Alternative Chaos Land Raider

[albertsevil]

Hey all.

Inspired by this chap - http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?showtopic=245829 - I have been playing around with my own rules for an alternative chaos land raider.

What do you think? All comments and suggestions (including points costing) welcome. The rules below are similar to those I hope they give dreadnoughts in the future codex.

Edited to reflect suggestions
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The Land Raiders of chaos legions are ancient and terrible beasts warped by a millenia of service to the dark gods. The twist and taint of chaos sees those Land Raiders which remain arrayed with an array of esoteric and forbidden weaponry, and crewed by twisted machine spritits who lust for battle and blood.

Alternative Chaos Land Raider - 235 points
Stats = Bs4 - Front 14 - Side 14 - Rear 14
Transport = 12

Twin-linked heavy bolter
2 x reaper autocannon sponsoons
Smoke launchers
Power of the Machine Spirit (see codex Space Marines)
Assault vehicle
Twisted Spirits (see below)

May take a search light for 1 point
May take extra armour for 15 points or Daemonic Possession for 20 points (see codex Chaos Space Marines, the ballistic skill will be reduced to 3)
May replace the heavy bolter with soulburner petard* for 5 points
May replace the reaper autocannons with twin-linked lascannons for 10 points (this decreases the transport capacity by 2, down to 10)
May replace the reaper autocannons with havoc organs for 10 points (see below)
May replace the reaper autocannons with storm lasers* for 10 points, or butcher cannons* for 20 points (neither of these options are twin-linked)
*= see latest Forge World rules for the Decimator engine

Special rules - Twisted Spirits
The machine spirits of those ancient Land Raiders in service to the dark gods revel in the joys of slaughter as much as their Astartes brethren
At the start of each chaos player turn roll a D6 and consult the chart below
1 - this turn, the vehicle can move an additional D6 inches in the movement phase at no penalty, this must be declared to the opponent (e.g. Move at combat speed + additional D6 = fire as if it moved at combat speed)
2 - 5 - use as normal
6 - this turn, the vehicle's machine spirit may chose to fire one gun twice (i.e. as per the usual POTMS rules but firing twice), these 2 attacks may be against different targets

Havoc Organs
A larger version of the havoc launcher.
48" str6, ap4, large blast, heavy1 twin-linked

[=Angel=]

No to the unpredictable rule.
No other daemon thing does that, just insane dreadnought pilots.

Also, not every legion sticks daemons into everything as a fix.
Otherwise the weapons options look nice.
Try some sort of missiled base weapon, like a super sized havok launcher (poss whirlwind?) On the sponsosn and I think that would look cool.

[albertsevil]

@ =Angel=

Thanks for the response. In hindsight, I agree that perhaps the Unpredictable rule was a bit much. I was just looking to make the LR a little different. I think I'll cut that rule out but keep the rest.

What do you think of the points costing? I figured at least part of the price of the gun options is already built into the base cost of the LR, and the BS3 means the guns won't be as effective so don't need to cost a fortune, plus I haven't twin-linked some.

Ryan

[blackarmchair]

With LD8 isn't that LR going to run away a lot... ;)

[DarkLink]

The entire Unpredictable rule is horrible. Chaos Dreadnought Frenzy rules suck enough as it is, and you're making this one more complex and more limiting.

[inquisitorsog]

Having played skaven back in the day when I played WFB, variations on the "unpredictable" can completely ruin your day. If you've got a 1/3 chance of being stuck doing nothing , then there's more of a chance than I care to think of of that unit doing NOTHING for an entire game. At one point I tried two Warp Lightning Cannon for a couple of local tourneys. BAD idea. Instead of ending up in a situation where I had two on the hope that one would behave that turn, it usually ended up hurting me overall. In fact, I think I had one build of that list that ended up basically self combusting three battles in a row from bad rolls leading to crazy levels of blue on blue.

The various kinds of unpredictable rules are great for non-tourney games where both players are keen on just getting together to toss dice and want some hilarity to ensue(I actually love it for 'friendly' games). If you're trying to win a prize though, it's often telling the other guy "I'll give you an advantage". Because it's also entirely too possible that it behaves nicely all along during a particular game, you also can't really deduct enough points to balance out the times it behaves badly.

Short of it, 240 points is a lot of points for something that could end up actively costing you the game (and a string of 1s would mean it's also tying up the points it's carrying). You need to judge your local group's dynamics to see if its worth it.

[albertsevil]

Thanks Inquisitorsog, Blackarmchair, DarkLink.

All your points have been taken on board. This was never meant for competitive play but I agree that it cannot be too unpredictable to use.

How about if I drop the Unpredictable rule entirely, and make daemonic possession at 20 point upgrade and/or extra armour 15 points)?
It'll then be a Land Raider with POTMS, heavy bolster and reaper autocannon for 230 points base.
The additional weapons option can then still be available as upgrades as in the original post (lascannon, butcher cannon etc).
Does that seem ok points wise? What do people think?

I like the idea of a missile sponson options, was debating having some sort of hyper-havoc launcher, either:
- 48" st5 ap5 heavy4, 3" blast (+10 points), or
- 48" st6 ap4 heavy2, 3" blast (+20 points), or
- 48" st6 ap4 heavy1, 5" blast (+20 points)
Getting/ making points cost is hard. I would appreciate all input.

Good gaming to all. Ryan

[DarkLink]

Basically every one of the random nerf rules in the game suck. Wraithsight, Frenzy, Mindlock etc are all things that carry large drawbacks and make the unit inherently unreliable. Even very good units with such random rules can become virtually worthless competitively.

To retain the general crazy machine spirit idea you've got, while removing the lack of competitiveness it brings, try adding beneficial rules instead. Say, the crazy machine spirit is trigger happy all the time, so it counts as a Fast vehicle for the purposes of shooting. Something like that retains the flavor you're looking for, while making it more competitive at the same time instead of making it worthless.



One note, though, is that you have a rule that grants another rule which grants another rule which grants another rule which grants another rules which... Just put Daemonic Possession and PotMS in the entry. Makes things a lot more simple.




I do like the idea of reaper autocannons on the Land Raider, with the option for some of the new forgeworld guns. Only two autocannons isn't that great for such an expensive vehicle, though, so I'd stick a couple more guns on it. That could fit with the idea of it being a Fast vehicle, with a ton of heavy weapons and a trigger-happy AI firing wildly all over the place.

[albertsevil]

Thanks for all the responses. The original post has now been updated. The resulting vehicle and rules are a lot less convoluted and hopefully not over-the-top. Let me know your thoughts.

I figured the basic SM land raider has twin-linked lascannons and POTMS within the base cost.
I figured the lascannons have got to be worth 75 points (60 points for non twin-linked versions on a chaos predator), so that leaves 175 points.
Add 2 reaper autocannons (50 points) = 225.
Add the 'twisted spirits' rule (10 points) = 235.
Sound fair?
The optional weapons maybe adjusted to reflect the weapons points already built into the base cost.

Ryan

[L192837465]

Reaper cannons are awesome and fluffy to boot. In all honesty, I'd do something that makes the raider worth it at all.

Keep the original loadout. twin linked heavy bolter and 2x twin linked lascannons. Then make the upgrades increase capacity or reduce the cost of the vehicle.

A flamer template would be awesome. Maybe have the twin linked heavy bolter replacable with a twin linked heavy flamer for -10 points

The lascannons could have an option for twin reaper autocannons for -50 points, twin linked autocannons for -50 points, or two twin linked heavy bolters per sponson for +15 points (See promethes variant for dual twin linked heavy bolters).

Chaos just screams physical munitions to me.


Also, you should be able to replace a predators turret weapon with a reaper autocannon for free. Sorry, just sayin.