Drop it like it's hot

Today boys and girls, we're going to pretend it's 5th ed again.
That means Vulkan with flamers and meltaguns, and lots of copypasta.

Vulkan
Chapter Master: Power Fist, Shield Eternal, Artificer Armour, Auspex

5 Tactical Marines: Meltagun, Combi-Melta, in Transport 1
5 Tactical Marines: Meltagun, Combi-Melta, in Transport 2
5 Tactical Marines: Meltagun, Combi-Melta, in Transport 3
5 Tactical Marines: Meltagun, Combi-Melta, in Transport 4
5 Tactical Marines: Meltagun, Combi-Melta, in Transport 5
5 Tactical Marines: Meltagun, Combi-Melta, in Transport 6

5 Assault Marines: 2 Flamers, in Transport 7
5 Assault Marines: 2 Flamers, in Transport 8
5 Assault Marines: 2 Flamers, in Transport 9

Stalker
Stalker
Stalker

Transport 1: Drop Pod: Deathwind Launcher
Transport 2: Drop Pod: Deathwind Launcher
Transport 3: Drop Pod: Deathwind Launcher
Transport 4: Drop Pod: Deathwind Launcher
Transport 5: Drop Pod: Deathwind Launcher
Transport 6: Drop Pod: Deathwind Launcher
Transport 7: Drop Pod: Deathwind Launcher
Transport 8: Drop Pod: Deathwind Launcher
Transport 9: Drop Pod: Deathwind Launcher

Total: 1815


Drop Pods have become my new favourite thing for at least the next weeks.
They got a couple of nifty changes in 7th ed. For one, they now score and the tactical marine ones have objective secured.
Drop Pods are usually one of those things that just appear on the table on turn 1, and are then ignored for the rest of the game. But now they can actually pose a threat by having the audacity to claim objectives, and the enemy has to waste firepower getting rid of them.
On top of this, there are still the old tactics of boxing the opposition in to a corner, and just generally getting in the way.
Finally, some of the hobbyists among you may have noticed that odd missile-launcher shaped thingy that comes on the sprue. That is the fabled deathwind launcher, thought to have gone extinct shortly after the kit was released. These just became much more useful, as they can now be fired the turn the pod arrives. That means you get 5 large blasts on turn one, with more to follow. Quite the nasty surprise.

As for units that might actually fit into a carry case, there are a bunch of objective secured marines with double melta, an old stable and usually quite good at busting open armour.
The assault squads get 2 cheap flamers and a discount on their DP (teeheehee), making them a very handy anti-horde unit.

Vulkan is there for obvious reasons, he makes sure all the meltas and flamers aren't mistakenly set to 'tepid'
The chapter master is a bit of punch, particularly in case things like wraithknights show up. His job could also be done by a few dreadnoughts, but he is just a bit more likely to survive a few str10 hits to the face.

The three Stalkers are a bit of an afterthought. They are average-ish anti-air, and if needs be can just hide in reserve and pretend to be a cheap scoring unit later on.
Alternatively, the points could be spent on some elite Sternguard or Dreadnoughts, who will of course be in .... Drop Pods!

Chariots of Fire

So, a new edition. That happened.

And with it, a few little gimmicky units got a nice buff. Today I'm going to to look at the popular/hated Chaos Deamon factory list, with the addition of of this weeks' Unit Of Interest: the Burning Chariot.

Fateweaver

Herald of Tzeentch: Mastery lvl 3

Herald of Tzeentch: Mastery lvl 3

Herald of Tzeentch: Mastery lvl 3, Exalted Reward

Herald of Tzeentch: Mastery lvl 3, Exalted Reward

11 Pink Horrors: Champ, Icon of Chaos

11 Pink Horrors: Champ, Icon of Chaos

11 Pink Horrors: Champ, Icon of Chaos

11 Pink Horrors: 

11 Pink Horrors:

5 Flesh Hounds:

5 Flesh Hounds:

5 Flesh Hounds:

Burning Chariot: Lesser Reward

Burning Chariot: Lesser Reward

Burning Chariot: Lesser Reward

1850

How does this all work?

Fateweaver acts as a tough to kill warlord, helps keep the warpstorm table under control, and provides a little bit of anti-air.

The heralds are the loyal and hard working factory floor labourers, toiling day and night to churn out more daemons using the Malefic Daemonology psychic powers. The flexibility these guys have in picking what new unit to create is what makes these type of lists so powerful. Having an endless supply of units designed to counter what your opponent has on the table without actually committing your core forces is very difficult to deal with.

Given good rolls on psychic powers, 4 new units can be spawned each turn; that can be forty new Daemonettes, or Twenty new Flesh Hounds, or twelve Bloodcrushers, or even greater daemons. That's over 400 points of new units each turn.

The exalted rewards are a portal glyph and grimoire of true names, more even more daemons and a bit of protection.

The squads of horrors provide extra magic dice warp charges for the heralds, and somewhere for them to hide. The only downside is that they are a bit on the small side, a larger squad of sixteen or twenty models would be safer just to prevent and entire squad and the attached heralds getting shot in a single turn on concentrated fire.

So that's the core of the factory, the next bit is all flavour.

The hounds are the distraction puppies. They can scout forward and force the opponent to waste a turn or two dealing with them while the horde of daemons is built up. Hounds are pretty dangerous when left alone, good at picking off vehicles and stray troops, so they have to be put down eventually before they do too much damage.

Now we get to the really interesting bit, the Burning Chariots.

Chariots got a few buffs in 7th ed: Better charge distance, resilience to immobilised results, and a few gimmicks with would allocation between the rider and chariot from shooting.

Burning Chariots are the multi-purpose glass cannons. 

They come with 

• a multi-shot short ranged lascannon, 
• a version of the helldrake torrent flamer, 
• a master crafted AP2 melee weapon with 3 str4 attacks,
• D6 str 6 hammer of wrath hits when charging. 

Between all of this they can do serious damage to heavy vehicles, marines, and make a large dent in hordes.

They are also fast skimmers, so can jink against incoming fire, and fly away to safety.

All of that for just over 100 points.

Over all, the list can now spew out new units every turn, has some dangerous distraction or alpha strike units, and cheap high-damage backup fire power for every occasion.

The downside:

I know it's hard to believe that I would ever create a list with a downside, but we have to give the opposition a fighting chance.

The heralds and horrors are not tough, some well placed concentrated fire can kill off a unit or two if they are not hiding behind a building. This can be partly fixed by increasing one of the horror squad sizes up to max.

As they are casting so many powers with a large number of dice, the heralds are quite likely to blow themselves up by the end of the game. That's an occupational hazard of the factory, and Tzeentch does not offer health insurance.

Fateweaver is actually kinda useless. I don't like him at all. He's not all that tough, and has no killing power. All his attacks/abilities are in psychic powers, which take away magic dice warp charges from the hard working heralds. So all he really does is keep the grimoire of true names from backfiring, and stopping the warp storm table from randomly killing a herald. Not worth 300 points.

The burning chariots are a little bit flimsy, AV10 open-topped. But they can jink, have the tzeentch save reroll, and can split incoming fire between the chariot itself and the rider to dilute medium strength weapons a bit. This is the payoff for being a dirt-cheap killing machine.