Warhammer 40K: New Chaos Marine Traitor Legion Rules
It’s refresh time for the Chaos Marines. The Classic Traitor Legions are getting updated rules!
The classic Traitor Legions have some updates in the upcoming Chaos Space Marine book. If you wanted to play one of the Ancient Legions besides Death Guard, Thousand Sons, and World Eaters, then you’re about to get some new rules to use.
“The upcoming Codex: Chaos Space Marines gives each Traitor Legion its own tools to stand out among the rabble, including a Legion Trait, Stratagems, Warlord Traits, Relics, and even secondary objectives. To help you choose which of these raucous warbands you’ll ride to battle with, we’re taking a look at some of their stand-out options.”
Traitor Legion Rules
Kicking things off we have the Warmaster’s own Black Legion up first. Their Legion Trait provides a pair of bonuses to boost their combat effectiveness.
The Combat Attrition test bonus is nice but the bonus to hit is actually really easy to get as well. The Black Legion’s attacks are going to be pretty accurate across the board.
Next we have a look at the Word Bearer’s custom Warlord Trait. This essentially turns them into a Daemon. They gain the keywords Daemon and Daemonkin, a 4+ invulnerable save vs ranged attacks, +1 to Strength, Attacks, and Wounds, AND an additional 2″ of move! That’s QUITE the boost across the board.
For the Night Lords we get a hint at those new Stratagems. In Midnight Clad we see for 1 CP you get to make your Night Lord unit harder to hit. A -1 to be hit is still a -1 to be hit! Nothing wrong with that.
For the Iron Warriors we get a wall of text that is also a Secondary Objective. I’m curious about how this will interact with the rules from the upcoming Chapter Approved War Zone: Nephilim — but hey, that’s just Matched Play, right? Anyhow, if you’re playing with those Secondary Objectives this one is perfectly thematic for the Iron Warriors to attempt.
The Alpha Legion have an interesting Relic that punishes their Opponent for attempting to use the same Stratagem multiple times. Each time they want to use the same Stratagem they must pay 1 additional CP. That could really wrack up and prevent those pesky 1CP stratagems from dominating all game.
And finally we have the Warlord Trait for the Emperor’s Children. This one is a bit of a mind game. Both you and your opponent choose a number between 1 and 3. GW suggest using a D6 and covering it with your hands. And then reveal them at the same time. If the numbers are different then the Emperor’s Children Warlord gets that many bonus attacks.
Do you go for 3 and hope your opponent doesn’t? Or do go for something smaller in hopes they won’t try to “block” your extra attacks? If you’re their opponent do you just pick 3 and hope for their greed to take over? Or do you play their mind game and go to block all their bonus attacks?
The Chaos Space Marine Codex is coming soon! The Traitor Legions will rise…
