Here is the second part of my articles looking at the Badab war characters and Chapter tactics. It also covers the siege vanguard army list.
Minotaurs
Another unknown founding, the Minotaurs are a described as brutal and unrelenting and sport a snazzy paintjob too. Their chapter tactics mean they don't have to take break tests from shooting casualties and also ignore pinning tests. They also gain the crusader USR and +1 to charge distances when in the enemy deployment zone. So, not as brutal as Carcharodons but still formiddable in combat.
Lord Asterion Moloc - one of the few characters to have a model, the Chapter master of the Minotaurs is both awesome to look at and to behold ruleswise. He has terminator armour and a storm shield to go with this Chapter Master stats. Dark fury gives both he and his squad fearless and makes them ignore initiative penalties for charging into terrain (important if they're all terminators). Legendary fighter is his Warlord trait and gains the player 1 extra victory point for each character Moloc slays in a challenge. Sanctioned fratricide means that the minotaurs have Preferred enemy against almost all power armour armies (CSM and GKs excepted) and that they can only be desperate allies with those armies. Lastly, his main weapon, the Black Spear. It is a S6 AP2 melee weapon which can once per game shoot a S8 AP2 12" beam. Pretty decent for 235 points I'd say.
Chaplain Ivanus Enkomi - another cool model, 145 points buys you regular Chaplain stats with a power fist, auxiliary grenade launcher (not in the codex anymore) and either void hardened armour or a jump pack - no contest really, take the jump pack as it's free. He has the zealot USR and bane of hatred gives he and his squad hatred. For +10 points he can swap the grenade launcher and crozius arcanum for a crozius arkanos, which is pretty nifty in that it's basically a master crafted concussive power sword that can shoot a small S3 AP6 twin linked blast. His Warlord trait means that all enemy units in 12" must use their lowest and not highest leadership values. Similar to other characters we've come across, he is basically the same cost as a normal version of that model and so if you were planning on taking a jump pack chaplain with a power fist anyway you might as well take this guy for the extra rules. If not then you'd probably think twice, thought the model is awesome.
Fire Hawks
These guys are the suspected predecessors to the Legion of the Damned, having been lost in the warp following the Badab war. Their on wings of fire chapter tactic grants +1 strength to all hand flamer/flamer/heavy flamer weapons on the turn a model enters play by deep strike. Yes, I said hand flamer, which is also added into their ranged wargear for +5 points. Also, hammer of wrath attacks using jump packs are at +1 strength. Which is only useful if you have lots of jump infantry right? Well, their final part of chapter tactics makes all jump pack assault and vanguard troops scoring, which makes them pretty awesome as a fast and furious jump infantry army
Knight-Captain Elam Courbray - 8th company Captain, Courbray only has BS4 and Ld9 compared to normal captains. In return, he gains a point of initiative. He comes in at 185 points and has all the normal wargear a Captain would have save for a jump pack and the sword Excellus, an AP3 specialist weapon with rending, soul blaze and smash, except smash doesn't grant AP2. Martial contempt means he must issue and accept challenges where he can. His Warlord trait is firefall which means he must be placed in reserve and when he deep strikes may place a S5 large blast barrage, which he and his squad may arrive within 6" of without scatter. He seems like a decent character to compliment the Jump pack heavy element of the Fire Hawks, and I6 together with Excellus should make him formidable in combat. A bit pricey though.
Sons of Medusa
An Iron Hands successor, the Sons follow their chapter tactics.
Vayland Cal - at 225 points he is rather pricey, but for the points is pretty good. He is WS5, BS5, S5, T6, W3, I4, A2, Ld10, Sv2+ and in addition to artificer armour has an iron halo, thunder hammer and servo harness. He has the same rule as a MoTF allowing dreadnoughts to be taken as heavy and elites choices and has the bulky special rule also requiring him to be mounted on a 40mm base. The Iron Thane rule also means a MoTF and/or Chapter Master cannot be taken in the same army. His Angel of death rule gives him and his squad fear and finally purge the weak allows up to 3 devastator squads to be upgraded to T5 for 50 points each. He's an interesting character which should be a combat monster with a 2+/4++ and all those s10 attacks at AP1 (or AP2 concussive). Plus T6 keeps him alive longer. The FOC slot modification for dreadnoughts kind of ruins the points of being able to take lots of super tough devastators though.
Novamarines
Essentially super pious Ultramarines, these chaps follow their chapter tactics.
Captain Mordaci Blaylock - The Stormbreaker is the Captain of the 1st Company and costs 185 points. He is normal Captain stats with terminator armour, an iron halo, a storm bolter and foeripper, a formiddable Sx2, AP2, armourbane, unwieldy, shred master crafted specialist weapon. The Terminator attack rule allows all terminator squads to be used as scoring and denial units. His Warlord trait is champion of humanity and hard as stone means Mordaci and his squad can choose to pass or fail morale checks and cannot be pinned. This is an awesome way to represent any codex chapters 1st company IMO and a pretty solid character all round.
Salamanders
These guys are the suspected predecessors to the Legion of the Damned, having been lost in the warp following the Badab war. Their on wings of fire chapter tactic grants +1 strength to all hand flamer/flamer/heavy flamer weapons on the turn a model enters play by deep strike. Yes, I said hand flamer, which is also added into their ranged wargear for +5 points. Also, hammer of wrath attacks using jump packs are at +1 strength. Which is only useful if you have lots of jump infantry right? Well, their final part of chapter tactics makes all jump pack assault and vanguard troops scoring, which makes them pretty awesome as a fast and furious jump infantry army
Knight-Captain Elam Courbray - 8th company Captain, Courbray only has BS4 and Ld9 compared to normal captains. In return, he gains a point of initiative. He comes in at 185 points and has all the normal wargear a Captain would have save for a jump pack and the sword Excellus, an AP3 specialist weapon with rending, soul blaze and smash, except smash doesn't grant AP2. Martial contempt means he must issue and accept challenges where he can. His Warlord trait is firefall which means he must be placed in reserve and when he deep strikes may place a S5 large blast barrage, which he and his squad may arrive within 6" of without scatter. He seems like a decent character to compliment the Jump pack heavy element of the Fire Hawks, and I6 together with Excellus should make him formidable in combat. A bit pricey though.
Sons of Medusa
An Iron Hands successor, the Sons follow their chapter tactics.
Vayland Cal - at 225 points he is rather pricey, but for the points is pretty good. He is WS5, BS5, S5, T6, W3, I4, A2, Ld10, Sv2+ and in addition to artificer armour has an iron halo, thunder hammer and servo harness. He has the same rule as a MoTF allowing dreadnoughts to be taken as heavy and elites choices and has the bulky special rule also requiring him to be mounted on a 40mm base. The Iron Thane rule also means a MoTF and/or Chapter Master cannot be taken in the same army. His Angel of death rule gives him and his squad fear and finally purge the weak allows up to 3 devastator squads to be upgraded to T5 for 50 points each. He's an interesting character which should be a combat monster with a 2+/4++ and all those s10 attacks at AP1 (or AP2 concussive). Plus T6 keeps him alive longer. The FOC slot modification for dreadnoughts kind of ruins the points of being able to take lots of super tough devastators though.
Novamarines
Essentially super pious Ultramarines, these chaps follow their chapter tactics.
Captain Mordaci Blaylock - The Stormbreaker is the Captain of the 1st Company and costs 185 points. He is normal Captain stats with terminator armour, an iron halo, a storm bolter and foeripper, a formiddable Sx2, AP2, armourbane, unwieldy, shred master crafted specialist weapon. The Terminator attack rule allows all terminator squads to be used as scoring and denial units. His Warlord trait is champion of humanity and hard as stone means Mordaci and his squad can choose to pass or fail morale checks and cannot be pinned. This is an awesome way to represent any codex chapters 1st company IMO and a pretty solid character all round.
Salamanders
As the only first founding chapter in the Badab war, they obviously follow the Salamanders Chapter tactics.
Captain Pellas Mir'San - A normal Captain save for WS7, he is Captain of the second company and costs 150 points. He has artificer armour, a combi flamer, iron halo and Cinder edge, an AP2 master crafted weapon. (as well as a CCW for the extra attack) He has the legendary fighter warlord trait, gaining +1 victory point for each opponent killed in a challenge. Unflinching resolve effectively gives the whole army the chance to pass or fail any morale check and master duellist allows him to either gain an attack or reduce his opponents by -1 against characters. For the points I think he is a great choice and decent addition to any Salamanders army.
Bray'Arth Ashmantle - a beast of a Dreadnought with WS6, BS5, 13/12/10 and 4 hull points and attacks. Strength is 6 and initiative 4. For 265 points you'd expect a lot though. He comes with extra armour and 2 DCCWs each with dreadfire heavy flamers, which may be fired seperately as heavy flamers or combined as a twin linked meltagun (until one or more are destroyed). Wrought by Vulkan makes him invulnerable to melta, lance, rending and armourbane rules as well as reducing entropic strike to a roll of a 6+ not 4+. Plus, any rules to lower his AV for penetration rolls or roll more than one dice (such as ordnance) have no effect. Pretty darn tough so far. Burning wrath is an alternative to one of his close combat attacks which inflicts a S5AP4 hit on all models in base contact. (friend and foe) He is also Venerable and has the engine of destruction warlord trait, meaning he gains +1 victory point for each AV12+ vehicle or independent character he single-handedly kills in close combat. An awesome and hard to kill unit that would be fun at the head of a dreadnought-heavy Salamanders army.
Master Harath Shen - okay, so he's a bit of an oddity in that he has no entry in the Badab War books nor model, yet was simply a ruleset on Forgeworlds website. He is essentially the chief apothecary and is 135 points. His stats are that of a Librarian/Chaplain and he comes with artificer armour, a power sword, plasma pistol and digital weapons. As master of chiurgery, any unit he joins has FnP 4+. Pride of the chapter allows him to reroll LoS rolls and also gives +1 to assault results for his unit. Lastly, his warlord trait (sacred trust) allows you to also gain a victory point should a friendly space marine unit be destroyed within 6" of him. I like that there is a chief apothecary character available and it's a shame you are limited to Salamanders. Still, could be a fun defensive HQ despite the lack of invulnerable save.
Siege Asssault Vanguard army list
An alternative build for Space Marine armies, this represents the first strike in a protracted siege scenario and utilises some different units and organisation. Heavy reference is made to Imperial Armour 2 second edition in the list which I have already covered in previous articles.
FOC - this is slightly different to normal in that there are 2 fast attack slots and 4 heavy support, 1 of which is compulsory.
The Siege objective - not only is the list different to normal but so is the ultimate goal. In addition to the normal objectives, an additional 40mm objective must be placed in your opponents deployment zone. Neither player gains points for it, but unless the space marine siege player controls it at the end of the game (or tables their opponent) they can only achieve a draw at best. Sounds a bit unfair but the list compensates in areas for this.
Warlord Traits:
1 - Warlords melee weapons gain rending Vs AV targets.
2 - Any blast or barrage weapons fired by troops within 12" of unengaged warlord reroll scatter
3 - Warlord gains split fire
4 - Warlord and his unit gain rampage if enemy in a building/ruin
5 - In enemy deployment zone, models in 6" of warlord gain hatred
6 - May force reroll game ending roll in variable turn games.
HQ - the normal entries are available except that they may not take bikes. In addition, a Damocles rhino is included as is the main addition, a Siege Master. He is 115 points and has artificer armour and a signum. All other options except a bike are pretty much the same.If he takes a command squad they may take a land raider prometheus as a dedicated transport. Also, he may reroll all reserve rolls while still alive and can grant one of the following rules to an infantry unit: tank hunters, monster hunter, interceptor or furious charge.
Elites - the following are available - contemptor; mortis contemptor; terminators; assault terminators; sternguard; draednought; venerable dreadnought; centurion devastators; techmarine. None of the units may take drop pods but the dreadnoughts can take Lucius drop pods.
Dedicated transports - rhino; razorback; land raider (phobos/crusader/redeemer/prometheus) and Lucius drop pods.
Troops - there are 4 choices available:
- Tactical squads, with the option for siege mantlets for +50 points - may reroll all failed armour saves but gain bulky, can't run or sweeping advance.
- Centurion assault squads - cannot number more than 50% of the total troops choices. (so 2 tactical squads = 1 centurion squad)
- Siege assault squads are bolt pistol / CCW armed marines with the crusader rule. They can take two special weapons and can be upgraded with combat shields and melta bombs.
- Finally, there's the siege dreadnought Talon, which consists of 3 dreadnoughts of either Ironclad or siege configuration. They must start the game within 6" of each other but are thereafter free to move independently. Talons are also bound by the same rule as the centurion assault squads in that they may number no more than 50% of the other troop choices in the army. They also gain rage if more than half the dreadnoughts in the army (any type) are destroyed.
Fast Attack - Assault squad; vanguard squad; stormtalon; stormraven; stormeagle; caestus; fire raptor; Roc stormeagle (if using Minotaurs).
Heavy Support - Land raider proteus; devastators; thunderfire; deathstorm drop pod; tarantula battery; Spartan; relic whirlwind Scorpius; relic Sicaran; rapier battery, Land raider Achilles/Helios;
There are also 3 vehicle squadrons available. The vindicator squadron is simply 1-3 vindicators, the predator squadron the same except one may be upgraded to a deimos predator. Lastly, the artillery squadron is basically 1-3 whirlwinds, any of which may be upgraded to hunters/stalkers/Hyperios. Note, the cost of additional predators appears to be a typo at the older price of 85 not 65.
Lords of war - a list of Lords of war and which armies can take them is provided and basically covers all the models in Imperial Armour 2 second edition which are Lords of war, Warhound and Reaver titans and Marauder bombers/destroyers.
Conclusion
This concludes my look at the list and the loyalists in the Badab war book. The list is a good bit of fun I'd actually like to give a go sometime in a friendly game just to see how it goes. I've toyed with the idea of modifying one of my armies (Imperial fists seem ideal) to have options to be a siege Vanguard army should they wish but for now proxies will have to do. Next time we will look at the traitor forces and Tyrants legion list. Cheers.
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