I finally got my first couple of games in with the Chaos Codex at the weekend and I was very impressed. I had two games, both against Dark Angels, and both finished with me wiping out my opponent.
The Heldrake was just as good as I had expected, wiping out whole squads of marines at a time. The Deathwing Terminators were a bit of a problem though but were eventually beaten to a pulp by my Khorne lord wielding the Axe of blind Fury (AoBF). In the hands of a Chaos Lord the AoBF is amazing but unfortunately rebelled twice causing a wound. I am currently considering a Juggernaut to carry him to battle as it would make him even more survivable and it would mean that I could dust off my Spawn and use them as a bodyguard unit.
The great thing about the Chaos Lord is the amount of competitive builds there is in the codex. This means that you are unlikely to see everybody run the same HQ’s as happened with the previous codex.
The other unit I was impressed with was my Forgefiend. I ran it with just the Hades Autocannon’s to keep it as cheap as possible and found it to be excellent for snap-shotting flyers. It shot down two Darktalon’s over the two games, killed 4 Ravenwing bikers and destroyed two predators. Its biggest drawback was the Autocannon’s AP, which overall was ineffective against marines, and lack of combat prowess. It was assaulted in my first game by Terminators and quickly destroyed. The Daemonforge ability was useful but not exactly game changing.
Overall the army seems to be a lot more fun to use than with the previous codex but having read through both the Dark Angels and Tau codex’s I can’t help but feel that Chaos got screwed again by GW.
For example:
No Eternal Warrior for Daemon Princes and a huge points increase due to power armour and wings being must buy options. May your chosen god help you if you play against Tau regularly as their strength 10 weaponry will make mincemeat out of Daemon Princes.
No units with Interceptor and very little access to Skyfire. Compare this to the Dark Angels that can get Flakk missiles in their troop choices.
10 man strong Chaos Space Marine units needed to access Heavy Weapons whereas Dark Angels only need 5.
Obliterators can’t shoot the same weapon in subsequent shooting phases, are no longer fearless and have Leadership 8.
Most units have to pay for Veterans of the Long War but almost all Dark Angels seem to get Preferred Enemy (Chaos Space Marines) or Stubborn for free.
Khorne Berzerkers have Rage and Counter Attack instead of +1 Attack which might not seem too bad but they have pass a Leadership test to Counter Attack (failed mine at the weekend) and if they don’t wipe out a unit in the first turn of combat they are no better than normal Chaos Marines with Bolt Pistols and Close Combat Weapons.
Defilers cost too much, most likely to make people buy the new Daemon engines.
Cultists with Autogun’s cost the same as a regular Guardsmen despite being worse. The Autogun’s should have been a free upgrade in my opinion.
I don’t mean to rant but it just stinks of GW not wanting any other army to be able to challenge the Space Marines. The Tau got a significant boost with their new codex and they are Battle Brothers with them also. The saving grace of this codex is the number of possible builds which will keep it fun, if not entirely competitive.
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