Chapter Master of the former Astral Claws, Tyrant of Badab, and Pirate Master of the Red Corsairs, Huron Blackheart has a deep background, and an interesting entry in the new 6th edition CSM codex with a bunch of special stuff. That said, in some ways he does seem to be a pretty standard Chaos Lord, in spite of all the special stuff! (i.e. his price is roughly comparable to a well-kitted out Lord).
Firstly, and perhaps one of the best reasons to look at Huron, is his automatic warlord trait: Master of Deception. Having up to 3 units in your army able to infiltrate for free is a good boon. Moreover, this kind of trait might play well for Alpha Legion players who'd like a themed Lord / counts-as Lord. Indeed, it'd also do well for Night Lords as well.
The Hamadrya is an odd accessory. Every turn, Huron gains a random psychic power. This might be really good and situational, or it could just be a load of rubbish that can't be used well on your turn. But, hey, we're playing chaos, so a little randomness is okay.
The Tyrant's Claw gives Huron a decent strength in melee, and an important AP3 statistic to help him wade through space marines. And if that's not enough, he has a power axe as well to help deal with any pesky terminators who dare show their faces to him. His sigil of corruption will be coming in handy there as well, I feel.
The built-in heavy flamer is also a cool addition. Woe betide any unit that charges him.
So, in short, I think Huron is basically an interesting Chaos Lord that comes with a reasonable price tag and a set of mixed gear.
In terms of tactica, I think I'd play him one of two ways: (a) in a unit of assault-orientated marines (or even terminators) and head for the heart of the battle as soon as possible. The infiltrate rule could help with this goal. Or (b) I'd be thinking about sending him in alone to completely disrupt opponents firebase or objective holding units (i.e. nominate himself as an infiltrating unit!).
The only real down-side is that Huron is still a marine, and will die as such to las cannons, power fists and the like. Without Eternal Warrior, he could well perish very quickly if the sigil of chaos fails him. Hence his deployment is quite situational: it may be better to place him in a large block of marines when facing heavily armed opponents.
8 comments:
Agree - he's not the toughest guy in the book, but pretty tough, very flexible, and reasonably priced.
It's worth noting though that the D3 infiltrations rule applies only to infantry units. Not vehicles. Does that mean you can't infiltrate units in their dedicated transport? Yes, I'd say so.
I plan to infiltrate him with a big block of Berzerkers (16 to 20) and if he gets a second or third infiltrating unit to do the same with Kharn in another big block (at 2000 pointsish) and possibly if the enemy has terminators on the table infiltrate a block of terminators with combi-plasmas.
Anyone notice how Terms can only upgrade either their ranged weapon or their cc weapon (ie no more combi-melta/chainfist termies)? Also notice how the cost of some weapons has gone up massively?
@Lead Legion - the infiltrate rule in the rulebook very specifically includes dedicated transports.
@Knight - yeah, the terminator weapon changes are annoying. Thanks for invalidating tons of existing models.
@ sonsoftaurus But the infiltrate rule in the Chaos Codex Warlord traits very specifically states that it allows the warlord to infiltrate D3 infantry units. Confusing isn't it?
@Knight: No I hadn't noticed that, but I'm very glad you pointed that out before I started converting my metal Terminators. Cheers buddy. You've saved me a lot of wasted time and effort.
Not confusing really. Master of Deception lets you give Infiltrate to d3 Infantry units. Having a transport does not keep them from being Infantry units, so you can give the CSM/Chosen/whatever the ability. Then main rulebook says a unit with infiltrate that has a ded.transport can infiltrate/outflank with it.
MoDeception doesn't say "infiltrate d3 units" - it gives d3 units the Infiltrate rule, which also has secondary effects - allow for Outflank, carry over to dedicated transports.
Ah! So it does. Thanks for explaining that to me Sons'. Much appreciated.
@Sonsoftaurus, pisses me off too, no-one likes pulling arms off their models. At least its possible with my old lead ones, God help anyone with plastic ones who poly cemented them on. A really stupid change that I guess is designed to sell more models, as you'll likely need a bigger squad for optimum effect. Number for heavy weapon went up to 5 from 3 too.
@Lead Legion, glad to help!
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