Chaos Space Marines Codex Review: special characters

Where on earth is this coming from? Well people keep asking for it apparently.... a complete Chaos Codex review. Somebody has to write it and in this case it'll be me - Zjoekov. It's going to be a bit of a special review though. Let me explain: VT2 already wrote quite some things on it, a non-complete review pretty much. I can't get myself to not using anything of it, so I'll simply be using quotes of his unfinished work along with my own. Sometimes I'll add a little to it when I think he's both correct and explained it well enough. This being said: Off we go, special characters first!

Abaddon the Despoiler.

VT2: Abaddon: more expensive Marneus Calgar. Potentially has lots of attacks, but ends up hitting himself once a game on average. Super-mega profile, which is great fun and all, but for 275 points, you'd expect him to augment your army. In addition to his ONE SPECIAL RULE THAT IS ETERNAL WARRRIOR UNDER ANOTHER NAME, Abaddon is really a self-insert of Jervis, modelled on the epic greatness that is X-men villains. Completely bland, boring, and unacceptably impotent.

Zjoekov: Little to add to this. I would be willing to accept that an expensive character only beats face, but not when he has huge odds of not doing anything when you get him to do his job. How to use him best? With Berzerkers in a Land Raider. Don't run him with non-fearless non-frag grenades Terminators m'kay? You want to prevent any real potential disasters.

Fabius Bile

VT2: mister 'Fabulous' Bill is a pimp, complete with coat, cane, and bling. He can sorta shoot, sorta power up your army, and sorta beat things with his stick. In short, he's a spiky master of the forge. This evil forgemaster is really a fleshmaster, and for X points, he can make regular chaos marines potentially boss. This also potentially makes your army die faster. Note that out of all the shitty characters available to chaos, Bile is the only one that does something for the army as a whole.

Zjoekov: Well let's be clear here, this guy isn't worth it as a character on his own. His shooting and CC potential aren't good enough (both allowing amour saves) while his survivability isn't spectacular either (no invulnerable) What does this mean? You're paying a tax in order to 'buff' your CSM, while that buff costs points too. My gawd but that means those buffs gotta be amazing right?! It's alright, S5 and Fearless CSM is an improvement for sure... but then someone decided it should suck and so they added a random table, which kills a significant part of your army when you roll badly on it. This is bad, really bad.

Huron Blackheart

VT2: has a powerfist and a heavy flamer. Uhh, that's about it. Standard lord profile. Can give himself re-rolls, but does nothing for the army. No, seriously - the 40k Long John Silver does nothing for his army. He just fists things.

Zjoekov:170 points for this guy? Really? Don't even try to compare him with a regular lord and then adding points for each thing he does: that's not how 40k works. Huron is truly bad, simply because he's so overcosted for what he does.

Typhus

Zjoekov: He's like Abaddon, but cheaper and fails against anything able to instakill him. Such an expensive character which only does things in combat shouldn't be afraid of a single Powerfist coming his way... that's just a no-go. Like Abaddon he's a Terminator, which has its consequences regarding where to put him. Bad.

Khârn the Betrayer

VT2: Kharn is very simple, yet manages to be twice as complex as all the other characters combined. For the cost of almost nothing, you get a very angry guy who rips and tears. The downside of being so ripping and tearing is attacking your own dudes, and having zero added durability. Kharn no likey powahfistys ;_; Destroys all walkers, ever.

Zjoekov: This guy is killy! Khârn simply does what almost all other HQ's try to do too, but he does it without being horribly overcosted: He simply beats stuff in CC pretty well. Only decent Special Character in the book, if you want a CC Character take him. He dies like a regular lord though, but that's how it is.

Ahriman

Zjoekov: Pff... Doing this review is almost depressing. This guy could be 175 points while still not being close to broken, so the 250 points pricetag truly confuses me. What can he do? Casting 3 powers a turn (yes even 2 different shooting ones). And no, he doens't have Lash. He can also....no wait he can't, this is all there is. I guess I don't have to tell you that he's bad right?

Lucius the Eternal

VT2: has more wargear and bling than a Mexican gang. No special rules. No fun. Weaponskill 7. Is not Kharn. Bland, boring - useless.

Zjoekov: There must be a good reason why a 150+ character can get away with a S4 power sword... sadly there isn't such a reason. His S5 Ap3 flamer is the only good thing about him. But what about his rule where he inflicts damage when he passes saves? When you pass a lot of saves; you probably fail some too. When you fail some saves you die. Dead = bad, it's that simple. The fact that he's among the better choices says a lot about the codex...

Conclusion:

Khârn is a somewhat decent choice if you're looking for killy Chaos Lord, the rest can **** a ****. No honestly, the SC section of the Chaos book obviously isn't all that great. Now I could say that it's nice for those people who want to take SC's for fluff reasons...but the Chaos book isn't exactly supportive towards fluffy armies either. Well it's still better than nothing I guess...