I Feel Your Pain: Slaaneshi Powers

And last, but certainly not least, we have Slaanesh.

Sensory Overload is the Primaris power for you perusal here.  24” range assault 4 with S4 and AP4 and inflicts a few status ailments on the target unit including concussion (reduced to I1 if wounded, but this unlikely to kick in on single wound models) and blind, which involves and initiative test or the reduction of WS and BS of the unit to 1.  This only kicks in if you score a wound, but it’s still a nice thing to consider.  Overall, I’d say this is my favourite of the Chaos Primaris power as it is a handy, if unspectacular, ranged power that brings a number of very nice disruptive side-effects at a decent range.  This is an extremely viable option for use against shooty armies, such as Necrons, Guard and Tau, as they are more likely to die to the shots and far more likely to get blinded.  An excellent double whammy.

Hysterical Frenzy is next on our list Slaanesh nastiness.  This is a blessing power that gives a friendly non-vehicle unit a random stat upgrade of +1 Initiative, Attack or Strength.  Admittedly, you don’t know which until you cast it, but they are pretty much all useful.  The weak link in the chain is probably going to be the Initiative bump as that’s more situational than the others.  If your initiative is already higher, then it’ll do nothing for you, but if it isn’t, then it could be massively important.  On the other hand, the Strength and Attack upgrades are always going to be useful.  Quality power.

Symphony of Pain is our Malediction for the round.  24” range and the target unit receives -1WS and   -1BS.  Useful, but unremarkable.  It can give you a strong edge in assault against other MEQs or it can significantly reduce the effectiveness of enemy shooting.  However, it wouldn’t be a Chaos power without some weird little addendum.  The addendum in this case is that any sonic weaponry fired at a unit under this malediction gain +1S.  This does make it a rather nice combo power and certainly aids in point defence from a squad of Noise Marines, who, if stationary, are already packing a cruel number of shots.  It’s also worth noting that this malediction can be cast on vehicles to boost the strength of Noise Marines to take down armour.  As a final note, this power can be cast multiple times on the same unit, and its effects are cumulative, making it a very nice combo if you’re running multiple Slaaneshi Sorcerers (unlikely as that may be).  Overall, I really like this power and it’s undeniably useful even if you’re not packing noise marines in that game.  However, if that is the case, you might be better off trading it for Sensory overload instead.  It depends on what you opponents forces are and how geared for an assault you want your list to be.

And the last power we have here is Ecstatic Seizures.  This, in common with the other two, is a double charge power and is fairly situational in its effectiveness.  It has no Strength and no AP and is an Assault 1 with 24” range.  If the enemy unit is hit and doesn’t manage to Deny the Witch, the every non-vehicle in that unit will take a hit at their unmodified strength.  By the way, what units have a mix of vehicles and non vehicles?  Only time will tell…  Anyway, as you can imagine, if you’re flinging this at a tactical squad, it’s unlikely to achieve much.  10 guys, 5 wounds caused, either 1 or 2 Marines dead.  However, it start coming more and more into its own as the target squad increases in size.  If you’re throwing this into a 30-strong Boys mob, then you’ll take eight or nine of them.  You’ll kill about a third of any given Guard squad and about half for termagants.  This is a very effective form of crowd control against the more numerous enemy types and the randomness of the damage inflicted could scupper the effectiveness of their special weapons even if their positioned to deny this opportunity to regular shooting.  I can see the debate over whether or not the unit gains a cover save cropping up, and at the moment, my view is that they do not, as the shot itself is not causing wounds or having a direct effect.  You get a similar situation with Tau Markerlights.  You don’t get cover against them because they are not hurting you.  Like I say, I can see this question arising and I’m prepared to admit that I may be wrong upon deeper FAQs being released, but at the moment, that’s my reading.  I like this power, but it is very much down to what your opponent is running as to whether or not it’ll be of any great use to you.

So that’s it!  I’m really not sure who the best God is in psyker terms, as they all have very distinct flavours and useful powers.  At the moment, I’m in favour of Slaanesh, but that could well change down the line.  Right now, I’m just having fun playing Chaos!

So long!

Turn Your Head and Cough: Nurgle Powers

And so we come to Grandfather Nurgle.  Again, we have a varied set of powers to cut our teeth on.

The Primaris Power is the classic Nurgle’s Rot.  This is a 6” Nova power (all enemy units within 6” of the Sorcerer get hit) and any unit that gets hit immediately takes D6+1 Poisoned 4+ AP5 hits.  It’s not going to tear armies asunder and you need to be murderously close to deploy it, but it is a very handy backup power to cull the weak from the herd before an assault.  I quite like this power, but as I don’t really play Nurgle, I’m unlikely to give it a good playtest.  It strikes me as a solid Primaris power.

Next up we have Weapon Curse, which is a lot of fun.  It’s a Malediction power with 24” range.  If successful, the targeted enemy unit receives Gets Hot on all its ranged weapons until the end of their next turn.  In that sense it work similarly to the Warpsmith’s Machine Curse, except it’s got longer range, can affect infantry and automatically hits.  So, you know, better in nearly every respect.  This has a great deal of tactical application, although it is unlikely to result in a wave of enemy deaths, it is significantly more likely to prod your opponent towards inaction in the shooting phase.  It’s this psychological effect on the other player that is the power’s greatest asset, I think.  If your opponent is running MSU or good armour saves, then it may well not have much of an effect, but I think it will find a very valid target in most games.

The third power is Gift of Contagion which is the power I’m least struck on from Papa Nurgle’s armoury. It’s another Malediction (who’d have thought? The disease god would specialise in Maledictions!) and hits the target unit with a random debilitation.  The enemy would potentially lose an Attack and receive Shrouding, lose a point of Strength and be unable to run, or lose both a point of Strength and of Toughness.  Obviously the randomness of this power could be its making or breaking in the eyes of the player.  You’d probably not want the first effect to crop up, but if you’re assaulting that unit, what do you care if they’re Shrouded while you do so?  Anyway, the major plus point for this power, as opposed to Enfeeble (it gives the unit -1S and -1T) is the range.  The range of this ability is a mighty 48”.  Suddenly the power becomes a lot more viable, especially for the backfield psyker.  Not to mention, that the effects of multiple gifts are cumulative.  This could have serious defensive implications if you’re up against a hammer unit.  Even Paladins would have a hard time with a couple of contagions giving them the shits.

The final power, just like in the Tzeentch list is a 2 Warp charge one, but is (again) thoroughly worth it.  Plague Wind does essentially the same thing as Breath, but is a large blast with a 12” range instead.  And it can’t hurt vehicles, but that’s only a minor thing when you look at how horrific this power will be against any given hammer unit.  There is significant risk of nuking yourself with it, so be careful plaguemongers!  A comparison between Plague Wind and Breath of Chaos is kind of inevitable, so I’ll sum it up quickly.  Plague Wind is the high risk, high reward version of Breath.  It can’t take vehicle (but Breath isn’t great at that with one shot anyway) and the enemy get their cover saves, but apart from that there isn’t much bad to say about Plague Wind.  Just hold your breath when you cast it, alright?

Anyway, the last of the literate pantheon, Slaanesh will get the once over next time. 

See you then!

All Change Please! Tzeentch Powers

Right then.  Let’s start with the Tzeentch powers.

The first up is the Primaris power: Firestorm of Tzeentch.  This is an odd one, but I kind of like it.  I don’t think it’s going to be terrifically useful against MEQ’s but may well throw a wrench in the works of chaff units and the armies that depend on them.  Basically, it goes like this: 24” range, assault 1 blast with no AP and Strength of D6+1.  That gives you a low side average of S4 which will do the business against Guard, Nids and Eldar.  High side of average will work very nicely on most things for simple wound rolls.  The lack of AP is a bit of a pisser, but there you go.  The kicker for this power is that it inflicts bonus hits for each casualty it causes.  D3 S3 auto hits for each casualty.  This power could get very nasty very quickly, or it could fizzle into an embarrassed silence.  Roughly what you expect for Tzeentch really.  I’m not sure what to make of this one, myself.  Could be fun, but it’s more likely to be useless against any army with decent armour saves.

The next power is Boon of Mutation, which is a close range blessing for a character with 2” of the Sorcerer.  The ‘blessed’ character takes a S4 AP- hit and (provided he survives) gets a roll on the Mutation chart.  It’s a nice, fun ability and certainly has its place in casual play, but the chance of killing the recipient (1 in 6 for the standard Chaos Marine squad sergeant) and the randomness of the mutation table render this a terrible power for competitive play.  It’ll be fun the spam this power amongst your army (especially as Thousand Sons Aspiring Sorcerers can get it too!) and if you have three guys using it, you should get at least one Daemon Prince out of the deal!

The third power is Doombolt, which has changed a fair bit from the weaksauce Heavy Bolter it used to be.  I see it compared a lot of Bolt of Tzeentch, but it’s really a different animal even from that.  The statline looks similar (18” range, S8, AP1), but there are a couple of nice differences.  The first is the Detonate ability, which means that when you cause a vehicle to explode with it, that vehicle explodes 2D6 inches rather than just a single D6.  This has tremendous capacity for funniness mid-game, although the overall effect is likely to be fairly middling on non-horde armies.  That’s nice an all, but how is this power majorly different from the old Bolt?  Because it is a Beam.  You trace a line from the Sorcerer and any unit under that line takes a hit (or as many hits as models in that unit that it passes over).  The Strength reduces by one for each model beyond the first, but that still changes this power from pure vehicle takedown to scything through high priority targets.  By which I mean Terminators.  The rules don’t allow the ridiculous model sniping that Jaws and Warp Rift are capable of but is still a very nice power.

Finally, we a Breath of Chaos, which is the same as it always was, except it is two warp charge instead of one.  I don’t need to go into this one, really.  Flamer template, everyone under it gets wounded on 4+ regardless of toughness and there’s no armour save allowed.  Excellent power and I don’t have a problem with it costing a lot of charge.  It good enough to warrant it.

And there you are, Tzeentch, in all its ever-shifting glory.  It’s the most random of the powers, but you’d expect that, really.

Next on the list: Nurgle