Chaos review #27.. Why am I dripping with goo?

When diseases, plagues, viruses, fungi and all other manner of disgusting is needed then look no farther than Typhus. He is a champion of Nurgle and just chock full of disgusting awesome! If you are a fan of the Death Guard, then you should be a fan of this guy.

Typhus comes with: WS 6, BS 5, strength 4, toughness and initiative 5, 3 attacks, 4 wounds, leadership 10 and a 2+/5++ save. He is armed with the Manreaper, terminator armor, Mark of Nurgle and blight grenades. He has the warlord trait Lord of Terror, is a champion of Chaos, independent character, has vets o’ the war, feel no pain, is level 2 psyker, houses the Destroyer Hive and can use Plague Zombies. Surprise! He makes Plague Marine troops.  He isn’t cheap running at     points. Is he worth it?

Lord of Terror- gives Typhus the Fear rule. This rule is virtually useless as so many armies ignore it or can easily cope with it. I guess Fire Warriors, Guardians and Ratlings might be bothered by this, but that is really it. What a totally lame and useless trait.

Manreaper (or man raper) - is a two handed sickle that the Death Guard elite were famous for using. It gives +2 S AP 2 in close combat. It is a force weapon and follows those fun rules. It is also a demon weapon, so don’t roll ones when attacking. Finally, it is unwieldy so Typhus will be striking at initiative 1 which sucks, but it balances him a bit?

Destroyer Hive- is a special ability that can be used once per game. See Typhus is a big ole ball of plague, rot, disease, snot, farts and just plain ick. During the assault phase he can unleash this upon his enemies.  You center the large blast template over Typhus. Then all units that it touches take an auto S4 AP2 hit. The number of hits is equal to the number of models in the unit. These hits ignore cover and Typhus is also immune to this.

Plague Zombies- are a thing that Nurgle does with some weird plague bit. Plague Zombies are a new take on cultists. They lose their weapons as they are walking dead duh! They are allowed no weapon upgrades. They gain Feel No Pain, Slow and Purposeful and Fearless. Plus they would be super fun to model.

Typhus is a rock star! Having +2 strength in close combat, toughness 5 and 2+ armor is pretty sweet! His weapon can put out some horrendous damage with the demon ability. He can also open his armor and release whatever smell is hold up inside there to kill people around him. His choice in psy powers is descent and useful to boot. Plus his model is one of the few Chaos HQ’s that doesn’t look like crap or need a huge overhaul. His ability to turn frightened cultists into fearless brain eaters, or better yet fearless objective sitters is pretty damn awesome too. The downside I see is his cost and his weapon dropping him to initiative 1. Still that is the G.W. “balance” in effect. I would still use him if I wanted a pure Nurgle army. A pricey HQ that opens tough troops and zombies is a positive in my wyrd little world.