Chaos Daemons: Part 1, Melee Weapons

This post is going to be analysis of weapons. Standalone, the weapons are meaningless: you must have something to compare to. Therefore I'll use two comparisons; Marine Equivalent, MEQ, which is the stat-line of an individual space marine and Filthy Xeno. Filthy Xeno is a made up unit that is supposed to be representative of Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tau, Orks and Imperial Guard. Therefore the Filthy Xeno or FX stat-line is:

WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
3	3	3	3	1	3	1	7	5+

Now obviously this stat-line is different from all of the above races but it's meant to be the average of the above. A way of letting us factor how our weapons will work against each army's troops without having to do 5 separate calculations. Remember: FX & MEQ, save some time. I might also add Termie which is just marine stat-line except the saves are 2+/5++ but then I'd have to add in Storm Shield termies who have a 3++ save and things get complicated. For now FX & MEQ are the standard by which we judge these weapons. Let's start.

One of my favorite 40k pics

Weapons!
Khorne first. Because Swords.

All art here and below copyright Fantasy Flight Publishing Inc.

Khorne
Khorne gets the usual viking style weaponry, swords and axes. Specifically two swords and one axe because why not? And each of them is a very potent slaying tool even on the basic troops.

Hellblade has been nerfed due to power sword changes but is it really that big a nerf? Only against terminators will your basic infantry not do as well as in last edition. Mad about your basic infantry not being able to cut through terminators with ease? Welcome to every other codex. This isn't a nerf so much as a 'makes sense' change and I personally think hellblades are just as good now, just not OP against terminators. Which means that players can field terminators against Daemons and not worry about basic infantry wiping the field. Good change in my opinion.

Axe of Khorne is the Herald bread and butter. You get AP 2 and cause instant-death. Instant-death is still meaningless against non-MC or HQ units but your Heralds actually have a chance of fighting those units with challenges and the Axe is the proper tool for the job. The problem with the weapon is that it's a specialist weapon, meaning you don't get bonus attacks by having it and the basic hellblade. A bit of silliness if you ask me but in the end Axe of Khorne is really an anti-IC weapon as the utility of it over Hellblade is in challenges.

Let's deviate to math real quick before we get into Blade of Blood which has rules that change the math every time you attack. For Hellblade we'll use basic troop stats for calculating wounds. First Bloodletter vs. MEQ:

5 vs. 4 WS means Bloodletters are 3+ to hit and 4 vs. 4 Strength gives 4+ to wound. No armor saves = awesome. So each Bloodletter gets 1 attack (great.) with 2/3 to hit and 1/2 to wound meaning on average 2/6 or 1/3 of all attacks will result in a wound with no saves. Kinda meh honestly. With two attacks you have a 2/3 chance to wound on each Bloodletter so make sure you get the charge. The charge also gives Furious Charge, +1 Str, which means you actually have a 3+ to hit AND to wound. You go from 1 attack with 1/3 chance of wounding with that attack to having a 4/9 chance of wounding with that attack which means on the charge each Bloodletter has an 89% chance of wounding. Nice! Again, get the charge.

Bloodletter vs. FX?

5 vs. 3 gives 3+ again but 4 vs 3 gives 3+ as well. So as above you have a 4/9 chance of wounding (2/3 * 2/3). With the charge? You get double the attacks AND that 3+ becomes 2+ because of strength 5  vs toughness 3. That means we now have 5/9 chance of hitting with each (2/3 * 5/6) with each attack. So since each has 2 attacks then each has a 10/9 chance of wounding. On average every Bloodletter will wound with a few expected to wound twice. Awesome! Seriously: Get the charge!

Now what's the difference if we had an axe of khorne? Diddley! Woo. Easiest math ever. You already negate almost every armor in the game minus some HQ's and termies and Instant Death really doesn't matter if you have only 1 wound. (1-1= 0 even if that subtraction sign is instant death). Again Axe of Khorne is an IC and MC killer, and, to an extent, Terminators.

Now for Blade of Blood: you get two additional rules: unwieldy and rampage. Bad and Good, respectively. Going at Initiative 1 hurts, bad, since you have no armor save to suck up basic wounds and only a 5+ to cover your maiming. Rampage gives, on average, 2 attacks. Not bad but again going at init 1? You may be dead by the time you get your angry attacks. If we compare to axe of khorne above we'll see that it's another challenge weapon. But this time it's a challenge weapon where you and the other guy both die. If you live to make the attacks then you would have most likely attacked first with Axe of Khorne and been likely to be just as killy (Instant-death takes care of extra wounds), if you both attack at init 1 and you need the extra attacks to kill the guy then you just spent extra points to kamikaze kill an enemy unit. Might be useful on your Character sergeants but on HQ's I would avoid it since the slowest Khorne HQ is init 7 meaning you'll attack before nearly everyone. Also, if your unit manages to survive, how many extra wounds can you expect with your angry sergeant?

Rampage gives on average 2 attacks. Your character has 2 attacks instead of 1 but the other stats remain the same. On the charge you have 5 attacks at WS 5 S 5. So vs. MEQ you get, on average, 2.2 wounds (5*2/3*2/3) compared to 1.3 with an Axe of Khorne or Hellblade (3*2/3*2/3). Without the charge? 1.7 with Blade of Blood vs. .88 wounds with Axe or Hellblade. Doubly good but again at init 1. With Khorne's poor saves you realllly want the Alpha strike to attempt to wipe the enemy unit before they strike back. 5+ does not save you.

Real quick: vs. FX, On charge with BoB you get ~2.7 wounds without BoB you get ~1.7 wounds. 3 wounds vs. 2 really. Off charge 2.2 vs. 1.1. Double but double isn't amazing when it's times 1. I'm not a fan of blade of blood solely for the reason it's at initiative 1 and doesn't add enough extra wounds to be better than axe or hellblade for the additional 10 points necessary to buy it.

Tzeentch
I actually love these weapons because they are flavorful and pretty good. Even though your troops and HQ's are not CC monsters like Khorne's they do have awesome effects when they get kills with these weapons.

Mutating Warpblade is awesome. When someone dies on a 2+ they become a chaos spawn under your control. Sweet! What a great rule, it's chaotic, it benefits you, it's not too unlikely or likely to happen and your opponent isn't wrecked if it happens since spawn aren't amazing and your Character or MC is already dead so you don't lose anything extra. THIS is what all the chaos rules should be like.

On Character Pink Horrors vs. MEQ you have WS 3 v. 4 and S 3 v. T 4. 4+ and 5+. Yeeesh. 2 attacks though, Okay. AP 3 means no saves again, nice, so you have 2*1/2*1/3 or 1/3 chance of causing a wound. Yikes. But! If you do cause a wound? 5/6 chance you get a new monster. Swank.

Versus FX it's better, 3 v. 3 for both WS and S v. T. Therefore you get 4+, 4+ or 1/4 chance of causing a wound. With 2 attacks that means a 50/50 chance of blowing some chump up and getting a slobbery new spawn. Yay! On the charge? 75%. Love this rule.

Now I'm not sure if, when you upgrade a character to Iridescent Horror, that unit counts as an individual psyker and thus gets his own power but it doesn't really matter since it'd only be the Tzeentch powers, which are all shooting. So, it's not likely to kill but when it does it's very likely to make a new spawn. Like I said, great rule, especially against FXs. Spawn, spawn everywhere.

Staff of Change = teh sex on MCs and against FX. Your strength goes up and now instead of creating a spawn the enemy explodes! The explosion hits you too (Chaos!) and you are waaaay more likely to make people explode with this than you were to make spawn. The AP is worse so you're much less likely to make MEQs explode (or die) than before...unless you're and MC! Hell yeah AP 2! Blow up a dude and his body parts wreck the unit? I'll take 12 please.

With MC's you get WS 6 S 8(!) Init 6 and 5 attacks. Muy Bueno! vs. MEQ you get ~2.7 (5 * 2/3 * 5/6) wounds and you'll get a sweet explosion that only has a 5+ chance of wounding you (just once) and you still get your save. Verus FX? Same result. Sad face. You still kill them but you don't overkill them. Take the good with the still good I guess. The explosion is much more effective against FX though wounding on a 2+ while MEQ get wounded on a 3+.

With Pink Horrors it's not that good actually. 2 attacks now at Str 5 gives you ~.67 (2*1/2*2/3) wounds. But! They have a 3+ save so you only get 1/3 of that or ~.2 wounds. Ugh! What I'd give for taking this weapon on a unit with armor saves! Vs. FX, yes, nowww we get the fireworks. Those 2 attacks now have a 5/6 chance of wounding and you don't have to worry about armor saves lowering that. On the charge you get 1.25 wounds average. The only problem? The explosion wounds you on a 2+. You'lllll probably die. How probably? 5/6 chance of wound and .38 chance of saving (MoT let's you re-roll 1's) it means that you have a 51% chance of suffering a wound. Lame. You'll probably kill half of your unit if you kill someone in CC with this. Sooo keep it to MC's please?

Nurgle
None of these weapons have AP; therefore they blow. Honestly AP is huge and spending 10 points to get something that makes you slightly less unlikely to glance a vehicle or, if you're lucky enough to cause a wound, you get an additional unlikely wound, is not worth it.

Balesword, Instant death doesn't matter. Jesus. Poisoned 4+? Doesn't matter! All Plaguebearers have that, and against MEQ's and FX's Poisoned 4+ is either equal to or weaker than their basic Strength would be. Touch of Rust blows because if you are CCing a vehicle only Land Raiders have rear armor that isn't 10. So you have an insubstantial chance to glance really powerful vehicles. Your CC attacks will already glance 90% of vehicles on a 6 anyways so you spent 10 points to potentially kill MCs and IC's but! You have no AP. So your chances remain crappy.

Vs. MEQ: WS 3 v. 4 and S 4 v. T 4 means your 2 attacks are just crappy without AP ~.16 (2*1/2*1/2*1/3) wounds average. Not per attack mind you, that's total wounds.

Vs. FX: WS 3 v. 3 and S 4 v. T 3 so you have ~.4 (2*1/2*2/3*2/3) wounds. Again, not even 50% chance of wounding. For 10 extra points? No.

Horrible weapon, don't waste the points. Also, at init 2 you are almost always going second so you're likely to die before you get attacks off.

Plagueflail. It's like the balesword. No AP means why bother? You're slightly more likely to wound and only slightly likely to cause a toughness test. This won't matter because the character or unit you're facing is probably already dead after 1 wound happens.


Vs. MEQ: WS 3 v. 4 and S 5 v. T 4 so ~.44 (2*1/2*2/3*1/3) wounds average.

Vs. FX: WS 3 v. 3 and S 5 v. T 3 so you have ~.55 (2*1/2*5/6*2/3) wounds. Better than 50% chance but, why bother? You don't glance vehicles better, you're less likely to 1 shot an MC or IC (no instant death, oddly enough it actually matters now because this weapon is that bad) and pretty unlikely to cause another wound (5+ v. MEQ and 4+ v. FX). These weapons are depressing.

Plaguesword, the sword of all troops. See Balesword, the only thing different is that Balesword causes ID. Plaguesword is still not that good because Poisoned 4+ and Touch of Rust don't matter for 90% of units because Strength 4 will wound on 4+ or better the majority of the time and 6 in CC will glance most of the vehicles in the game. If you continually run into Land Raiders or MC heavy Tyranids then by all means this weapon is a godsend and you can start wrecking those expensive units but against most of what you'll face it's almost as if they don't have weapons. Disappointing.

Slaanesh
If you were to read the page where all the other god's weapons are you'll quickly notice that there is no category for Slaanesh melee weapons. Kinda a big 'fuck you' right? Turn the page and you see Warpsword (not for you silly troops! That master-crafted power sword is for Soul Grinders only. Which is a whole 'nother level of confusion, but, I digress) and Witstealer Sword. The second is yours Slaanesh. Have fun with that and that alone.

Witstealer Sword, it's okay, but really, you're getting jipped. You're paying 10 points for AP 5 mostly. And only against MCs, HQs and weird units does Witsteal special rule come into play. Let's take a look:


Vs. MEQ: WS 5 v. 4 and S 3 v. T 4 but you have 3 attacks. On average you'll get  ~.22 (3*2/3*1/3*1/3) wounds. The AP 5 means nothing against MEQs and the lack of Strength bonus means it's not better than using your hands. Gonna have to rely on the rending from MoS.

Vs. FX: WS 5 v. 3 and S 3 v. T 3 so on average you deal 1 (3*2/3*1/2) wound. Better than anything Nurgle has!

But even if they can withstand suffering the first wound (ie they have 2+ wounds) you have a 50/50 chance of causing a second wound. Eh. Not worth the points again and so obviously not worth the points that they didn't even bother to put it with the rest of the weapons.

Unaligned
Etherblades are better than or equal to all of Khorne's weapons, all of Nurgle's and Slaanesh's one weapon. Tzeentch's weapons effects are so cool though that I wouldn't bother getting them etherblades. What the hell though? Unaligned weapons are better than all of your own weapons? Oh well, at least anyone can take them so it's not like you're being cheated out of marginally better weapons. Let's move on:

Etherblade is what the Axe of Khorne should be. Instead of Instant Death pish-posh you get master-crafted. Having a free reroll is very nice. And on Khorne you get on average .88 chance of hitting with one attack now instead of .66. That's awesome. Etherblade, the blade of choice for choosy daemons. With plaguebearers if you want to spend 10 points on a weapon and it's not an etherblade I question your reading/reasoning. Witstealer is also strictly worse unless you are very lucky.

By the way for the math see Hellblade/Axe of Khorne. It makes everyone's CC slightly better though and master-crafted is a little hard to calculate because you re-roll just 1 miss. You can just factor in the miss into 1 attack's probability of hitting and thus Slaanesh and Khorne go up to .88 to hit from .67 for 1 attack and Nurgle goes up to .75 instead of .5. Again, hard to factor in but definitely better than all of the above weapons. Minus Tzeentch because, please, spawn and explosions, come on.

Greater Etherblade is what Blade of Blood should have been! Errrr! +1 Strength instead of rampage means you would cause on average ~1.85 wounds v. MEQ, almost the same and at initiative, huge! Off charge you get ~1.5 wounds, slightly lower but still at initiative. That usually means you'll be going first and killing your opponent's face. Against FX's you now instant death on the charge with furious charge so there's that.  Axe of Khorne might be slightly better if you plan on facing multi-wound characters or MC's but if not, etherblades man. They rule.

Soul Grinder Weapons
The Iron claw is a strictly worse dreadnought close combat weapon. It's the same Except! it's Unwieldy  This doesn't matter on Walkers however it's still I3 so it's going second to nearly every MEQ unit. Screw that. And Warpsword? It's a master-crafted power sword...on a walker. What? It's also 25 points. Why did they bother writing these weapons up? Just make Iron Claw a dreadnought close combat weapon. Why's it gotta be slow? Seriously, the dreadnought has Initiative 4 vs. Soul Grinder's 3 so it still goes first. A sword with AP 3! You don't get the AP 2 because Walkers don't get the Smash rule; it's incorporated into the dreadnought close combat weapon. Soul Grinders are strictly shooting platforms, do not spend points on warpsword when you can get a torrent weapon for 10 points less.

vs. MEQ you go second. What chance does the squad have of killing you? Basic 10 man unit, no power weapons. They can all use Krak grenades though! Str 6 vs. your fat AV 10 Soul Grinder ass means that it's 4+ to glance you for every guy. What's Soul Grinders WS? 3. So it's 3+ for them to hit meaning you will, on average, suffer 3.3 (10*2/3*1/2) glances. Jusssst under enough to kill you. Only just. You also don't get the Daemon 5+ save, you don't heal like Chaos Space Marines daemon engines who all have It Will Not Die  and on average you'll kill ~1.66 (4*1/2*5/6) back. Meaning by the second round of CC you'll die to an un-upgraded 10 man marine unit having only kill 2 back. You have a 33% chance of getting killed without injuring any though (aka in one round of combat).

With Warpsword? You still go second. 3 glances in yo' face. Then it's time to fight back! Woo! Two specialist weapons means you get a bonus attack, you still ignore armor and it's still 2+ to wound because of Strength 6. Okay. That means on average you're doing ~2.3 (4*1/2*5/6 + 3/4[master-craft reroll]*5/6 ) wounds. So almost exactly the same as without a sword and you still get attacked first. For 25 points.

How is this swag-tacular CC MONSTER against FX? The same. But, why would anyone assault a walker without grenades? Most xenos don't have any or have their own unique anti-vehicle weapons so it'd be kinda useless to speculate about how many glances the soul grinder will get facing off against an FX unit. The grinder itself will get the same numbers. With warpsword or iron claw nothing changes from average number of wounds above. WS 3 vs 3 is the same as WS 3 vs 4 and S 6 v. T 4 is the same as S 6 v. T 3. Their armor saves are still negated. For an FX unit the real difference is in how easily they'll glance it to death and the fact that they won't be able to get away with no losses, unlike 1/3 of marine units. If we're to assume an equipment-less and grenade-less FX unit of 10 then they will glance 0 times and the walker will get two free kills and the FX unit will have to use Our Weapons Are Useless rule if they 'win' the leadership test to not fall back from combat. So, again, useless to speculate without the specific codex.

Warpsword is 25 points of nonsense. Do not waste your points. Just stay out of CC with troops that go before you and have grenades. Go for it against Tau Battlesuits and other slow HQ's. You might be able to 1 shot them...after they hit you. You'll lose to slow MC's like Tervigon and Carnifex so don't bother attacking them either. Their Initiative 1 is misleading.

This is your blade on Ether.

Conclusions
This one has a lot of information in it to digest. The points you should take away are these:

• Axe of Khorne is a challenge weapon and okay on Heralds but not worth it on Bloodreapers.
• Nurgle's and Slaanesh's weapons are just not worth it when Etherblade is an option
• Take Etherblade or Greater Etherblade over any weapon other than Tzeentch's
• Tzeentch's greater weapon should be kept on MC's and his lesser weapon is great against FX's
• Never get into CC with your Soul Grinder, he's a gun-platform, not a fighter

I'll be using the term MEQ and FX from now on to do maths in future articles so if you forget the stat-line of FXs just come back to this article. That's it for now. I'll tackle ranged weapons in the next post. I'll include the psychic powers since they're a lot of the shooting that's not rewards or soul grinder only.