I hope you're still working on this list. It seems to be the only chaos list that includes the newer 40k scale daemon engines, so I'd love to see it progress. This is a totally random spread of thoughts I had reading through the army list. I haven't played any games with it, so this is all purely theoretical, but hopefully useful.
Four selection categories feels like too much. Chaos lists just use three, and most of the rest use two. I'd suggest core/assault/hellforged and reshuffle where things are assigned. The big draw of the list (for me at least) is daemon engines, and right now I have to pad out any list with skitarii to get the cool stuff. Consider doing what the Iron warriors list does and making at least some daemon engines a core choice, even if an expensive one.
In the formations section you refer to "warpstalkers" but in the unit stats there's no such thing. There's "Darkstalkers," which I'm guessing are the same unit under a different name?
Why does the hellforged upgrade let you add defilers or fiends but not decimators?
Consider allowing the servitors upgrade to let you buy more than two stands, to really beef up a unit you want to hold ground. Alternatively, consider a core formation of "revenant adsecularis" that are 6+ armor, 6+ FF and CC, no special weapons. They could be a pure chaff unit to hold points and clog up enemy assaults, which seems fluff appropriate for dark mech.
Possessed Kataphrons feel like an odd choice to me. They're slow, with short range guns that only target AV, and have stats that suggest they want to be in melee. Yet they also have sniper, suggesting maybe they're meant for taking out tough armored targets? I'm just very confused what their intended target is.
The Warpcrawler seems very good for it's price. Compare it to the chaos predator. For the same price, you're losing one point of armor and FF value and 5cm speed for a 3+/3+ shot at 45cm, and a secondary heavy bolter equivalent. Then you tack on the invulnerable save and the leader rule. The warpcrawler's gun lets it hit on 4's when doubling for a 95cm threat range against anything on the table, while also boosting nearby infantry. As it stands it seems silly not to include a warpcrawler in every formation that can take one, since they can keep up with a triarios, provide another leader, and add good long range punch. If I had to suggest a fix I'd tone down the gun. I like the idea of a support scuttler following the dark Skitarii to keep their programming in line, but making that support also a great anti-everything weapon seems like a bit much.
Krios vs Krios venator seems wonky balancewise. For barely any more points you swap 2 AP5+/AT6+ shots for a single MW5+ at the same range. It seems like that would be a harder trade to make if the rift blasters hit harder, thus making the tradeoff one of lots of hits that can be saved vs few hits that can't but right now the Venator seems a lot better.
Two comments about Decimators. First, why do they always have to take a siege claw? In the 28mm game they can double up guns, and their closest parallels in other lists, (loyalist) dreadnoughts, can also take a missile launcher/lascannon combo. Why require one fist and one gun? Secondly, I feel like decimators and defilers fill the same roll in this list. They're both 20cm units with both assault and shooting potential. The decimator loses out on infiltrator, making it less of a competitor for close combat, and also can only choose one gun from the list compared to defilers having a gun for all occasions. I'd suggest dropping Decimators to 60 points to make them slightly more competitive against defilers to make up for their comparatively greater specialization.
I have the same question about decimator loadouts applied to knights: why do they all have to take one melee weapon? I'm not as familiar with new tabletop knight rules, so this might be a limitation they have, but it seems odd that I can't make a shooty knight.
Forgefiends have the same problem as the Krios in my eyes: the hades seems totally outclassed by the ectoplasma cannon. I'd consider either adding something like disrupt or an extra shot to the hades (since it has pinning on the TT) or charging points to upgrade to the ectoplasm cannon.
The Hell-Forged Karcanos seems like an odd beast to me. A full unit only puts out a 4BP barrage, but also has 8 ignores cover shots (which only hit on 5s). It's like it wants to be a unit that burns a whole company of guardsmen off a point they're dug in on, but also wants to stay far away to avoid getting assaulted. Also, going by the tabletop the lightning blasters are 18" range, so it seems very odd that they've acquired the range of a lascannon. Not saying you're not allowed any creative liberties, but that strikes me as a strange change.
There's practically no AA options. The only sorces of AA are icarus warpstalkers and war dogs. There's also zero fliers. Thematically I think adding in a helldrake flight, statted as doomwings, would make perfect sense as a solution to both problems. If you wanted it would probably also make sense to include Hell blades and hell talons like every other chaos list.
I'm torn on the pricing of triarios. On the one hand, I can see that putting 4 units of infantry into one transport is a lot of eggs in one basket, and thus think it's fair to keep them fairly cheap as losing one will hamstring the unit speed. On the other hand, regular skitarii have to pay ~100 points (125 for chimeras, 75 for a gorgon) to mechanize their basic infantry, while this list only has to pay 50. On the subject of the triarios, at 28mm the volkite sentinel has a 15 inch range, which seems like it should be a small arms weapon. Maybe make it extra attacks +1 with disrupt to help the Triarios contribute more in an assault? Likewise, the Mauler is a really nasty anti-infantry gun at 28mm, with Strength 6 AP3. Making it a 6+/6+ seems weird, since it's strictly better than a heavy bolter, which is pretty universally 5+ AP. Maybe 4+/6+? That's how its statted in the Australian Heresy rules.
It might be easier to make the Dark Rangers with Transuranic Arquerbuses (aquerbii?) a separate unit in the quick reference. Their formation would be four dark rangers and two dark marksmen or however you choose to name them, and then you wouldn't need the note in the entry about "1 in 3 dark rangers have a transuranic arquerbus." That would also make it clear which stands are the ones firing transuranic shots.
On the topic of rangers and vanguard, I feel like there isn't much differentiating the two right now. Vanguards are AP only with the sonic blaster whereas rangers have the standard AP5+/AT6+ gun, but both have a 30 cm range. I might suggest removing the special weapons from vanguard and making their small arms EA+1. You might need to shrink their formation size though, because 16 attacks in an assault for 225 points might be a little too much, I'm not sure. That would make rangers the standoff shooting guys who want to be support fire for an assault, and vanguards the guys who want to launch the assault, making them a little more distinct.
I like the idea behind the supreme commander being off the table, representing a magos in orbit or in a bunker, but I feel like it gives the army an unfair boost over other forces. Every other list pays ~100 points for the supreme commander reroll and can lose it if the unit gets sniped. This list gets it for free, and can't lose it to clever enemy tactics. Maybe consider making the Supreme Commander some kind of heavy command tank? Like a baneblade chassis with decent guns and supreme commander for ~300-350 points?
The list seems very short on ways to put down barrages. Maybe stealing the fantasy hellcannon would fit thematically, a daemon bound into an artillery piece? 3 models as a support formation, 2BP each with indirect, 5+ armor, 4+CC and 6+ FF? Fantasy Hellcannons would occasionally go crazy and try to murder the enemy by hand and actually had decent CC stats, so that's where the 4+ comes from.
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