New Chaos threat?

So it looks like the new “We’ve been playing WAY too much Dawn of War” Chaos Army is about to drop. From looking at some of the new rumored rules, these guys are going from a total push over for DE to a pretty serious threat:

Lots of new Daemon engines sporting multi-shot S8 guns, including some kinda Hellish dragon thing designed to rip other flyers out of the air. Also has 5+ invulns and various other defensive buffs

Havocs with honest to goodness FLAK missiles

Zerkers with AP4 chainaxes

Noise Marines that ignore cover

All in all, while I expect Chaos will still be an elite army with few models on the table, they’re the first real 6th edition book, and looks like they’ll finally be getting a good Codex for once in this army’s history. (3rd and 5th edition codexes sucked hard, 4th was fun but certainly not super competitive) Judging by some of the rumors on how their vehicles work, countering them might require using Reavers with Heat Lances for a solid knock out punch instead of glancing them to death. Either way, they’re sporting a lot of light anti-tank now, definitely not like the old days where they had nothing but Obliterators.

lulz did you play against chaos in 3rd... so OP... Hence the reason the 4th ed codex sucked so much, it was a "Im sorry I did that to you guys"

We will have to wait for the book to decide. Right now they are looking as the anti-GKs. A ton of Elite troops, but more assaulty than shooty. For all we know those S8 daemon guns are only BS2... we will just have to see before we jump to conclusions...

Arrex wrote:

All in all, while I expect Chaos will still be an elite army with few models on the table, they’re the first real 6th edition book, and looks like they’ll finally be getting a good Codex for once in this army’s history. (3rd and 5th edition codexes sucked hard, 4th was fun but certainly not super competitive)

Wow....never heard of someone actually saying that a Sirenbomb or an Iron Warriors army being subpar. This is news to my ears. In most of their history they tend to be a very powerful codex, with perhaps the most cases of 'broken' armies than any other codex.

The only reason why it is a perceived 'breeze' for the Dark Eldar to break them these days is due to the fact that their current codex was designed during the late days of 4th edition where a lot of codex are in a weird limbo of being both 4th edition codices and pseudo 5th edition codices (Dark Angels, Eldar, Orks). They worked fine until they are outclassed by books specifically designed for 5th edition like the Dark Eldar (Dark Eldar of course has designs for 6th alongside with the Necrons and Grey Knights).

Any army is always a threat in my opinion, some more than others of course. The 6th edition Chaos is only ahead of the rest of the herd due to its current unique position as the only army designed with the full 6th edition mechanic. In addition with the presence of cultists on the field, they are now able to play an attrition-based game akin to the Alpha Legion of 4th edition (or otherwise known as the 3.5th edition) or a Grey Knights army. In many ways I think of them as a foil to the Grey Knights.

When fighting against them, I am inclined to believe that they work like a combination of Grey Knights and Space Wolves. That thought will help in busting their asses back to the warp.

Subpar? I still remember the old Word Bearers demon bomb, used to keep me up nights. "Oh look, a lone biker . . ." *massive teleport sound* "Oh look, a lone biker AND 60+ FREAKING DEMONS!!!!"

Dark Son wrote:

Subpar? I still remember the old Word Bearers demon bomb, used to keep me up nights. "Oh look, a lone biker . . ." *massive teleport sound* "Oh look, a lone biker AND 60+ FREAKING DEMONS!!!!"

The Slaaneshi one is even worse.

Hey lookie, lone biker dude.....wait....what do you mean I can't shoot or assault it? Wtf......wait....what is he doing GAWD?!?!? DAEMONS?!?!?!?! AND I CAN'T SHOOT THE GUY TO PREVENT MORE DAEMONS?!?!?!

Yeap....Daemonbomb, especially the Slaaneshi one is scary (Slaaneshi SirenDaemonbomb is just plain broken).

Crisis_Vyper wrote:

[SirenDaemonbomb

Hehe, good memories, maybe we did deserve that horrible/boring/horrendous 4th ed dex after all the pain we caused with the 3rd ed one.

You must be talking about the 3.5 edition codex. I’m referring to the original 3rd ed codex with Doomrider and the useless daemons. (Silly youngsters!) The 3.5 edition codex was an awesome book; the Legion configurations added so much theme to lists and it had the most options I’ve ever seen for customizing a Chaos Lord.

Quote :

had the most options I’ve ever seen for customizing a Chaos Lord.

That part will return, if the rumours are correct.

Yeah, I never understood why the late 4th/5th edition book was so basic compared to the highly customizable 3.5 edition. Of course, it did have Lash of Submission...

I'd expect the Chaos codex to have Flak missiles in it, as I would expect every codex from now on to have some effective means of dealing with flyers in it.
I for one will be ecstatic if the rumours are true as it will cut back on the domination of multiple flyers and flying MC's, purely by having a unit that can effectively deal with them. The contents of the new starter set also suggest a return to multiple options and effective builds for chaos, rather than them being spikey marines.

Lovin it.

My issue with the flakk missiles is that launchers always have thhe choice to switch back to frag or krak, thus negating the drawback of skyfire completely. I'd put good money on the likelihood that GW will design at least a few non-imperial armies to have to choose skyfire upgrades instead of their normal guns, and Dark Eldar might very well be one of those.

Sorry. Speculations aside, this new CSM army sounds like fun to play against. I have a regular opponent who is rather tired of what they've got right now, so I welcome the challenge.