
I am hoping next year show some new Psychic Awakening, a new Chaos Army, and maybe a new Primarch. Beyond that I just want 40k to continue to move forward with a good release, strong rules for players’ armies, and more hobby fun with amazing plastic miniatures.
~ Death to the False Emperor!
