Goatboy’s 40K: Chaos Gets Slam “Captains” – Move Over Blood Angels!
Goatboy here again and look at that – Chaos get a Thunder hammer now for their characters. Let’s take a look at just how smashy they can get!
Hello Thunderhammers! This is pretty neat as it basically means that Chaos now has a Slam Captain they can use, abuse, and beat the crap out of your enemies armies with. Of course Chaos has always had a similar styled Slam Captain – it just wasn’t nearly as useful as they are now.
Hammertime!
The reason the Thunder Hammer is important is due to the flat 3 damage. Yes you could have thrown a Powerfist on the guy – but losing out on the flat damage is important for doing a number on a Knight or something else big, bad ass, and mean. Now as we are looking at Chaos – not all of them fit into the mold of a Thunder Hammer Wielding murder machine. In fact – I think for Chaos the better name for these guys is different forms of a Cruise Missile.
4 Flavors of SMASH
Now let’s look at some of the different Chaos Slam Lord you can bring. Not every single one is a Chaos Space Marine one as there are still a pretty powerful one left in the Death Guard Codex. Will show some of the useful combos, warlord traits, relics, and Psychics you can use to make your leader of the chaotic legions a true beast in close combat. That is one thing the Chaos versions have over the Imperial – built in crazy combos from all sides – strats, relics, warlord traits, and psychic abilities. Plus they hate imperials so they can generate more attacks with their own little bit of special rules.
Just because I have a rotting belly doesn’t mean I can’t FLY!
Death Guard SlamLord
First – lets go with the non Chaos Space Marine legion build. The Index Death Guard Chaos Lord can still take Jump Packs due to that useful flow chart. I don’t know how much longer will be using the flow chart but until then this guy is a pretty hose monster, hero, etc killer. To start off we will just take a bone stock Chaos Lord, give him a jump pack, throw on a Bale Sword of some sort, and then swap that out for the Relic the Plague Bringer. For those who don’t know the Plague Bringer is a Plague Weapon (much important) that is -2 AP, Strength User, and does d3 damage. On wound rolls of a 6 (also important) it does a Mortal wound on top of the damage. All in all it its pretty snazzy and can easily pile on the wounds to unsuspecting jerks you face on the table top. Throw in a few spells and strats and you start to get something that can easily throw out a ton of wounds, mortal wounds, and kill larger then 5 man units. Using Veterans of the Long war you all of a sudden wound on a +1 – which means you activate a mortal wound on a 5+ now. From there you can cast Blades of Putrefaction on the lord and activate another +1 to wound and causing more mortal wounds again on a 7+. With the chained stacks of +1 to wound you all of a sudden cause a single mortal wound on a 4+ and then 2 mortal wounds on a 5+ in addition to the normal damage. You might throw on a Diabolic Strength to get the guy up to 5 attacks and all of a sudden he could be busting out a crap ton of damage. Give him the warlord Trait Arch Contaminator and he rerolls all his wounds too. This is all for 2 spells, 1 Command Point, and a very cheap “Slam Lord” for Death Guard.
The helmet wings reduce in-flight turbulence.
Raptorial SlamLord
The next Slam Lord is specifically a part of the new “3rd” detachment will see in a lot of future Chaos lists. This would be the Host Raptorial Chaos lord. If you don’t know what the Host Raptorial is – it is a specialist detachment from the new Vigilus book that activates all Jump Pack units gain the Host Raptorial Keyword. You activate an additional Warlord Trait on the Character in the Detachment to gain the Tip of the Claw warlord trait. This grants a +2 to charge rolls for all units within 6″ of this character. As you can see this is a huge bonus and one of the reasons why this new “Chaos Slam” lord is a very powerful new edition. Throw in some Warp Talons to turn off some Key overwatch and profit by stealing everyone’s underpants. I have a few ideas for these type of lords – from the Mundane Thunder Hammer Variety to the World Eater Ginsu murder machine with double Lightning Claws and a bad attitude. Oh and to add icing on the cake – for 1 CP you can let a unit from this detachment reroll all hit rolls. The big thing is it is just a flat reroll – not a reroll misses. This means those pesky 2’s you roll with a Thunder Hammer still get to be rerolled. Very powerful indeed.
Here are some default builds you could see.
Wonder Twins
Renegade – Flawless Host – Murder Ball Version 1
-HQ-
Chaos Lord with Jump Pack – Lightning Claw X 2 – Warlord Trait – Ultimate Confidence
Chaos Lord with Jump Pack – Thunder Hammer, Chainsword – Warlord Trait – Tip of the Claw
With a well time Prescience you could have the Lightning Claw Lord causing 3 hits on every 5+ rolled. You need the other Lord to ensure you have the +2 to charge and thus why we give that guy the Thunder Hammer. The idea is two fairly cheap lords, back by a unit or two of Warp Talons, and thus has the ability to come in, remove a target and be a pain to deal with. I would probably run a single Raptor unit set up with Chainswords to throw in extra wounds on squishy units in the backfield. If we mark any of them with Khorne they can assault again to make sure that friendly Knight or tough unit gets hit two times. Too bad Chaos doesn’t have an attack again if the unit dies.
Like this, but also swinging a hammer!
Biker SlamLord
Another Chaos Version of the Slam Captain removes the Jump Pack and looks at throwing a Bike on the model. The best biker version seems to look towards the Renegade Chapter. The initial CSM book one allows for the ability to Advance and Charge so most likely we have to keep with that or the Red Corsairs option. This removes Veteran of the Long War – which is a bit of a shame as it helps a lot. As he is on a bike you can look at using the new Dark Apostle to create some bonus effects with the ability to do some damage. Most likely just throwing a few spells, a Thunder Hammer, and a Combi-Bolter allows this single model to be a roving murder machine that can throw out 8 bolter shots on the fly. Too bad we can stack Veterans on top of the Renegade chapter – but all dreams can’t come true.
He can’t be beaten – just give up.
Prince SlamLord
The last type of Cruise missile we can talk about is how the Daemon Prince model from the Flawless host interacts with the Ultimate Confidence warlord trait. This guy comes in with 7 – 9 attacks (relics, spells, etc) and with some extra hit abilities – can start to generate a crap ton of extra hits. Add in an Imperial Enemy and this missile is primed and ready to knock the crap out of the enemy. I can see one of these showing up in some lists as a nice answer to small units as it roams around, causes issues, and hopefully survives any hits back. Plus it is another Daemon Prince which means I just have to make a new one to match this idea.
Are there any other Slam like lords we are missing from Chaos? Between all the Jump Packs, Bikes, and Wings we have a good choice of fairly cheap knives to use in the upcoming battles. I get the feeling the Host Raptorial will be showing up as people try to deal with Overwatch options as well as the whole “All Eldar” flyer list that might show up more once Ynarri get a good switch kick in the dingus. For right now I am just excited to be mentally building Chaos lists as I prepare to switch to that army once the rules are allowed out into the bigger events.
~Which is your Favorite SlamLord?
