Friday, June 14, 2019

Horus Heresy Review: Ruinstorm Daemon Chosen

Background. 
Candidly, I see these beings as the rough equivalent of heralds. I have heard some people refer to them as daemon princes too -- it might not be a bad approximation either, but the tell-tale sign it really is a herald is the size of the base. At 32mm, there's little else it can be, so that case is closed in my mind. Their backgrounds in the book are in common with greater daemons -- they are the daemons that have caused the races of the galaxy much suffering .

Strengths. 
Their stat line reads like a praetor level character, or thereabouts at any rate. With an extra pip in both WS and S, and 3 wounds and attacks, the rest are fairly base line at 4's.

Their biggest feature is the special rule "Shepherd of Malign Intent". This allows them to select preferred enemy against a certain category of foe (infantry, monsters, or bikes in general terms).

Finally, do remember that these daemons are characters and therefore can join other squads to keep them relatively safe.

Weaknesses.
As with other daemons, late game this character will suffer greatly due to the Tides of Madness rule. Dropping to T=3 is going to be a severe bump in the road. Hence the recommendation here is to try to seek the relative safety of close combat early on (preferably operating within a squad that they join), and then focus on the objectives (whatever they might be) and keep out of the way as much as possible. That said, they're cheap enough for what the do and what they are fundamentally.

Builds.
Lots to consider here, as usual!

Resplendent Terror Builds:
Chosen, daemonic wings, rift barb, warp-scaled hide (100 points).
An expensive way to shoot S=7 armour bane attacks early in the game, but not a bad ploy for any build really.

Chosen, daemonic wings, miasma of rot, molten blood (90 points).
An alternative build to send in to a blob of enemies (preferably alongside friends) to reduce toughness and paint them with molten blood. Get an early charge in to take advantage!

Crimson Fury Build:
Chosen, brass collar, ephemeral terror, sundering fangs (80 points).
This is my pseudo-bloodletter herald of Khorne. No wings to be fluffy, but replace the ephemeral terror with wings if you like.

Creeping Scourge Build:
Chosen, miasma of rot, warp-scaled hide, lord of sorcery (100 points).
Feel free to replace the lord of sorcery with a ranged attack instead. No wings again here to simulate a herald of Nurgle, but feel free to replace one of the slots with them if desired.

Lurid Onslaught Build:
Chosen, stupefying musk, crushing claws, lord of sorcery (100 points).
A herald of Slaanesh build. I'm not sold on this one as it doesn't gel well. Indeed: overall I find that Slaanesh is tough to emulate in the ruinstorm daemons for some reason.

Maddening Swarms:
Chosen, 3x Lord of Sorcery (125 points).
Feel free to represent this with the Blue Scribes, a Changecaster, or similar. This is very authentic to Tzeentch. Wings, of course, come in handy again here, but three levels of sorcery is hard to give up for that in a Tzeentch build. 

Mirror of Hate:
Chosen, wings, 2x Lord of Sorcery (125 points).
You hate psykers, so you have to be one. Shrug. 

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