Chaos review..Elite #7

Sometimes a Chaos Marine just gets tired of being a regular Joe. He then decides it would be more fun to just have some warp entity live inside his head. He might also be forced to eat some demon spawn, so that it can live in his belly. He might even be talked into a twisted marriage of the flesh with some kind of warp being. There is a minor cooling off period and then these Marines become much more than they once were. They soon become an amalgam of demon and super soldier that likes to punch stuff. They lose their Marine status and are loped into a group called the Possessed.

The Possessed have the typical Marine statistics except for 2 base attacks strength 5 and leadership 9. They even have a ballistic skill, but once again, this is a unit that has no options for ranged attacks. Heaven forbid they make them BS 0 and shave some points off the cost/ model. They come equipped with a close combat weapon and power armor. This unit has the Demon, Fearless, Fleet and Vessels of Chaos rules. The unit champion has the exact same stats as the rest of the squad, which seems really stupid and pointless. Why are you paying extra for him as he brings nothing else to the gaming table? A standard squad is five guys for the largest number that cannot be written as the sum of four hexagonal numbers in points. They can add up to fifteen more at 26 points per possessed guy.

Now there are no real upgrades for this unit. They can be given Marks like almost everything in the codex. They can take: Khorne +3/guy, Tzeencth +5/guy, Nurgle +4/guy, and Slaanesh +3/guy. Then a real shock, they can also take the associated Icons for each god: Khorne +15 points, Tzeencth +5 points, Nurgle +5 points and Slaanesh +35 points.

The unit champion can take one upgrade and that is to get two rolls on the Gift o’ Random Gifts chart for +10 points each. Enjoy this upgrade and hopefully you get the ranged weapon strength or basllistic skill results!

Hey look they can take a Rhino transport and can also upgrade to Veterans o’ the War for +2 points/guy, just like the rest of the codex. The Rhino has a use where the Veteran upgrade seems pointless on this squad.

Vessels of Chaos- is a rule that is goes into effect at the start of each fight phase. While in close combat the unit of Possessed rolls a D3 at the start of each fight phase. Here is another random chart, but wait…… this one is small and actually pretty damn useful.

1. Strength of the Damned- allows for a re-roll of failed to wound rolls

2. Vorpal Claws-gives all close combat attacks AP3

3. Supernatural Speed- gives +1 attack and +1 initiative

A chart that is random, but has a use for all the rolls. Holy crap! I still can’t see it being possible, but here it is. Sadly, this is and will probably be the only useful random chart G.W. ever makes.

Well, let me chime in on the Marks and Icon upgrades real quick. All the marks actually help this unit. Khorne giving furious charge is great along with base strength 5. Slaanesh to give them initiative 5 is great. Tzeencth gives them a bonus to their invulnerable save and a 4++ is never awful. Finally, Nurgle gives them +1 toughness and that is never  terrible.

Now, the Icons are a different matter altogether. Khorne can help these guys with charge distances that are just a bit short, but wait they have fleet. Slaanesh is crazy expensive, but if you like 5+ Feel No Pain then you won’t mind the cost. Nurgle ,Tzeencth and the Vengence Ions are just completely useless and should not even options . Possessed are Demons, so they have the Fear rule that the Nurgle icon grants. They also have no ranged attacks or ranged weapons, so lighting the enemy on fire with bullets is not an option. Wait they are fearless too. Why take an Icon that gives them that rule? Why the hell are these even available. Way to waste time and ink listing these three options!

The Possessed did get a bit of a bump from being really useless last codex to not awful this codex. Once again why a ballistic skill with no guns? Are you really going to keep these guys in cover shooting an emplaced gun at planes? Well, not unless you are pants on head retarded. Close combat is where you want these guys and with: Marks, fearlessness, fleet, two base attacks, strength 5 and descent ( yet random) close combat abilities they should do fairly well there. I can see either a Slaanesh marked squad to pretty much always go first in combat or a Khorne marked squad to give them added strength on the charge as descent builds.