Goatboy’s 40K: All Hail Chaos’ New Badass Unit
Chaos has a new hot HQ doing the rounds. Take a look at the Chaos Hellwright!
Goatboy here and listening to my buddy James Carmona on the GG podcast I heard about a funky new unit from FW to try out in my Chaos builds. It is a weird option that doesn’t have a model (ding ding – conversion time!) and was something I initially looked over because well – it seemed kinda of meh. Of course a few abilities and keywords mixed with a warlord trait or two and you all of a sudden have a very powerful new tool to add to your Chaos Space Marines. The model I am talking about is the Chaos Hellwright on Dark Abeyant.
For those of you wondering what the heck this is it is aunit that started life as the Dark Mechanicus named character Archmagos Drayavac from the Horus Heresy model series. Forge World later made a generic rules version of it for 40K:
Think of it is as a really weird Chaos Warpsmith on top or attached to some kind of monster/base who doesn’t get nearly the amount of attacks as a Lord Discordant and likes Helforged more than Daemon engines. He has a few weird abilities that make him interesting and while not nearly as rough the big daddy riding a Daemon monster but with a few things added in – he becomes the boss we need in these Grey knight times.
Rules Basics
First of all – he costs 136pts. He stays an IC, isn’t a Daemon, is still a Chaos Space Marine, can be any legion or Dark Mechanics, is Infantry (magic wall powers), can take a Mark, and has a lot of interesting shooting attacks.
His Weapons
Voidcutter – 8″ | Assault 1 | S 8 | AP -4 | D 3 | Add 1 to wound vs vehicles
Soulburner Pistol – 12″ | Pistol 2 | S – | AP – | D – Each hit causes mortal wound | Roll any 1’s to hit deal 1 Mortal wound to firer
Warpfire Lance – 15″ | Heavy 2 | S 6 | AP -3 | D d6 | Each roll of a 6+ to wound cause an additional automatic hit
Flamer – 8″ | Assault d6 | S 4 | AP – | D1 | Auto hits target
Infernal Axe – Melee | S +1 | AP -3 | D 2
Mechantendrils – Melee | S User | AP 0 D1 | 2 extra attacks with this weapon
As you an see he has a lot of weird weapons at his disposal that all seem interesting. Beyond his attacks he gives all Hellforged models within 6″ a +1 to their Attacks and Leadership. He gains a wound back each turn, has a 5+ inv save, can only advance d3 but ignores penalties to shoot with moving and firing heavy, and on top of that can hell Legion/Chaos Knight vehicles d3 wounds a turn – or curse an enemy vehicle for a mortal wound. He is still an Infantry and takes up 3 spaces in a vehicle but I don’t expect this guy to ride around in a rhino.
Why is He Good?
So the question is why is he any good? Well the big thing is that I initially thought he wasn’t a legion character – just some kind of weird Dark Mechanicus thing that didn’t have enough rules to field with an army. Thankfully I got reeducated and now see how this little weird dude could be the secret sauce my double Possessed bomb army needs to deal with Grey Knights and their reliance on characters.
First let’s start at the top of it all – as he keeps the infantry keyword you can mark him Slaanesh and give him the ability to double shoot. That is a lot of firepower shooting out at an enemy. That is 4 D6 damage shots, chance for 4 mortal wounds, and 2 laser beams versus vehicles. Throw in Veterans of the Long war and you got something kind of scary as he shoots and chews thru something big and bad. Or murders a few characters. He only moves 8″ and since his ranges on his weapons are kind of short how would we get him to work?
Hail Hydra!
Well this is where you start to see the power of giving him a Legion. Which of the Chaos Legions kind of seems the overall best? Which one has some of the more interesting stratagems that let you pick more warlord traits, move around pretty fast, and gives you some neat options? If you were thinking Alpha Legion then you are right where my brain went.
There is a warlord trait and relic combo that seems destined to make this guy a viable monster.
Warlord Trait – Headhunter (From Faith and Fury book)
This Warlord can target Character units even if they are not the closest enemy unit. When resolving an attack made with a Ranged weapon by this warlord, an unmodified hit roll of a 6 inflicts 1 mortal wound on the target in addition to any other damage.
Initially I thought this trait was ok but since you didn’t have a ton of shooting options beyond a Terminator lord with Combi-Bolter it seemed hard to get to work. Of course I didn’t read enough in the Forge World book to find this gem and now understand how this can be insanely good. You can even use Renascent Infiltration (Faith & Fury) to pick this guy up and get him sniping next turn if needed. Heck there are a ton of movement tricks you can use during the game to try and get him to move around the table and knock out important enemies as needed. On top of that you can also give him the relic Mindveil to allow for quick movement that ignores all kinds of things. As he an infantry unit, moving thru and into terrain is a breeze as he moves his fat butt into positions to cause the most problems in an opponents army.
Heck this guy could be useful to remove other Chaos Characters from the battlefield as any other Chaos army runs on these sort of things to fulfill important roles in the army. He just seems to fit a lot of options Chaos needed with his abilities to be kinda of anti vehicle, anti character, and even anti infantry a bit for removing smaller units from the battlefield.
Conversion Time
All this on top of a model without any true kit so it leaves hobby masters open to building insane things. Heck I am looking thru my stuff now to figure out what to build out. Most likely I will paint this guy on Wednesday night and add him to my red Chaos Marines. I always say the Alpha Legion are infiltrating my Red Corsairs. Heck I might just use him in the Dreadnought army I like to play as he could be a big help to getting my close combat monsters working thru the enemy with their fists and dread claws.
What do you guys think? Is this another gem found for the Chaos Army? With the upcoming Chaos Knight upgrades could this guy fit into that list as a way to snipe out those pesky Warbosses and other double attacking things? With his ability to heal is he a needed option for the army?
