Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K Meta Hotness: Shalaxi Helbane
This week’s Warhammer 40K Meta Hotness for the week brings us Shalaxi Helbane. The character Keeper of Secrets is awesome and has a few tricks up its… well, let’s talk.
For those wondering it was a long time before we had a Slaanesh big character to even talk about. We lived with The Masque for so long as one of the few Slaaneshi characters. Thankfully GW blasted out a ton of creepy circus looking guys the last time they did a 40K Slaanesh-themed release. Somehow they missed the two twins from AOS – but I hope they get some rules whenever we get a real new Chaos Daemons Codex.
But this isn’t about them. This is about the ultimate “hunter” of big things in the 40K world – Shalaxi Helbane. Their entire lore is really about hunting all the big things in the game and skewering them on her awesome spear thing of death and destruction. They are coming in hot, ready to murder you quick, and is just tough to rid of as well.
So why are they good? Let’s start the TED talk about why this character Keeper of Secrets is well… a Keeper.
Shalexi Helbane’s Offensive Power!
Shalaxi hits so dang hard with their spear! They come in with 6 attacks with Soulpiercer that hit on 2’s, come in at strength 14, AP -3, damage D6+2, and then precision on top of it. Beyond this entire level of angry damage, they also get to reroll their charges, melee hits, wounds, and damage roll when attacking a Monster, Vehicle or Character. This means they are going to come in and, hit extremely hard. You can guarantee any damage that gets thru is gonna wreck your pants hard.
Defensive Abilities Too!
Oh and beyond just hitting hard, Shalaxi Helbane is also hard to damage in return. They have the usual 4+ invulnerable save of Greater Daemons as well as a 5+ Feel No Pain from the Aegis they are wearing. On top of that, they also subtract 1 from any unit within engagement range of their attack characteristic. Thus eliminating attacks that could damage them. This helps out in using Shalaxi Helbane as a surgical strike on the tabletop. The model wants to get in, hit hard, and hopefully not get wrecked back – and can.
Deployment Options!
Like all Daemons Shalaxi Helbane can be deployed via Deep Strike to come close and get ready to charge in. Having an auto-reroll charge into specific units/models is a great thing! Especially since so many units have embedded characters. Remember, the unit has the “character” keyword as well now. So getting a charge off is better than you think.
A Sample Tournament List
Matthew Geyer did well at the Tacoma Open with this Monster mash list this last weekend. I couldn’t find a direct link to the list and what the extra Lord of Changes had on them (Swords or Staffs) but this is the basic build of it. You can see they used the always awesome Be’lakor to help keep their big monsters safe in the initial turn.
Chaos Daemons
Daemonic Incursion
Strike Force (2000 Points)
CHARACTERS
Be’lakor (325 Points)
• Warlord
• 1x Betraying Shades
1x The Blade of Shadows
Bloodthirster (300 Points)
• 1x Great axe of Khorne
1x Hellfire breath
Lord of Change (255 Points)
• 1x Bolt of Change
1x Rod of sorcery
1x Staff of Tzeentch
• Enhancements: The Everstave
Lord of Change (230 Points)
• 1x Baleful sword
1x Bolt of Change
1x Staff of Tzeentch
Lord of Change (230 Points)
• 1x Baleful sword
1x Bolt of Change
1x Staff of Tzeentch
Shalaxi Helbane (400 Points)
• 1x Lash of Slaanesh
1x Pavane of Slaanesh
1x Snapping claws
1x Soulpiercer
OTHER DATASHEETS
Flamers (130 Points)
• 1x Pyrocaster
• 1x Flamer mouths
1x Flickering Flames
• 5x Flamer
• 5x Flamer mouths
5x Flickering Flames
Flamers (65 Points)
• 1x Pyrocaster
• 1x Flamer mouths
1x Flickering Flames
• 2x Flamer
• 2x Flamer mouths
2x Flickering Flames
Flamers (65 Points)
• 1x Pyrocaster
• 1x Flamer mouths
1x Flickering Flames
• 2x Flamer
• 2x Flamer mouths
2x Flickering Flames
2000 Points
List Tactics
As you can see Monster Mash is alive and well and Shalaxi Helbane is a part of it. Just having some very powerful targeted style monster mash units was a great thing to have in the game. They would smash into the table, murder a unit, and hopefully dance their way into something else and collect a few heads for their Collection.
No One Resists the Dark Prince
