Chaos review #19 the 1st HQ

The first HQ is the easiest to cover. It is the nameless Chaos Lord. The guy you can build from the ground up and develop a rich gaming history about him. He can also be a cheap throw away HQ to fulfill the mandatory requirement.

Being a nameless HQ, the Chaos Lord has descent stats: WS 6, BS 5, strength and toughness 4, initiative 5, attacks and wounds of 3, leadership 10 and 3+ save. He comes armed with a bolt pistol, close combat weapon, power armor, frag and krak grenades.  He has the Independent Character, Fearless and Champion of Chaos rules. He starts at the low price of  the atomic number of terbium in points. That is very reasonable for a Marine HQ! However, he can balloon up in points quickly.

The ability to be fearless is pretty awesome, but the stupid challenge rule negates that. There are few things I loathe more in this edition than the close combat challenge rule. I guess the good thing is that you can tailor your Lord to be a melee beat-stick. This is done with the myriad of choices he can grab.

First is the option to grab terminator armor, combi-bolter and a power weapon for +40 points. This gives him access to the Terminator wargear list. He can also skip this and just pull items from the: melee, ranged, artefacts, gifts, chaos rewards and special wargear lists. He can also grab any of the Marks of Chaos. This gives him the abilities  per Mark and also turns the associated cult Marines into troops instead of elites. Finally, he can grab Vets o' the Long War for +5 points, but this is a bit of a waste since his leadership is 10. I guess if you want a re-roll in the first combat turn versus loyalist Marines it can be useful. That or if you have five spare points and don't want melta bombs somewhere.

I have four choices for a Chaos Lord. The first is the cheap-o option. A lord with dual lightning claws. This gives him a healthy 4 base attacks with re-rolls to wound and comes in at under 100 points. The second is a variation of the previous. A pair of lightning claws and the Mark of Slaanesh for 110 points. This gives him the initiative bump to have him go before other Marines and most units in 40K. Third is the Mark of Khorne and Axe of Blind Fury wielding leader for 110 points. A demon weapon with +2 strength and AP 2. Sure it might go nuts and attack me, but risk reward is the style of the day with this build. Last is the Nurgle option and the most expensive. He is all full of Nurgle, rides a palanquin and has a power weapon for 135 points. This gives him 5 wounds, 5 toughness and 4 attacks. Yeah, he sort of becomes a lesser and cheaper Demon Prince. If there are ever any points left over I could throw a Sigil o' Corruption any of them for a pricey, but respectable 4++ save.