Detachment Focus: Warpstrike Champions

In this series of articles we take a deep dive into a specific Detachment for a faction, covering the faction’s rules and upgrades and talking about how to build around that faction for competitive play. In this article, we’re covering the new Warpstrike Champions Detachment for Chaos Space Marines.

Do you want a Detachment that lets you play Chaos Terminators? Have you been itching for something that really makes Obliterators and the new Mutilators pop? Do you want something that's vaguely Iron Warriors-coded but better than Fellhammer Siege Host? Well then good news - Warpstrike Champions might be the Detachment for you.

Before we dive in we'd like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of these rules for review purposes.

Detachment Overview

The Warpstrike Champions Detachment is all about buffing your Terminators, Obliterators, and Mutilators, really pairing with Kravek Morne - albeit in a more indirect fashion than some of the recent faction-themed Detachments. This one lets you pull your bulky infantry up off the table to deep strike again later, and has a number of effects for when they arrive on the table, plus some effects just for buffing Terminators, Mutilators, and Obliterators.

Detachment Rule: Warp Portals

At the end of your opponent's turn, you pick a number of TERMINATOR, OBLITERATOR, and MUTILATOR units from your army (except for units within Engagement Range of an enemy unit) - those units go back into Strategic Reserves. You can pick one unit in Incursion games, two in Strike Force, and three in Onslaught.

This is a very powerful ability, and one you just don't see much in Chaos Space Marines outside of Warp Talons. It's particularly useful on Obliterators, where only being able to move 4" typically means they have to drop close enough to the enemy to be able to press forward and do more damage on later turns and that can mean they can't drop in at a safe distance to take pot shots at a target. Likewise, Mutilators and Terminators are pretty slow as well and have similar problems. There are plenty of times where your opponent may leave you an interesting target in a far-off corner but actually dropping in over there with deep strike and killing it will mean being too far away from other targets and struggling to make more of an impact. Now you can simply pick them up and drop them back in again.

The standard move with this ability is to have a key unit on the table turn 1 and then pick them up in your opponent's first turn. If they went first, you'll be able to drop your unit in for a turn 1 deep strike on your turn, potentially getting the jump on them in a key spot. With the right mix of units on the table, you'll never be out of position to reach key objectives, and it's worth pointing out that you can use this just fine with a single model Terminator Lord or Sorcerer, picking them up and dropping them down in key places to do actions or score secondary objectives. Terminator Chaos Lords are particularly great at this since they halve incoming damage.

This may also push you more toward smaller units of Terminators over larger ones, as trying to drop eleven 40mm bases on the table is often going to be really difficult against some armies. If you do go with a huge unit then they'll more want to be scrapping in the middle of the table, though being able to pick them up early if you go second and put them in the middle of the table could be interesting and reduce the need for a Land Raider to carry the unit forward.

Something to note is that it's possible to use Abaddon to pick up a unit of Chosen with this rule, but they'll have to re-enter from the battlefield edge when doing so. You can also use it to pick up Huron's unit if he's attached to a unit of Terminators but note that you can't attach the Masters of the Maelstrom to his unit if you're doing that. In a similar fashion, there are several effects here which are good on Raptors, Warp Talons, and a Winged Daemon Prince.

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Enhancements

All four of these Enhancements are meant to interact with Deep Strike units, making them ideal for Terminator Chaos Lords and Sorcerers, but it's worth noting that Jump Pack Lords can make use of these as well. There's no way to get these effects on a unit of Obliterators or Mutilators. These are also ironically great on Jump Pack Chaos Lords, who can lead Deep Strike units of their own.

Infernal Fulgurite (20 points) – Non-DAMNED model only. Once per battle, the bearer's unit can be targeted with Rapid Ingress for 0 CP, and you can target them with it even if you've already targeted another unit;

This is really solid, though more limited than you'd expect - there's no way to get it onto units of Mutilators or Obliterators (Morne is an EPIC HERO) - so if you want to use it with the Detachment rule it'll mean putting it on a Terminator Lord or Terminator Sorcerer, and that's probably where you most want it, since it will let you drop in alongside another unit and make the most of the rule.

That said if you want to be different you can throw this on a Jump Pack Chaos Lord and use it to Rapid Ingress a unit of Raptors. It's a bit of a waste since they can't go back up afterward, but not bad for the initial drop.

Eye of the Warp (15 points) – Deep Strike model only. Every time the bearer's unit is set up on the battlefield, you can re-roll Charge rolls for that unit until the end of the turn.

This one's a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, if you're going to try and charge out of Deep Strike, you need this - adding a re-roll to the mix takes your odds from 23% to 49%, and combining it with Portal of Spite for +2 to your Charge roll makes your odds close to 83% with a re-roll, and that's great. This is another one that's great on a unit of Raptors with a Jump Pack Lord but note that it's also active any time you're set up on the table. This means that if you put it on a Lord in a Land Raider, it'll apply when they Disembark, giving you re-rolls to the charge. That's pretty nifty.

Akshur's Binding Runes (20 points) – Deep Strike model only. The bearer's unit can be set up with Deep Strike in the Movement phase of your first, second, or third turns, regardless of any mission rules.

Now we're talking. Turn 1 Deep Strikes can be really powerful, letting you deploy a unit wherever it'll do the most damage, and if you combine this with something like Portal of Spite you can get off some nasty turn 1 charges.

Tzagulla (25 points) – Deep Strike model only. The bearer gets +1 Attacks, Strength, and AP on all of its weapons. Additionally, each time you set up the bearer's unit on the Battlefield from Reserves, they get +1 Damage as well.

This is a very powerful upgrade, in part because it affects all of the bearer's weapons and not just their melee weapons. The big problem with that +1 damage is that deep strike charges are crazy unreliable, and you need to invest in that Portal of Spite Stratagem to make them work. You'll be able to proc that damage buff more reliably if you put it on a Terminator Sorcerer, who can use it with the Infernal Gaze psychic attack to suddenly toss out attacks at S7, AP-3, D3+1 damage, helping him hit a number of key break-points. On top of that, having a 2-damage combi-weapon isn't bad either. The Terminator Sorcerer can also buff his own AP with the Death Hex ability and taking his Force Weapon to D3+1 damage gives him a solid boost over the Chaos Lord given his unit will be re-rolling hits anyways.

The other place you want to put this? On a Winged Daemon Prince. These are great buffs to drop on the model, and if you're going this route, you'll either to dedicate him to Khorne (+2 Strength), or Tzeentch (+3A on his Infernal Cannon). The former gives you a nasty melee threat, able to drop out seven attacks at S11, AP-3, and 4 damage on the turns you arrive from deep strike. Those will rely on making deep strike charges and so if you want something more reliable going with Tzeentch means his cannon will throw out 6 shots at S6 AP-2, 3 damage - a nasty melee attack to work with.

On the whole you probably get more value out of this on a Terminator Sorcerer since he has the ability to go back up with his unit over and over and extra damage on the shooting attack is going to do more for you than extra damage on the melee weapons.

Also I refuse to say the name of this Enhancement any way other than as rhyming with "Dragula" so I can mentally sing the song whenever my unit drops in and burns through some witches.

Obliterators. Credit: Rockfish

Stratagems

This is a suite of stratagems built for your Deep Strike units. Three only work on Terminator/Obliterator/Mutilator units and they're generally geared toward a mix of movement tricks and defensive buffs.

Empyric Dislocation (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used on one of your non-DAMNED units in your opponent's Shooting phase or the Fight phase after an enemy picks its targets. Until the end of the activation, incoming attacks reduce their AP by 1. You can't use this on a unit on which you used Armour of Corruption.

This renamed Armour of Contempt is a fine ability, and great for protecting a unit. At 1 CP it's more accessible than Armour of Corruption, and the timing is much more generous. Given you'll be running a lot of models with a 2+ save, this is great for blanking AP-2 shooting attacks when you have cover. This notably can be used on more units than Armour of Corruption, and will be good when you need to protect two units.

Armour of Corruption (Strategic Ploy, 2 CP) – Used in the Fight phase on a unit of Terminators, Obliterators, or Mutilators picked as a target of attacks. Until the end of the turn, incoming attacks are -1 damage against that unit. You can't double up with this and Armour of Corruption.

This is a very powerful ability, though it's a bit costly at 2 CP given it's restricted to the Fight phase. That said, it's a really great way to just force units with 2- and 3-damage melee attacks to bounce off you, effectively killing their output. This one's useful enough that if you're running a 10-man brick of Terminators you probably either want a Chaos Lord attached to them so you can reduce its cost or a way to generate some extra Command Points (Abaddon comes to mind) so you can have this in your back pocket.

Warp Flicker (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in your Movement phase on a Terminator, Obliterator, or Mutilator unit. That unit can Advance and still Shoot and Charge.

Hey it's the obligatory advance and charge Stratagem. Every army that wants to do serious melee needs this, especially one relying on units with 5" movement. What this really lets you do is Ingress, then Advance and Charge for an even shorter distance you're more likely to roll. It's also fantastic on Obliterators, where their 4" movement can make it difficult for them to close distances with key targets without Advancing, and they still want to be able to shoot and charge afterward.

Warp-Tainted (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) - Used in your Movement phase on a unit of Terminators, Obliterators, or Mutilators which are in range of an objective marker you control. That objective marker stays under your control until an opponent controls it at the end of any phase.

Another very powerful ability, though gated to your big bulky units. Where this really shines is that you can use it in conjunction with the Detachment ability to drop a unit of something (probably Obliterators) on a far-off objective, sticky it on arrival, shoot, then pick up at the end of your opponent's turn to go somewhere else, forcing them to walk over there if they want to take it back. Or if you dropped a melee unit on there, walk off as you see fit. It's a great way to punish your opponent for leaving their home objective unprotected.

Siegebreaker Strike (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in your Shooting phase on up to two of your units which arrived from Deep Strike this turn and haven't shot yet. Those units' ranged weapons get [IGNORES COVER] for the rest of the phase.

This is another really great buff, particularly on Obliterators, who really need Ignores Cover with their AP-2 and AP-3 firing modes. Combining it with Kravek Morne can give you AP-4 Ignores Cover shooting if you want to really wreck some 3+ save targets (and by "wreck" I mean "watch glumly as you only get 2 shots and miss with one of them"), and it's also neat on something like a Terminator unit with a Sorcerer packing the Tzagulla.

Portal of Spite (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in your Charge phase on a unit that arrived from Deep Strike this turn. It gets +2 to its Charge roll if it targets the closest eligible enemy unit as one of its charge targets.

This is massive, and it's part of what makes this whole Detachment worth considering. A 7" charge with a re-roll gives you an 86% success rate, and while you'll still fail some of those, it's reliable enough that you can at least plan on making one or two of those charges per game. That said, it's still going to fail one in six times, so don't over-extend yourself if you don't have to and be sure to have that Command Re-roll handy because your odds aren't nearly as good without it.

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Playing This Detachment

You're going to run Terminators and Obliterators in this Detachment. If there's a place for Mutilators in the CSM army, it may be here but Terminators are likely to get the job done for you just fine. If you're bringing Mutilators, it's because you don't want to bring tanks and you desperately need a way to crack enemy armor - Obliterators are OK at this but will need help and you can't always rely on LETHAL HITS attacks from Terminators to get the job done.

This Detachment probably wants two units each of Terminators and Obliterators, and it'll need characters to go with them. The big challenge you're going to have here is characters - your Terminator units can only have a single character each and that means you've got to make some tough choices about who goes where - something made more difficult by the fact that you have Abaddon and Kravek Morne fighting for those slots as well. Let's run through your leader options real quick:

Abaddon. The big bad of the Chaos faction is a melee monster, and provides one of the faction's only ways to generate extra Command Points. Abaddon can also give nearby units re-rolls to hit and a 4+ invulnerable save, neither of which matters much on Terminators but he can give them re-rolls on their Leadership tests and that's pretty big for a unit which can't re-roll their pacts. Abaddon makes a good accompaniment to a smaller unit of Terminators and if you drop them in near Obliterators he can give them re-rolls on their hit rolls and make you forget that you don't have Oaths in this Detachment.
Kravek Morne. Morne's ability to give a unit of Terminators +1 AP is massive, and his melee output is also extremely good on its own, with the ability to re-roll wounds against a key target providing a big boost. Kravek can also join Mutilators and Obliterators, but given he lacks the shooting of the latter he's going to give you more value in terminators, where getting to AP-3 is a big deal.
Huron Blackheart. Huron's only got a 3+ armor save base but comes with a very good melee profile and a built-in reactive move of D3+3" that can really help Terminators pull off some nasty tricks.
Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour. The Chaos Lord gives his unit the ability to reduce the cost of a Stratagem by 1 once per round and halves incoming damage against his model. The real value here is the free Stratagem but what hurts this guy is that his melee output just kind of stinks. This means he's great as a cheap solo character piece who can deep strike into far-off spots and do scoring stuff, while being pretty durable against enemy shooting. I think you want one of these to act as a kind of poor man's Callidus.
Sorcerer in Terminator Armour. On the other hand, the Sorcerer is a much better deal, coming with two amazing abilities - the first being built-in Charge and Advance re-rolls, and the second being the Death Hex ability, which can give your entire army +1 AP against a single target for a round. That one's huge and can unlock big swings, but is also going to fail on you out of nowhere a few times per event so just be ready for it. The Sorcerer is also a great target for the Tzagulla Enhancement.

The key here is making sure you have good support for your big, expensive units and not overdoing it. One thing to note is that Nurglings are going to be a more important piece of the puzzle with this army as you'll need them to block out Infiltrators so you can prevent them from screening out your deep strikers.

Strengths

Mobility. Having the ability to go back up with two units per turn really turns a slow army into a fast one, and on top of that you have the ability to advance and charge and make charges out of deep strike.
Deep Strike Shenanigans. In addition to being able to charge more reliably out of Deep Strike you also have ways to drop on turn 1 and get extra Rapid Ingress, which lets you make the most of those uppy-downy abilities.
Defensive Buffs. Armour of Contempt and -1 damage in the fight phase are powerful effects to have which can keep your super elite infantry on the table.

Weaknesses

Limited Character slots. You can really only attach units to Terminators here and that means you're going to struggle getting the most out of this army's Enhancements. Further muddying the waters is that you have three great EPIC HERO units which can attach to Terminators.
Offensive buffs. You don't really have any offensive buffs here, and while you need the movement to make these units viable, you're likely going to feel like your output is anemic compared to something like Renegade Raiders, Veterans of the Long War, or Huron's Marauders, where these units can just do more damage and you play around their movement limitations.
Anti-vehicle damage. Terminators struggle to get things done against high-toughness targets. S8 is great for pulping T4 marine targets but horrible for cracking T9+ vehicles and Lethal Hits isn't the most reliable way to punch through, particularly when all you have is AP-2 2 damage attacks attached to it.

Night Lords Terminators - Credit: RichyP

Sample Lists

There's a real question with this list of "how many Terminators do you want?" My general take is that you do want a 10-model brick in the mix, but it's not entirely clear to me who you want leading that brick - Kravek Morne is the obvious choice, but Chaos Terminator Lords give you the cheap -1 damage Stratagem and so you may want the ability to hot swap them before the game.

[expand title=”A sample List - Click to expand”]

Warpstrike test (2000 points)

Chaos Space Marines Strike Force (2000 points) Warpstrike Champions

CHARACTERS

Abaddon the Despoiler (270 points) • 1x Drach’nyen 1x Talon of Horus

Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour (105 points) • 1x Combi-bolter 1x Exalted weapon Enhancement: Akshur's Binding Runes

Cypher (90 points) • 1x Cypher’s bolt pistol 1x Cypher’s plasma pistol

Kravek Morne (120 points) • 1x Tyrant’s Claw and exalted power weapon 1x Tyrant’s Claw heavy flamer

Sorcerer in Terminator Armour (105 points) • 1x Combi-bolter 1x Force weapon 1x Infernal Gaze Enhancement: Tzagulla

BATTLELINE

Cultist Mob (50 points) • 1x Cultist Champion • 1x Autopistol 1x Brutal assault weapon • 9x Chaos Cultist • 9x Autopistol 9x Brutal assault weapon

OTHER DATASHEETS

Chaos Bikers (70 points) • 1x Biker Champion • 1x Power Fist 1x Close combat weapon 1x Combi-bolter 1x Chaos Icon • 2x Chaos Biker • 2x Plasma Gun 2x Close combat weapon 2x Combi-bolter

Chaos Bikers (70 points) • 1x Biker Champion • 1x Power Fist 1x Close combat weapon 1x Combi-bolter 1x Chaos Icon • 2x Chaos Biker • 2x Plasma Gun 2x Close combat weapon 2x Combi-bolter

Chaos Terminator Squad (360 points) • 1x Terminator Champion • 1x Power Fist 1x Combi-weapon • 9x Chaos Terminator • 2x Accursed weapon 5x Power Fist 2x Chainfist 7x Combi-weapon 2x Reaper Autocannon

Chaos Terminator Squad (180 points) • 1x Terminator Champion • 1x Power Fist 1x Combi-bolter • 4x Chaos Terminator • 1x Accursed weapon 2x Power Fist 1x Chainfist 3x Combi-weapon 1x Reaper Autocannon

Chaos Terminator Squad (180 points) • 1x Terminator Champion • 1x Power Fist 1x Combi-bolter • 4x Chaos Terminator • 1x Accursed weapon 2x Power Fist 1x Chainfist 3x Combi-weapon 1x Reaper Autocannon

Obliterators (160 points) • 2x Obliterator • 2x Crushing fists 2x Fleshmetal guns

Obliterators (160 points) • 2x Obliterator • 2x Crushing fists 2x Fleshmetal guns

ALLIED UNITS

Nurglings (40 points) • 3x Nurgling Swarm • 3x Diseased claws and teeth

Nurglings (40 points) • 3x Nurgling Swarm • 3x Diseased claws and teeth

[/expand]

The idea here is that Abaddon and the Sorcerer join five-model units while Morne joins a 10-model unit and the Chaos Lord flies solo as an uppy-downy piece with the ability to deep strike in on the first turn, though you can hot swap him out for the Terminator Sorcerer if you need a full unit dropping in early - the Term Sorc works OK as a solo piece as well. You can't start all of this off the table, so you start with the Obliterators and Chaos Lord in Deep Strike and maybe one other Terminator unit, then plan to pick up the other two on the table at the end of your opponent's first turn as needed. The goal here is to be constantly forcing your opponent to respond to the possibility of pressure around the table, taking out targets when you drop so you can be unengaged on your opponent's turn to leave and cause more problems.

Final Thoughts

This is one of the most interesting Detachments we've seen in a while, adding a ton of mobility tricks to units that normally struggle to get around the table. Chaos Terminators aren't amazing but they are playable, and likewise for Obliterators, so it'll be interesting to see if this Detachment can get them there. I personally think it has legs, but it'll take some testing and the right meta for it to really shine.

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