Goatboy’s Chaos: Sons of Magic and Night
Goatboy here again for another weekly list – this week starring Night Lords & Thousand Sons.
The new Traitor legions has me brewing away at lists and I wanted to share with you some thoughts on two of the legions. Last time I waxed poetic on the benefits of the Warband formation but this week I have two legions that don’t gain nearly as many benefits from that formation. This leads me into different directions for lists that are fully built of that legion. I do know that a lot of these could be broken apart and combo’d with either Daemons or other abusable formations (The Cyclopia Cabal and KDK seem to be well suited in helping these lists). I would rather first try to make the initial all codex legion lists work as I feel that game will be both enjoyable for you and your opponent. With that – let’s start with the Night Lords.
The VIIIth Legion
The big thing Night Lords have over the others is a ton of deployment tricks, some leadership modifiers, decent wargear, and access to a formation that is normally a good aux choice and instead of an actual core choice. The Raptor Talon is the shifted Core choice and I think it is something to seriously look at when trying to build/figure out a list. Of course – the power comes from Deep Striking and assaulting so I need some kind of ground force to ensure I have a chance to come down, punch stuff, and do some damage.
Formation: Raptor Talon
Chaos lord with Free Jump Pack
3-5 Units of Raptors/Warp Talons
Units charged by 2 or more units get -2 to the leadership rolls (-4 for fear tests) – and they can charge out of deep strike in a disorderly manner.
The big thing from this is that you can appear all over the table, get a free close combat monster in the Chaos Lord, and having some Leadership manipulation you could get a good chance to spook a unit off the table top. Let’s start with a basic Raptor Talon unit and go from there.
Night Lords List
Core:
Raptor Talon
Chaos Lord, Jump Pack (Free), Vox Daemonicus, Power Maul, Power Axe (Relic gives -1 to LD near him and -1 to opponent reserves if he is on the battlefield)
Raptors X 5, Meltagun X 2, Power Maul
Raptors X 5, Meltagun X 2, Power Maul
Raptors X 5, Meltagun X 2, Power Axe
Raptor Talon
Chaos Lord, Jumper Pack (Free), Claws of the Black Hunt (Relic is +1 Str lightning claws with rending)
Raptors X 5, Meltagun X 2, Power Maul
Raptors X 5, Meltagun X 2, Power Axe
Raptors X 5, Meltagun X 2, Power Axe
Aux
Chaos Spawn X 3
Chaos Spawn X 3
Heldrake Terror Pack
Heldrake, Baleflamer
Heldrake, Baleflamer
Heldrake, Baleflamer
Lord of Chaos
Chaos Lord, Bike, Stormbolt Plate, Lightning Claw, Powerfist, Aura of Dark Glory – Warlord (Relic gives 2+ armor save and +1 to cvr saves)
Tactics
The idea here is to hide out – let your guys deep strike in and assault things as needed. The Spawn are a decent set of units to stay on the field, hide out in terrain, and hopefully survive. Then you can have a ton of your stuff come in, do some damage, and maybe spook the crap out of your opponent. You could drop a Heldrake, get a fortification detachment, and pull in a bit of reserves manipulation if needed. This is just an initial, all Night Lords concept that is full of deep striking, spooky bad guys that will get you where you stand.
Thousand Sons
Next up will go with a Sons of Mangus list that I have been floating around in my head for a bit. I think Magnus will be a threat on the table top. He just seems very good and with the right amount of support and set up you could really have a scary monster mash style list designed to hurt your opponent. I personally think some of the Tetrad options are better as you get T 6 Daemon princes – but this isn’t a terrible one to start with on the table top. You just have to remember to hide out and protect yourself from some quick pieces of murder.
Thousand Sons List
Rehati War Sect
Magnus
Daemon Prince, MoT, Wings, Lvl 3, Spell Familiar, Gift of Mutation
Daemon Prince, MoT, Wings, Lvl 3, Spell Familiar, Gift of Mutation
Daemon Prince, MoT, Wings, Lvl 3, Spell Familiar, Gift of Mutation
Daemon Prince, MoT, Wings, Lvl 3, Spell Familiar, Staff of Arcane Compulsion (+2 to str, Force, Concussive, and people are -2 inches to charge him)
Tactics
This is another form of the Tetrad list – with a crap ton of MC’s followed by the biggest MC of them all – Magnus. Most of the time you will try to summon a few things so you can win – jink a lot of with the Daemon Princes, and hopefully get some Cursed Earth and other options that bubble out and cause the DP’s to get a 3+ invulnerable save. Most likely I would roll towards some Biomancy, Malefic, and hopefully end up with a few Psychic Shrieks.
I think there is a better 5-6 model list out there – but it isn’t pure Legions so thus something I won’t go into here. I plan on taking something small to LVO barring any kind of luck with a Death Guard/World Eaters list as I play test. I did play test the World Eaters list I threw out last week and had some amazing luck. I killed some Knights with some angry Powerfist attacks and got lucky to remove two by the end of Turn 1 (1 with my charge and then another with his charge). The World Eaters might have some play, especially when using some FW Legacy of Ruin to try and lock down first turns. I will hopefully get a chance to try out the Death Guard before long as well – depending on how busy my week gets.
Next time I will probably go into 3 Legions to help keep this series down to 4 total set of articles. I am not sure which ones I want to look at next as I have to wait for some inspiration to kick in.
~Until next time – keep those 6’s coming.
