Khorne Hounds + Karanak: A love story

I don't like Karanak or Hounds. So, I lied about the love story part. I just want to do a bunch of comparisons to make you not like them or at least take something else. Here we go:

Oh 'Lord'y!

Time to talk CSM. The next most recent codex...or whatever. The penultimate Codex. Chaos Space Marines. So far, their codex is doing awesome, what with cheap meat in the form of Cultists and excellent flyers, the Heldrake, as well as the ability to field cheap sorcerers, monster HQs and tons of heavy weapons in the form of Havocs they have become a force to reckon with. The army is excellent as primary or allied but today, I'm here to talk about Lords. Oh yes.

Pretty much every Chaos Lord's dream outfit

Specific Questions:
How do I make the most Killy Lord?
What CC weapons does he get? (Hint: He always gets CC weapons. Always)
Should he take a mount?
What about Marks?

Chaos Daemons: Part 9, Elites

At least it sounds good

This article is about the Daemons Elite section. A very sad amalgamation of old units and Fantasy rules. Apparently Phil Kelly thinks 6+ is the best armor you can get in 40k (It's the highest number after all!). Apparently some of the previous Elites section (coughFlamerscough) were in need of a rewrite because they were 'too strong' because having something, anything, useful in a codex is a big fat no-no and needs to be dealt with. Luckily the two good anti-vehicle units from the last codex, Flamers and Screamers post-update, have been replaced by a BS 3 crap-shoot that sits in your back-lines because he'll get smoked by basic MEQ and a flying cavalcade of bad rules design known as flying monstrous creatures.

At least Bloodcrushers still look bad-ass as hell and they didn't revert to the old model:

Yeesh

Welp, here we go.

Chaos Daemons: Part 1, Addendum (Eternal Blade)

I forgot to do the Eternal Blade in the last one! Why would I forget such a sweet exalted reward? Because no AP. Goddamnit it's 30 points for an AP - weapon?? Whyyyyyyyyy???

Let't do a side-by-side comparison with the same MC wielding this or any Etherblade and Unarmed. He'll be fighting a MEQ Chapter Master. It's a swag challenge between two HQ's. Only changes between MEQ and MEQ Chapter Master are WS 6 W 3 I 5 (doesn't matter with any MC in this book besides the goddawful Kairos) and A 3. S, T, Ld are all pretty much the same (ATSKNF means Fear doesn't do diddley against them womp womp).

So, which MC? We can do Bloodthirster but that's kinda overkill, let's do the closest points cost MC we can get: Keeper of Secrets

Unarmed
WS 9 v. 6
S 6 v. T 4
AP 2 so Iron Halo 4++ save
6 attacks

We get, on average, 1.67 wounds. Not factoring in Hammer of Wrath or Charging and rending doesn't matter since all attacks are AP 2 'cause MC. So, unarmed the chance of any attack causing a wound is ~27%. With this number we can calculate that you have a ~20% chance of causing 3 or more wounds unarmed.

[Math for that: (20*(.27)^3*(.73)^3) + (15*(.27)^4*(.73)^2) + (6*(.27)^5*(.73)^1) + ((.27)^6*(.73)^0), the integers are the number of combos of that number of wounds and misses. Ex: three attacks wound, 3 do not. The attacks that wound are 1st, 2nd and 4th and 3rd, 5th and 6th do not. That's 1 combo for 3 wounds 3 do not. That's why in the last one you see only .27^6. There's only 1 combo where all 6 wound. A .03% chance for that]

Etherblade
WS 9 v. 6
S 6 v. T 4
AP 2
6 Attacks, Master-crafted

You can now expect 1.75 wounds. Better but not by much. It'd be a little too complicated to try and factor master-crafted in to figure out your chance of killing but suffice it to say it'll be better than 20%.

Greater Etherblade

WS 9 v. 6
S 7 v. T 4
AP 2
6 Attacks, Master-crafted

Same as above. The only difference is the strength bonus which won't matter against this unit.


Eternal Blade
D3 averages to +2 so we'll add two to all relevant numbers:

WS 10 v. 6
S 7 v. T 4
AP 2, (Smash) <- on MC's only does the AP of a weapon not matter, if you took Eternal Blade on a Herald prepare to be disappointed with how many of your attacks are saved
8 Attacks

You can now expect ~2.2 wounds. This nets you about the same result as Etherblade and Greater Etherblade. You have a 37% chance to kill outright.

So, in the end, you've doubled your chances of an outright kill in 1 round for 30 points on a MEQ HQ. Your average wounds go from 1.67 to 2.2 meaning you're going from 51% likely to score 2+ wounds to being 68% likely to score 2+ wounds. For 30 points it just doesn't seem worth it to me. On a Herald, who does not have smash, it is not worth it. Period. Take all the wound totals above and reduce them by ~20% and that's Herald with Eternal Blade. On a Bloodthirster you do get a bonus attack from having two specialist weapons but your WS and I are already unapproachable by all but a select few units (roughly a baker's dozen between all other codexes) so the D3 bonus there is meaningless. Same with other MC's, your WS and I are so high that very little in the game will surpass you. Go with the cheaper options. You're not getting enough bang for the buck.

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