Goatboy: Chaos Traitor Teamup Combos
Goatboy here again with my final review of the Codex Traitor Legion. What happens when you mix and match villains!
Overall I am happy it came out as it does give Chaos a chance to reach the upper mid tier of armies. It can win an event – but most likely that is on the back of the “character” formation combos that generate a rough death star or push an outrageous psychic advantage. This isn’t a bad thing a lot of 40k is based on either shooting the hell out of your opponent first or having a unit that can survive just about anything. This is most likely not going to change until the new edition and how it will try to deal with the Deathstar issue and somehow make balanced armies win more.
With that in mind let’s look at the overall themes and what the Traitor Legions book gives us. First of all – every legion basically gets a Sorcerer Cabal of sorts due to “good” overall formation detachment and the ability to take 5-6 Lord level style characters in most options. We all know the power of the Chaos Book is that their characters are actually under costed when compared to other options. They fight well, have decent abilities, and make up the strength of the book. Mix in some FW options and you do have some strong stuff available. It is just the support units and the overall lack of shooting character that hurts the book the most. It really only has a Death Star style build that will push it into the top 8 of events.
Badass Chaos Characters
Looking at Chaos from a character standpoint – the strongest character add ons are throughout all the legions. In fact just about any traitor option gives you something good to “add” to a death star. Let’s go over the best “gift” characters from each legion.
- Mindveil Alpha Legion Chaos Lord/ Sorcerer. Hey remember how those Dark Angel Command squads auto passed Hit and Run? How about another auto pass hit and run like ability – but it is done at a different phase and and doesn’t let the opponent unit even get to consolidate? Now of course you just do it in your movement phase – but there isn’t anything saying if you can’t break away from an enemy on what you do – you just get to move. This is pretty nutty and mixed with a cheap war band and “cheap” sorcerers you basically generate a Cabal without the extra power. The Detachment even grants the character Shroud as well – which we all know the Eldar hate to see across the table.
- 2+ Armor save Daemon Princes with the Mark of Tzeentch. There are a large amount of 2+ armor save options in the book and they all are missing the old – can’t give this to a Daemon Prince option. They all give extra abilities too – and all seem to cost the same amount as the 3+ armor you would normally be able to get. The Night Lords one is the best as it also gives you a +1 to your Cover save. Mix this with the Stealth rule and you have a MoT Daemon prince that has a reroll 2+ armor save and a 2+ cover save. I like the Iron Warriors one too as IWND is fun. Plus it has a ton of conversion potential.
- There are a lot of interesting Daemon Weapons. You could put them on a Sorcerer who is throwing dice at Biomancy as Iron Arm gives them Smash. A Daemon Prince also does well with a Daemon Weapon and I think the best one to give is the decent Blade of the Hydra. Being able to generate more hits on rolls of a 6 will make for a very rough combat indeed. Plus Rending means it could tear through a Knight. The Tzeentch Daemon Weapon is also very spicy as it has Force and a weird strength vs leadership wounding profile that could be very deadly in the hands of a Biomancy fueled Daemon Prince.
- Cyclopia Cabal. With the added in Black Legion’s free VoTLW the Cyclopia Cabal seems to be the easy formation answer for just about any Chaos Space Marine army. Most of the other legions force you to take a Mark – and while they are not bad it really doesn’t give you enough rolls on the updated Spell Charts as well as searching for specific spells in the book charts. The other none marked heavy Legions benefit as you can get the spell benefits of 3+ unmarked sorcerers and still get extra Legion benefits like stealth, shrouded first turn, and even better boon benefits. The winners here are Night Lords and Alpha Legion for the unmarked department for sure.
- World Eaters have a great add on character when you give someone the Talisman of Blood. +3 movement to everything is huge and the army can easily do ok just having a CAD and the small tax to get a character or two shoved into a “KDK” glue unit like Flesh Hounds. Mix in a sneaky Alpha Legion jerk, some Alpha Legion unmarked sorcerers, and you get a crazy fast star combo that isn’t just a Cabal. Plus you can let your Warlord be an Alpha Legion guy and have them pretend to be World Eaters.
Getting the Gang Back Together
With that in mind – lets look at a Multi Legion army list. I don’t find them that fluffy as the plan is to utilize the mixing of Legions and the lack of an FAQ/GW saying that those abilities stay together when combined. Still these are things we might see on the competitive table top as everyone and their mother loves to win with Chaos Space Marines.
World Eaters CAD/KDK Formation/Alpha Legion Insurgency Force
World Eaters CAD
Chaos Lord, MoK VoLTW (Free), Juggernaut, Powerfist, Lightning Claw, Talisman of Burning Blood, Sigil of Corruption
Cultists X 10
Cultists X 10
KDK Formation – Gorepack
KDK Bikers X 3, Meltabomb
KDK Bikers X 3, Meltabomb
Flesh Hounds X 16
Alpha Legion Insurgency Force
Warband
Chaos Lord, Bike, Mindveil, VoTLW, Sigil of Corruption, Powerfist, Lightning Claw
Sorcerer, VoTLW, Bike, Blade of the Hydra, Spell Familiar, Lvl 3
Terminators X 3, VoTLW, Combi-Melta X 3, Power Maul X 3
CSM X 5, VoTLW
CSM X 5, VoTLW
Chaos Bikers X 3, VoTLW, Meltabomb
Helbrute, Powerfist X 3, Perdus Rift Anomaly
Lord of the Legion
Sorcerer, VoTLW, Bike, Spell Familiar, Lvl 3, Meltabomb
Lord of the Legion
Sorcerer, VoTLW, Bike, Spell Familiar, Lvl 3
Aux
Spawn X 1
This sets up a big star with enough bodies to go get objectives. You power up – utilize Mindveil to get out of combat and even utilize Shrouded for the first turn protection. Heck you even get to generate Blood Tithe points and that big ole star really hates other Psykers too. Plus the 2 characters are objective secured as well so they can even help take away objective as needed. It also has the Alpha Legion infiltrating the Khorne guys and trying to figure them out. I would again use the Alpha Legion Chaos lord as your Warlord as he can easily “sacrifice himself” and have one of the other characters lead for a while as needed. The big fat unit also moves an extra 6 inches when trying to get into combat (3 on the move plus another 3 for the charge) so it can easily hit a 25 inch charge (average of a 7 on the charge roll – so 15+10 = Profit).
Bloody Change Mashup
Another funky combo I randomly did the points for is a Thousand Sons/KDK Ally army. The idea is that since all the Daemon of Khorne stuff doesn’t care about Mark of Tzeentch and thus you can create an interesting combo/death star thing with Dogs, Herald, and some blood crazed Cultists. The idea would be that the army is under the slavery of Magnus due to the fact I own a Magnus and want to play with him. So here you go – the unfluffy army list unless you really try to work the whole enslavement angle.
Rehati War Sect
Magnus
Exalted Sorcerer, Lvl 3, Spell Familiar, Disc of Tzeentch, Staff of Arcane Compulsion
Exalted Sorcerer, Lvl 3, Spell Familiar, Disc of Tzeentch, Seer’s Bane
Exalted Sorcerer, Lvl 3, Spell Familiar, Disc of Tzeentch, Athenaean Scrolls
Khorne Daemonkin Ally
Herald of Khorne, Juggernaut, Locus of Wrath
Cultists X 8
Flesh Hounds of Khorne X 16
This army is pretty basic – you got a big fat Star – with some challenge protection in the Herald. You have some Ap 2 smashing goodness with the Daemon Weapon Exalted Sorcerer. You can throw some powerful spells with the Scroll guy and you even get a -2 to charges on you because of the other Force Staff. Of course then you add Magnus on the top, a crap ton of bodies to throw wound into and a lot of the guys have decent saves – whether using the Thousand Sons rule to get down to a 3+ or some other form of Magic Shenanigan. In the ITC FAQ the Disc gives you a Jetbike status – which means you get a +1 like you would on a bike etc.
Just Scratching the Surface…
What other multi-legion combos have you looked into? I wouldn’t be surprised to see a KDK star backed by Magnus and some Disc Sorcerers. That just seems ripe as a way to activate Magnus and have some bodies to get in the way. You could even say he has enslaved the Flesh Hounds to do his business or clouded their vision. I think I got Magnus on the brain as he sits there in a box staring at me. I have him to build and a Aratpos Knight for a client. It doesn’t help that LVO is coming and obviously I plan on playing some kind of Chaos build.
~Post some of your combos in the comments and see what horrible stuff you can come up that make the Imperial armies cry.
