Warhammer 40K Meta Hotness – I Think I’m In Love with Chaos Helbrutes
Goatboy here again and I think the Chaos Helbrute is a winner in 40K 10th Edition. Every last one of them!
Let me tell you there are a few models I own way too many of. You could say that about Chaos stuff as a whole but I really own a lot of Helbrutes. I think between the conversion ones, FW ones (pour one out for these homies), and other weird army ones I have at least 10+ just sitting in trays. That’s a lot and while I didn’t magnetize them like I should have, I still have enough to mess with if I want too. In fact I think there is a ton of play with them right in 10th Edition. Especially in those Chaos armies that need to the benefit of an Aura creating Helbrute that is hard to remove quickly. So with that – let’s talk about them and why they might just be good right now.
So Many Flavors of Chaos Helbrute
Each of the Chaos armies’ Helbrutes have distinct abilities that they can give to their army. Heck the only one without an Aura is the World Eater one and it has a rule that still feels super World Eater like – which we’ll talk about later. But first let’s go into their benefits.
Auras and friendly neighborhood tortured sarcophagus’s of pain are what’s on plate tonight with three of the Chaos armies getting powerful little rules they can use to help their brothers out. I would think they would want to torture their friends due to not having arms, legs, and other neat bodies parts.
Thousand Sons Helbrute
Let’s start with what is probably the best one in the lot – the Thousand Sons Helbrutes – aka the Most Cabalist Jerk in the place. This guy gives an Aura that lets you gain another Cabal point if you do a Cabalistic Ritual within 9” of the Helbrutes. This is pretty dang crazy if you are building an army that is all about using more and more Cabal points to activate all kinds of crazy things. This can be huge if you are needing get more points or need to generate more due to losing some of your ritual buddies. Thousand Sons want to cast rituals and if you have more ways to get more rituals you are doing what the army wants to do – thus why this guy is super sweet.
CSM Helbrute
The Chaos Space Marine variant is pretty sweet as well with the ability to amplify the Dark Pact rolls within 6” and letting both pacts activate. This means you gain Lethal Hits and Sustain hits at the same time for all unit within 6” throwing out pacts. There is no way you are not Dark Pacting during a game and having marks that activate Critical hits better will let these little jerks become very important to the game. You drop in a squad of Oblits nearby, do your Dark Pact, and watch Sustained hits on a 5+ and Lethal hits on a 6+ with some powerful weapons!
Death Guard Helbrute
The third good Aura one is the Nurgle Deathguard Variant which is an interesting one as it is one of the few that do something to enemy units instead of just helping your gross dirty boys out. This one can give a Contagion hit on a unit it shoots which can be very powerful. There are a lot of interesting abilities that activate if a unit is in “contagion” range so having an ability to cause that mark from a distance might be very good. Heck at minimum, it will knock the Toughness down on the unit too.
World Eater Helbrute
Finally let’s talk about the World Eater one which is an interesting choice in how it works. If you target this angry jerk after you finish your target attack it can either fight you right then, or shoot you. This can be crazy as it just needs to target and not just damage you. It would be one thing if you took wounds first but if someone throws some damage into you and doesn’t hurt you – the World Eater Helbrute gets super pissed off and responds with whatever damage option you have. I kind of wish he brought the frenzy to his friends nearby but this interaction could be really interesting if things shooting him weren’t just killing him right away.
Are you going to be playing with Helbrutes in your Chaos armies? Do you think they make the cut with the new Walking Daemon Princes and other fun things the armies have?
