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| Submitted By: Date: August 22, 2004, 02:38:14 PM Views: 2609 | ||
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Tactica Possessed Chaos Space Marines Possessed Chaos Space Marines are one of the coolest units around. They offer a great deal of potential conversions opportunities. Sadly, many people discuss their usefulness. In this article we will try to cover all their options and possibilities. With such knowledge in hand you will then be able to make a better decision about using them or not. First let's make this clear: a big part of the fun of fielding Possessed comes from fielding a squad that you carefully and lovingly converted. It is always a pleasure to field things you made yourself and dedicated a lot of time to. If you don't plan on doing conversions and investing work in your Possessed it might not be worth it for you to field them. Just gluing a few mutated arms to Chaos Space Marines won't convince you in fielding them. Possessed are worth a little extra time and work. You will not regret it when your opponent looks at them and goes: "Wow, these guys look cool!". Possessed are 8 points more expensive then your basic Chaos Space Marines and count as Elites. What do you get for those extra 8 points? You get a better leadership value, +1 strength and a 5+ invulnerable save. Just that alone makes for a nice close combat unit. So basically you would get 2 Possessed for the price of 3 basic Chaos Space Marines. Not a bad deal considering their statistics. Where Possessed become interesting is when you invest them with a daemonic power. The choices are good but not all equal in usefulness. Let's have a look at each of them: Daemonic gifts -Daemonic Flight: This power is incredibly useful. Moving 12" and over obstacles is something everyone wants. But it comes at a hefty price. 15 points is a rather big amount of points to spend on a model with only 1 wound. I would only use flying Possessed in games over 2000-2500 points. -Daemonic Fire: This power is rather cheap and rather useless too. For 5 points you get access to an assault 2 underpowered bolt pistol. Not something very interesting considering Possessed already have a bolt pistol and will not want to shoot before getting into close combat (if you use the optional, but popular, 4th edition assault rules). A daemonic power to forget. -Daemonic visage: The cheapest of the powers. At first it looks quite useless. But if you consider that Possessed will spend most of their time in close combat and the fact that the whole squad will have daemonic visage it becomes much more interesting. Since the whole squad has it, the modifier applied to enemy leadership is -2. A Space Marine will go from 6 to 8 in leadership... A tempting possibility. Daemonic visage is a good choice if you want to keep your Possessed cheap. -Daemonic mutation: At first daemonic mutation looks like a great choice. +1 attack is always a good thing and 10 points is the classic cost for a bonus attack in most codices. Once you try it out you will quickly realize that +1 attack is nice but not that useful on models that do not have a special attack (like a power weapon or a power fist attack). So this 10 points becomes a rather expensive investment on a Possessed squad. I tested it myself in many battles and have now decided to change my daemonic gift for the following gift. -Daemonic talons: Daemonic talons is the best bang-for-your-bucks gift to outfit Possessed with. You get an extra attack because you count as being equipped with two close combat weapons but you also give your squad the possibility of hurting EVERYTHING in the game. Daemonic talons allow auto-kill (no wound rolls needed and no saves allowed) if you roll 6 on the hit roll. It also allows you to hurt vehicles with a high armor value. Daemonic talons combined with the higher strength of Possessed means you relatively easily hurt vehicles with a high armor value. According to statistics each of your attacks has a 1.4% chance of glancing or penetrating a Land Raider. That doesn't look like much but remember that a Land Raider has an AV of 14. Also consider the fact that it's 1.4% PER attack. So a squad of 6 Possessed charging a Land Raider gets 18 attacks. So you will have a 25% chance of glancing or penetrating the Land Raider. Not bad. Now imagine if a full squad of Possessed that charges the Land Raider... Scary. But Possessed with daemonic talons aren't made to take on Land Raiders, it's just a nice addition to be able to do it. What Possessed with daemonic talons excel at is taking on power-armored enemies and their equivalent. They will hit on 4+ (usually) and wound on 3+. Add to that the fact that 1 attack out of 6 will ignore wound rolls and armor saves and you got a great squad for taking on our most common enemy. Also remember that with Possessed you can get in close combat with Dreadnoughts or Wraithlord and actually be able to wound them. Bad surprise for Dreadnought/Wraithlords: Possessed have an invulnerable saves so you will last a lot longer against them. In fact Possessed with daemonic talons are one of the best squad to throw against a Wraithlord because they can auto-wound it with the daemonic talons, wound it with their strength of 5 and use their invulnerable save against incoming attacks. According to statistics, one Wraithlord facing 4 Possessed (in base-to-base contact otherwise they can't use their special attacks) will cause 0.8 wounds per turn and the possessed will cause 0.85 wounds per turn. Pretty good odds considering you are fighting one of the toughest fighting machine in the game. Daemonic talons is the way to go with Possessed because it gives them the possibility to hurt anything and everything in the game. Squad options Mark of Chaos: You can give Mark of Chaos to your Possessed. Always give it at least the Mark of Chaos Undivided. You DON'T want such an expensive squad to run away. Use the other Marks as you see fit depending on your army. Obviously the Mark of Tzeentch is not such a good idea because all it gives you is a squad of sorcerer Possessed. Unless you play a game of 3000 points or more this squad becomes way too expensive. Rhino: An almost essential option for this squad. They are so dangerous in close combat that no enemy will allow them to walk across the board unharmed. Give them a rhino and send them directly at the enemy. Aspiring champion: The Possessed can take an Aspiring Champion. Unlike regular Chaos Space Marine squad it's not a great idea to have a Champion if your Possessed are equipped with daemonic talons (he won't be able to take a power fist or a power weapon, the best option for an Aspiring Champion). If you gave another gift then daemonic talons to your Possessed then a Champion with a power fist is a nasty surprise for the enemy. The Champion can also take daemonic gifts, which can be useful but quickly turn out to be expensive. How to use Possessed Possessed have a wide variety of uses depending on what daemonic gift you equipped them with. Possessed with daemonic flight are best used to tie-up enemy squads in close combat early in the game (dangerous heavy weapons squads and such) or to flank the enemy. Expensive but tactically useful. Possessed with daemonic mutation are best used against horde armies with low toughness or light armors. It is a bad idea to throw them against such armies because they will be easily overwhelmed but they will be more useful against them basic Chaos Space Marines because of their high strength and number of attacks. Possessed with daemonic talons can be used for anything but are best used for taking on heavily armored opponents or Wraithlords and Dreadnoughts. Keep them away from horde armies because they will be easily outnumbered and will not be able to kill enough enemies to make up for the expensive cost. Possessed with daemonic visage can be used against anyone since the -2 leadership is useful against any armies. Just keep them away from horde armies (again) or fearless units. Possessed with daemonic fire should not exist. Period. But if you decide to ignore my advices and still use them I guess you could keep them screened behind Chaos Space Marine squad and have them shoot at incoming enemies while the regular Chaos Space Marines take the assault. They could then counter-assault the enemy squad and add punch to the regular Chaos Space Marines. I am not specialist on their use because I never used them but almost everyone agrees that it's a bad idea to use them. In conclusion, Possessed are not the best unit in the whole Chaos Space Marine codex but can be very useful when equipped the right way. They also offer some of the greatest conversion possibilities in the whole codex. If you are a modeler as much as a player you should have Possessed! I hope this article helped you to appreciate this underestimated unit a bit more. Now go and fight in the name of CHAOS! Lord Silverthorn |
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