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| I AM SNEAKY |
At this point we're still missing a few details -
-Revised points costs
-Full details on missions
-Full details on core stratagems
-Full details on force org charts
I do think we have enough data on the force org charts to make some educated guesses - Battalion, Patrol, and the Lord of War detachments are enough for us.
There's actually some good news - at a glance, Alpha Legion at least has a decent toolbox of stratagems and the like that'll help us.
What do Core Rules Mean For Us?
1) Max of +1/-1 Modifiers - OH NOES(?)
I imagine that a lot of Alpha Legion folks (and probably some Raven Guard folks, and Aeldari, and probably some others) picked up on this pretty quick. Does it hurt survivability of infantry at a basic level? Eh, sometimes. How often were you going to give more than one unit a -2 to hit?
It's not that hard to get units to -2 to hit or more between Dark Apostles and Miasma of Pestilence (for those who can take the Mark of Nurgle - IE the Possessed). Or you could add relics and warlord traits - IE, Clandestine, or the Shade Blade.
My follow-on question - how many things does Alpha Legion actually try to use this combo on?
We really kind of want the Mark of Slaanesh on our shooty stuff - who cares about defense when the target's dead. Also, we can put our important guns behind other units and use Conceal to make sure the enemy has to shoot other stuff first.
Ok, so that leaves us with melee troopers - which is pretty much "Possessed" and "Demon Princes" - demon princes should be leveraging their character status for protection.
Note that Possessed still kind of like it because it works in melee, but Possessed may still benefit from having other Demons around for daemonic loci. Slaaneshi demons come to mind with the whole 'advance and charge' thing.
2) Coherency and Screening Units - We Got Smaller
Cultist utility as screening units may take a hit based on the new coherency rules. Don't expect your screens to be as large - a minimum-sized cultists squad covers less than half the space it used to.
This impacts anyone larger than 5 guys. It means that most of our stuff cars about it, outside of Havocs and Obliterators.
If you're bringing 3 cultist squads to fill out a battalion (and I'm guessing we probably still will be) just know that they won't block off as much space.
Note also that we have access to Scrambled Coordinates - so we can push folks back 12". This'll help us with pushing anyone arriving from reserves back out of assault and rapid-fire range, which is what we generally care about.
3) Morale - At Least We Won't Have To Feed The Cultists
Morale got a few changes - you only lose one guy for sure when you fail morale. Next up, though, is attrition - you roll 1d6 per model, and on a 1 they run away. If you are under half-strength, that attrition roll takes a -1. Morale gets a little less predictable, but it's not going to be hard to knock out low-leadership, low-save, low-toughness units.
I mean, we kind of knew this already. Ld6 means there's always room for failure if anyone dies.
4) Command Phase
Getting 1 CP a turn is going to help - Chaos has plenty of awesome stratagems. The only vague concern I have about the 'command phase' is that I suspect a lot of "beginning of turn" effects will get moved here. Hopefully Dark Apostle prayers will remain "at the beginning of the round."
5) Force Org Chart Changes - Chaos has Friends, Really
Here's our mixed bag. If you were playing pure Alpha Legion, the biggest difference is going to be in how many HQs you want to bring. Double battalion was pretty normal for 2k, which meant 4 HQs and six troops.
If you're skipping out on multiple Lords of War, you might as well go with a battalion - 2 HQs and 3 troops is reasonable. You've got room for another HQ - and we have good ones.
If you're bringing in allies or mixing Chaos, the question's going to be 'what do you need?' because that's gonna cost CP. Look at what units you need from either other Legions or the Demon Codex.
The thing that really hurts is the eye-watering 6CP to bring a Superheavy Detachment. I've been mucking around with 3x Lords of Skulls (or 2x Lord of Skulls and a Kytan Ravager) and that's a giant kick to the CP. Then again, that list was a bit more CP-efficient than others, since it mostly cared about popping the Daemonforge stratagem 1-2 times a turn and maybe re-rolling a psychic test. And possibly a charge.
Mixing Chaos knights with the chaos codex is a little more like 'mixing Chaos marines with Chaos Knights' - based on spoilers, the Renegade Knight book will have rules for taking a Superheavy Detachment without paying CP, provided the warlord is in said detachment.
Relics, Warlord Traits, and Stratagems
GW is tweaking points for 9th, so your lists are going to get smaller. That being said, one of the things I like about Alpha Legion is that AL has a pretty solid tool kit at its disposal with respect to warlord traits, relics and stratagems. Note that the Chaos Marine codex already has some solid ones - I'd say the stars of the show tend to be "Veterans of the Long War" and "Endless Cacophony." If you've seen CSM on the table, you've seen them.
Hydra's Wail
Can everyone regenerate CP every turn? Yes. That's the biggest hit the Wail took. You don't have to take any gear to get it. However, to get the most out of it, you want to play it against an enemy that's going to plan on dropping 3-4 stratagems in a given turn - bonus points if they have defensive stratagems.
It won't bankrupt them on hot dice. I'm a little sad, since this was one of my go-to relics.
Clandestine & the Shade Blade
The perk of these items - a warlord trait and relic, respectively - was that they added a -1 to hit to you. Well, that doesn't stack any more.
I suppose if you want to give a Warlord trait to a Lord Discordant, or something else that's going to get into melee, then Clandestine has some use.
I can't really say I'm a fan of the Shade Blade - S5 is nice, but the 1d3 damage is 'eh.' If you're going up against multi-wound models, reliability matters.
Viper's Bite + Headhunter
Killing characters is always great. Screening changed a little with the whole "Look out, Sir!" rules - characters need to be next to something now - but this still ignores it in hilarious fashion. Infantry screens are so-so, but being next to a vehicle means you gotta pop a tank to get it out.
Master of Diversion
This warlord trait is almost always going to be useful. Being able to redeploy units is awesome. Never underestimate it. This is pretty much my go-to for its utility. I'll probably take Viper's Bite + Headhunter on someone with a stratagem, as that guy's gonna draw fire after he splatters a VIP's brains.
Conceal
Since we can't get more than a -1 to hit vs. shooting anyway, the next best thing is "hahaha, you can't shoot me anyway." 2CP is a bit more affordable now that we start with 12CP and we get 1CP per turn back.
Scrambled Coordinates
GW's teased the part where just about anyone can pay CP now to come in off board edges from reserves. There are a handful of units that pay extra to say "No, you come in more than 12 inches away instead of 9 inches."
Trust me, that 'more than 12' is important - it means you categorically are NOT assaulting the target, and odds are that you're not rapid-firing (generally speaking). Sure, some stuff has a 24" shot, but you were never going to screen that anyway.
Ambush
As above - reserves are gonna be more common, so someone might as well catch bullets. And since we have more CP, using this stratagem isn't so bad.
Devastation Battery / Punishing Volley
This is build-specific - you have to take Havocs or Obliterators and pay a CP for the detachment upgrade. The reason you take this is because if you go second, you can use a stratagem to have Obliterators (or havocs, I guess) shoot something during your opponent's turn, and then you can use Conceal to make sure they live another turn.
I say 'Oblits' because if I'm not going second, I can leave them in reserve and drop them in later.
This is plenty affordable, especially with regenerating CP. If you're turned off by the randomness of Obliterators, think about what they can do after someone moves into range.
Soulforged Pack
This one's going to be a little harder to gauge. If you are taking it on our smaller demon engines, it's not bad - you're out one CP. If you are going to use it with Lords of Skulls - the question becomes "Do I really want to advance and charge?" because you're out 6CP for the LoS detachment, and the main reason you'd take Soulforged Pack is the "advance and charge" stratagem.
The Shape of Armies to Come
My gut says that pure Alpha Legion is probably going to build towards a Battalion at 2000 points.
I suspect that I'll start out with a sorcerer, a dark apostle (and friends), and 30 cultists still.
Sorcerers are probably going to stay just because of the utility of our psychic powers. The Dark Apostle is too useful as a buff bot - prayers TBD.
Cultists are kind of a "we'll see." Early leaks indicate that the point cost is up on the cultists. They're taking a hit from morale and coherency rules.
Our troops choices are still going to be something like the following -
-10 cultists (cheap, takes up space)
-20-30 cultists (not cheap, takes up more space)
-5 marines (relative cost TBD, but has heavy weapon)
-10 marines (definitely not cheap, but has a couple heavy weapons and durability)
It's all going to be about what our guys cost, now. I have ideas about allies, but I want to see what I'm out in terms of points and CP.
The other concept I want to play with is still 3 Lords of Skulls, but I've still got to build one. Pretty sure I'll be taking a Patrol detachment with that.
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