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| Winner takes all. It's the thrill of one more kill... |
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| He's just so happy! :) |
Khorne
All CC stats are buffed, nice, and is 15 points cheaper than in the previous codex. And actually is more like 30 points less because to have the current Herald's strength you'd have to spend an additional 15 points last codex. Good start. He has slllllightly less options than in the previous codex though (can't take armor anymore with trying to roll for it). The greater rewards are a little over the top for a Herald but that's no reason not to take them. Having a hard to kill Herald is always nice. The two loci you get give Hatred or Rage. Which is better? Math
vs. MEQ the basic bloodletter and Herald both hit on a 3+. With the Hatred re-roll, in the first round of combat you have a .88 chance of hitting. On the charge you'll have bonus strength and thus wound on 3+ and have 2 attacks. This gives you an average wound rate of ~1.2.
Now with Rage you no longer get the re-roll but have 3 attacks on the charge. Does it make that big of a difference? Yes. It does. The average wound rate is now ~1.3. Heralds with Rage will do 2.2 wounds average. Remember, this loci is 5 points cheaper.
With both you're getting ~1.8 wounds on the charge. Needless to say, you do not want the Locus of Wrath. If your Bloodletters are being charged repeatedly you'll need to play a different army. Spend the points instead on a banner.
Unless you're playing Grey Knights or a Psyker-heavy army I wouldn't bother with Adamantine Will.
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| Tzeentch isn't into camo |
Tzeeeeeeentch
The new Herald is 15 points cheaper than last codex, again, but the only changes to his stat-line is 1 more WS and 1 less I. Which sucks because he gets to suck fist against MEQ and will still get smoked in Challenges. All the loci for Tzeentch suck. Conjuration is okay by making the Change Primaris power into a wave-clearer. It's freakin' 25 points though. Screw that. The Herald doesn't seem meant to be paired with his God's troops choice until you look at Divination. Prescience is the power for Pink Horrors. You go from hitting half of your shots to 3/4ths. You can also give him a disc and pair him with some Screamers though I'm not sure what he brings to the unit (no shooting means Prescience is useless and giving Screamers the Primaris power for Tzeentch gives nothing to its purpose of popping light vehicles). Taking the chariot option is silly. The Exalted Flamer is the only reason you'd take that chariot (even though he's currently broken).
Overall? Good Herald, just take him with nothing and Prescience, let your big Pink Horror squads Un-Load on enemy blobs or heavy units. You can probably take down more powerful units with just sheer weight of fire. Adding upgrades nets you nothing so he's kinda meh in that sense but he's perfect as is soooo not sure if that counts as a mark against? If you're running Tzeentch just pop one of these in each of your troops choices. Spend your savings on a Carnival ride of Flying MC's.
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| Your Heralds ain't pretty |
Nurgle Heralds are 5 points less but are very different units. Switching Feel No Pain for Shrouded changes tactics a lot. It's now much better to be in cover as you're much less survivable out in the open. The Palaquin has been changed but went up by 25 points to 40. Not sure if you'll want it though. You can almost afford another Herald on that price. The new Herald is much better in CC, and the loci you get are great options. Fecundity is awesome giving you (and your unit) back Feel No Pain. The other two loci give you either more attacks or make your attacks deadlier. Let's see which is better:
vs. MEQ you have WS 3 vs 4 and S 4 vs. T 4 but I 2 so your going to have to eat a few attacks before you get your swing back. Even against FX. So with 2+ poisoned on 6's what can you expect to do? Normally you have an 16% chance of wounding MEQ (if you hit). Yikes. With the 2+ 1/6 of your attacks now have a 27% chance of wounding. Crazy improved but still not good.
Now with your extra hits on a 6 what do you get? An additional 16% chance of wounding. So you double your attacks effectively 1/6 of the time. Not bad. Better than 2+ but only by a little (16% better, oddly.) And since they're the same points cost I'd just take Contagion every time.
But Feel No Pain is where it's at. It's like having an invuln re-roll. For the rest of the options? Meh, take a Psyker level to get a nasty template? Or one of the Plague powers might work. Really your just there to not die in Challenges and make your unit more survivable.
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| You know it's bad when another system does your units cooler |
Slaanesh
Cheaper by 5. Slight buff to WS and S which is good because it'll make it much easier to kill MEQ and FX with them. They don't get the weird stuff from last time but their Loci are broooooken. And so are their psychic powers. Hilarrrr. You either get assault, better assault or super assault bonuses. All of them are worth it. No math necessary. Reroll all CC for 30 points in an entirely CC unit with mondo numbers of attacks? Yes please. Gimme gimme. I'm not too sure how good or bad the chariots are (never faced them or used them) so I can't realyl comment there but 80 points seems like a lot. Obviously. I'd actually debate giving the Herald and Etherblade so you can actually kill MEQs in challenges.
Ugh, so hard to choose which Loci though! Since your I is so high it's not suuuuper useful to get Swiftness (but having everyone in your unit be I 10? Hilarious!) Beguilment is just so nice and Grace giving you the ability to jump over barricades and into ruins to slaughter camping squads. It's really a toss-up. It's very situational but that's up to you. There isn't much math to be done here. Your CC hits 89% of the time with re-roll on nearly everyone in the game so I'd probably take Beguilement. If you do though I'd totally spend the full 30 on my Herald and get a Greater Reward and a Lesser Reward. Your challenges can't be refused so make sure you win them. Oh and get one of the psyker powers. All but the Primaris are great.
These Heralds are okay but they benefit huge from every upgrade. You can even give her a steed and put her with a herd of Fiends because Soporific Musk is broken and you can have her slaughter on 'horse'back. Ahh man, give her an etherblade and a sword, crazy cool and effective. Take 4 of them and hide them in units and just use their broken psychic powers to wipe out blobs and low leadership units. Hell, go Mastery level two, the powers are that good! Sorry that I don't know enough about Chariots, my bad, but as you can see Slaanesh is really really good with upgrades. Quite the opposite of Tzeentch which is interesting.
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| 5th Chaos God? |
Conclusions
Heralds are awesome but it may be hard to decide their role. They're all cheaper, have more and usually better options and their stat-lines have all been buffed. I'm loving the changes, I just wish that Rewards and Psychic Powers were pickable and not random. If I were to house-rule it I'd eliminate that randomness, even for enemy psykers. It's a really bullshit rule and it makes no sense in fluff (spends hundreds of years studying magic, has no idea what he'll cast. Da fuk?) and I really think that if you're going to run a tourney you should eliminate randomness. It's anti-fun in this case because you don't know your armies abilities until you start. No person who wants to be an armchair general wants to play half-blind.
I'm sorry if I got off topic. I reallllly hate this added level of randomness to a game based entirely off dice. It's making it so you don't even have control of your army's build now. To me, if you just add in roll dice to see what units you get then you'll literally have no choice left (And, in a way, Warp Storm does this by blowing up your units). 50% of this game is choosing units and choosing their equipment, 25% dice and 25% strategy (in my opinion). I'd hate to play Space Marines and not know if my unit will have bolters. Or play Tau and never be sure if my broadsides will have railguns. Or play Tyranids and have to roll to see if my Hive Tyrant will be CC or shooty. I know Chaos has the definition 'any state of confusion or disorder' but confusion or disorder for the enemy. Not for yourself! They've misapplied chaos and it's really frustrating to see them half-ass the Rewards/Weapons/Psychic Powers and then to make them all random just sucks.
Honestly, house rule Psychic powers and Rewards. You should be allowed to choose your own goddamn weapons. Shit, you paid for them right?
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